TRUE CRIME: THE MOST FAMOUS CONTROVERTIAL CRIMES OF ALL TIME (Part 4)

PRINCESS DIANA

On 31 August 1997, news of Princess Diana's death in a Paris Road tunnel stunned a nation and the world. The outpouring of grief for the 36-year-old was unprecedented and has never been repeated.

Two decades after her death, countless documentaries, books and interviews have been published, shedding new light on Princess Diana's life as a royal and her life after her divorce as Diana, Princess of Wales.

Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales—the heir apparent to the British throne—and mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an international icon and earned her enduring popularity as well as unprecedented public scrutiny, exacerbated by her tumultuous private life.

Diana was born into the British nobility and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. In 1981, while working as a nursery teacher's assistant, she became engaged to Prince Charles, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. They had two sons, William and Harry, who were then second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. Diana's marriage to Charles suffered due to their incompatibility and extramarital affairs. They separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. Their marital difficulties became increasingly publicised, and they divorced in 1996.

As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms. She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages initially centred on children and the elderly but she later became known for her involvement in two particular campaigns, that involving the social attitudes towards and the acceptance of AIDS patients, and the campaign promoted through the International Red Cross for the removal of landmines. She also raised awareness and advocated ways to help people affected with cancer and mental illness. The Princess was initially noted for her shyness, but her charisma and friendliness endeared her to the public and helped her reputation survive the acrimonious collapse of her marriage. Considered to be very photogenic, she was a leader of fashion in the 1980s and 1990s. Diana's death in a car crash in Paris led to extensive public mourning and global media attention. Her legacy has had a deep impact on the royal family and British society.

Here's what what we know about the real events that lead to Diana's death.

Princess Diana was in a fatal car accident in Paris, France.

On Saturday, August 30, 1997, Diana and her rumored boyfriend, Egyptian billionaire Emad "Dodi" Fayed, arrived to Paris following a 10-day getaway on the French Riviera. They dined at the private salon at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Coincidentally, Fayed's father, Mohammed Al-Fayed, owned the hotel at the time—along with Harrods Department store in London.

A few minutes past midnight on Sunday, Diana and Fayed left the hotel and got into the Mercedes Benz that was waiting for them, likely to travel to Fayed's private Parisian estate.

Though the posted speed limit was 30 mph, the driver, Henri Paul, reportedly approached the entrance of a road tunnel at Paris's Pont de l'Alma driving at approximately 70 mph. According to reports, Paul lost control of the car and collided into a pillar in the middle of the highway.

Paul and Fayed were pronounced dead at the scene, and Diana—still alive—was rushed to the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital. Early reports said Diana was suffering from a concussion, broken arm, and cut thigh. However, the princess had also suffered massive chest injuries. Operating for two hours, doctors tried, and failed, to get Diana's heart beating properly again.

She never regained consciousness. Diana passed away from internal bleeding at 4:53 on the morning of August 31, 1997.

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Her last words are heartbreaking.

In her book The Diana Chronicles, author Tina Brown describes the scene of the crash. According to Dr. Frederic Mailliez, an EMT who happened to be driving through the tunnel at the same time of the collision, Diana woke up in pain from internal injuries. "She kept saying how much she hurt," Mailliez told Brown.

Sergeant Xavier Gourmelon, who led the response team in Paris, told The Independent Diana's last words were, “My God, what’s happened?” Brown narrates what may have happened next: "She turned her head and saw the lifeless Dodi just in front of her, then turned her head again toward the front where the bodyguard was writhing and where Henri Paul lay dead. She became agitated, then lowered her head and closed her eyes."

Diana ultimately died of a small, rare injury.

In 2019, Dr. Richard Shepherd, Britain's top forensic pathologist, concluded that Diana died of a tiny, badly placed tear in the vein of her lung. "Her specific injury is so rare that in my entire career I don’t believe I’ve seen another," Shepherd wrote in his book, Unnatural Causes, excerpted in The Daily Mail.

Shepherd believes Diana's death could have been prevented by one small change: A seatbelt. "Had she been restrained, she would probably have appeared in public two days later with a black eye, perhaps a bit breathless from the fractured ribs and with a broken arm in a sling," Shepherd wrote.

