What were the findings of the official inquiry into Robert Maxwell falling from his yacht?

1. Official autopsy: natural causes before falling

British and Spanish medical authorities reported that Maxwell had died of natural causes prior to entering the water, with the initial autopsy and the judge in Las Palmas stating the billionaire publisher “died of natural causes before falling” from his yacht, a conclusion widely reported in the immediate aftermath ^{[2] [3]}.

2. Forensic nuance: autopsy found no clear heart-attack pathology

Although forensic commentary published in The New York Times described the autopsy as indicating Maxwell “apparently did not die of drowning but probably suffered a heart attack,” the same reporting emphasized that the autopsy could not identify the exact cause of death and found no definitive pathological evidence of a heart attack—leaving the medical conclusion probabilistic rather than certain ^[1].

3. Official ruling versus popular shorthand ("drowned" vs "heart attack")

Public descriptions of the cause of death vary in the press—some outlets reported the “official cause” as drowning or simply that he fell from the Lady Ghislaine, while other contemporaneous reports and later summaries stressed that medical examiners believed he died before entering the sea and that drowning was not the proximate cause established by pathology ^{[4] [3] [2]}.

4. Scene facts that shaped the inquiry

Key forensic and scene details that shaped official findings included the discovery of Maxwell’s naked body floating off the Canary Islands by Spanish air–sea rescue helicopters, crew reports that he had last been seen on deck in the pre-dawn hours, the yacht’s subsequent search, and the absence of immediate signs of prolonged immersion—observations repeatedly noted in coverage at the time ^{[4] [3] [5]}.

5. Financial and contextual pressures acknowledged by investigators

Investigators and contemporaneous analysts underlined the broader context—Maxwell’s empire was unravelling under massive debts and allegations of financial misconduct—which informed public and journalistic speculation about motive and whether death could have been suicide or otherwise non-accidental, even though the official forensic line pointed to natural causes ^{[1] [3]}.

6. Conspiracy theories and competing narratives

Despite the official findings, vigorous alternative theories arose—from claims of assassination by intelligence services to sensational forensic counter-interpretations—reflected in books and journalistic pieces that either accused Mossad or suggested physical assault; such claims have never replaced the official autopsy and judicial conclusions but have persisted because the autopsy left room for doubt ^{[6] [7] [8]}.

7. Why uncertainty endured: limits of the official inquiry

The official inquiry did not produce a single, incontrovertible pathological mechanism of death: the autopsy could not show clear signs of myocardial infarction even as experts posited a cardiac event, and scene anomalies—such as reports about the condition of Maxwell’s body and missing nightshirt—further fuelled ambiguity; reporting and later commentators therefore stress that the formal finding was of death from natural causes before falling, but that the exact physiological cause remained officially unproven ^{[1] [5]}.

8. Bottom line — what the inquiry actually established

The inquiry established, as its practical conclusion, that Maxwell had died prior to or at the moment he went overboard and that there was no official finding of homicide: medical authorities leaned toward a sudden natural event—most plausibly a heart attack—though their own pathology did not demonstrate the hallmark evidence of such an attack, and therefore the case retains an element of unresolved mystery acknowledged across contemporary reports ^{[2] [1]}.