At 12:23 a.m. on Sunday, August 31, 1997, a black Mercedes-Benz S280 traveling at approximately 105 km/h entered the Pont de l'Alma underpass in central Paris. Six seconds later it hit the thirteenth concrete pillar dividing the eastbound and westbound lanes. Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, was in the back seat. So were her companion Dodi Fayed, 42, and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, 29. Henri Paul, 41, the acting Ritz security manager driving without a chauffeur licence, was at the wheel. Fayed and Paul died at the scene. Diana was pronounced dead at 4:00 a.m. at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital. Only Rees-Jones — the only passenger wearing a seat belt — survived, with severe facial injuries he would never fully remember. The French judicial investigation closed in 1999 with the conclusion that the cause was reckless driving by Henri Paul under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs. The 2004-2006 British inquiry Operation Paget, led by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens, reached the same conclusion across 832 pages. The 2007-2008 British inquest, before a jury of eleven, returned a verdict of *unlawful killing* by gross negligence of Henri Paul and the following paparazzi. No criminal trial has ever been held. The conspiracy theory that Diana was murdered — by MI6, by the Royal Family, by Mohamed Al-Fayed's enemies, by any of half a dozen other proposed perpetrators — has nonetheless persisted for nearly thirty years.
Assassinations & Disappearances
1997