The only survivor of the crash was Diana’s British bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones. He had been wearing a seatbelt.

Many question what really caused the accident.

What caused Henri Paul, the acting head of security at the Ritz Hotel and a licensed driver, to so drastically lose control of the car? According to a statement from French authorities given the Monday after the crash, Paul's blood exceeded the legal blood-alcohol limit. He had reportedly been drinking and driving recklessly.

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According to eyewitnesses, there was another element involved in the crash. Their black Mercedes was being pursued by paparazzi in cars and on motorcycles, hoping to snatch a photo of the Princess and Fayed.

To this day, conspiracy theories about the crash abound. While different, the theories share the same thesis: This was no accident. For example, Mohammed al-Fayed, Dodi's father, believes Diana was pregnant with his son's child (this was later disproven by forensics).

Another theory posits that Diana feared such an attack. In 2003, Diana's former butler published a note Diana had written soon after her divorce from Charles in 1996, at her lowest and most paranoid.

"I am sitting here at my desk today in October," she wrote, "longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high. This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. X is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry."

The conspiracy theories were all debunked.

In 2004, the British Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into the rumors that proliferated around the accident. The findings of Operation Paget, as the investigation was called, were released in 2006.

In short? The police found nothing to substantiate Mohammed Al Fayed's claims of conspiracy—and neither did anyone else. "Operation Paget disposed of every substantive allegation. So did the official French inquiry. And so did independent investigations, notably Martyn Gregory's Diana: The Last Days. The evidence is overwhelming that this was a traffic accident—period," Brown writes in The Diana Chronicles.

Paparazzi at the scene allegedly took photos instead of calling for help.

Diana, arguably the most famous woman in the world, lived her life pursued by constant paparazzi. Perhaps it's no surprise that evidence of her death was similarly captured—but it's certainly shocking.

According to Stephane Darmon, a motorcycle rider for one of the paparazzi who chased the Mercedes that night, the paparazzi present at the scene did not help the car's doomed passengers. Instead, they took photos. "I did not see the car any more because the light [of the flashes] was so bright. It was continuous," Darmon told The Guardian in 2008.

"I was so angry with what happened to her—and the fact that there was no justice at all."

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, seven French photographers were arrested and questioned by the police. According to the New York Times, charges of manslaughter were brought against nine photographers who followed the Mercedes and took photos after the crash, but they were not found guilty. However, three photographers were found guilty of invasion of privacy and were fined a symbolic 1 euro.

In The Me You Can't See, Prince Harry speaks about the anger he felt about the fallout of his mother's death. "I was so angry with what happened to her—and the fact that there was no justice at all. Nothing came from that. The same people that chased her into the tunnel, photographed her dying on the backseat of that car," he says.

Diana was 36 years old at the time of her death.

When she was 20, Diana Spencer became Princess of Wales in a lavish wedding ceremony at St. Paul's Ceremony, televised to a global audience of 750 million. So much would happen in the next 16 years.

In 1996, Diana and Charles would divorce. The following year, when she was 36, Diana would leave behind her young sons behind.

After the accident, Prince William and Prince Charles were shielded from the public.

Diana and Charles's two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, aged 15 and 12, were vacationing at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at the time of the crash. Understandably, they were devastated by their mother's death.

According to Prince William, Queen Elizabeth II shielded her grandsons from the ensuing news spectacle.

"Back then, obviously, there were no smartphones or anything like that, so you couldn't get your news, and thankfully at the time, to be honest, we had the privacy to mourn and collect our thoughts and to have that space away from everybody," William said in a 2017 BBC documentary. "We had no idea that the reaction to her death would be quite so huge."

The brothers have only recently begun to open up about how this devastating (and highly public) loss affected them.

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“I really regret not ever talking about it,” Prince Harry said at an event for a mental health charity in 2016. “For the first 28 years of my life, I never talked about it. It is okay to suffer, but as long as you talk about it. It is not a weakness. Weakness is having a problem, and not recognizing it, and not solving that problem.” Harry has since become an advocate for mental health awareness.

Queen Elizabeth II waited five days to publicly address Diana's death.

The queen came under close scrutiny after Diana's death—a plot point that will surely be explored in future seasons of The Crown. In fact, Crown creator Peter Morgan already explored the topic in the film The Queen, which is about the five days between Diana's death and the queen's public speech.

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After the accident, Queen Elizabeth chose to stay with Harry and William in Balmoral, Scotland, and was planning to return just before the funeral. However, in not immediately addressing a nation in mourning, the queen—and the royal family—were criticized for being aloof.

Mary Francis, an aide to the queen, was struck firsthand at the contrast between the world's very vocal reaction to Diana's death and the royal family's silence.

"This was primarily a family that had been struck by a personal tragedy, especially for the grandchildren [of the queen], and so that was the first reaction," Francis told Newsweek in 2017. "But I think that the family were somewhat slow, perhaps, to recognize the need to step forward in their public role of showing leadership for the country in its grief about the death of the princess."

Eventually, on September 9, 1997, the queen addressed the nation in her first live broadcast since the Gulf War in 1991.

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“We have all felt those emotions in these last few days. So what I say to you now as your Queen and as a grandmother, I say from the heart,” the wueen said, beginning her speech. “First, I want to pay tribute to Diana, myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her for her energy and commitment to others, especially for her devotion to her two boys.”

Diana's funeral was unprecedented.

Diana's funeral was held on September 6, 1997. Like her wedding, Diana's funeral was a spectacle: 750 million watched Diana get married on TV, and 2.5 billion watched her funeral procession.

One of the most striking, and controversial, images from the day were of young Harry and William walking beside their mother's coffin as it traveled from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Cathedral.

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"My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television," Harry told Newsweek in a 2017 cover story. "I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today."

Reflecting on the day in The Me You Can't See, Harry said he was "outside his body" during her funeral. "The thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses hooves going along the pavement, along the mall, the red brick road…it was like I was outside of my body and just walking along, doing what was expected of me, showing 1/10th of the emotion that everybody else was showing. And this was my mom—you never even met her," he said.

Prince William agrees. "It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, that walk," Prince William shared in a 2017 BBC documentary called Diana, 7 Days. "It felt she was almost walking along beside us to get us through it."

During the funeral, people reflected on the attention that defined Diana's life and death. Diana's brother, Lord Spencer, blamed the media for the crash and called his sister the "most hunted person of the modern age." Elton John performed a rendition of his famous 1973 song "Candle in the Wind," with the lyrics re-worked to be about Diana instead of Marilyn Monroe (who also experienced vast media intrusions). The 1997 version of "Candle in the Wind" remains the best-selling chart single of all time. And, in a rare break in royal protocol, the Queen bowed her head as Diana's coffin went past.

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Diana was buried at Althorp, her family's estate in Northamptonshire, England.

Her death deeply impacted many people.

The news broke late on a Saturday night. Around the world, news broadcasts (and an episode of Saturday Night Live) were interrupted so that visibly stricken announcers could share what had transpired.

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If you were old enough to form memories on August 31, 1997, then chances are you remember where you were when you heard that Princess Diana had died. It was a moment in which the world stopped, and a moment that many fans of Diana's still remember vividly.

Career coach Rebecca Andruszka was a college freshman, smoking cigarettes on her dorm room stoop with her freshly acquired friends, when she heard the news. "A girl ran out and announced to the whole block, 'Princess Di was in a car accident,' and burst into tears," Andruszka said to OprahMag.com.

"I remember it as the first time I saw intense grief on display."

Writer/researcher Traci Vogel had the uncanny experience of disembarking from a red-eye flight into a changed world. Diana had died while Vogel was in the air. "I walked through an eerily silent airport full of groups of people watching TV, many crying," Vogel tells OprahMag.com.

For social media editor Sophie Vershbow, Diana’s death is a formative childhood memory. “My British cousin was visiting with her friend. They were beyond inconsolable, sobbing and huddled down in the guest room. I remember it as the first time I saw intense grief on display,” Vershbow recalls to OprahMag.com.

The stories go on and on.