{"id":39638,"date":"2026-08-12T00:31:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T19:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=39638"},"modified":"2026-08-12T00:31:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T19:31:58","slug":"family-of-nyc-fashion-designer-found-dead-on-montauk-boat-to-file-wrongful-death-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=39638","title":{"rendered":"Family of NYC fashion designer found dead on Montauk boat to file wrongful death lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260811-Martha-Nolan-OSlatarra-ch-1002-a22237.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-6c99e6\" class=\"body-graf\">The family of a New York City fashion designer found dead on a boat in the Hamptons last year is preparing to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the man she was with when she died.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-062b24\" class=\"body-graf\">Martha Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra, 33, was<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/new-york-designer-found-dead-boat-montauk-yacht-club-rcna223346\" target=\"_blank\"> found dead on a boat<\/a> owned by Christopher Durnan, 61, and docked at the Montauk Yacht Club in the ritzy region of New York\u2019s Long Island on Aug. 5 of last year.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-cf0a3d\" class=\"body-graf\">Her family filed a summons with notice against Durnan in Manhattan Supreme Court last week, accusing him of assault, gross negligence, and reckless and wanton conduct in connection with Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra\u2019s death. The family is seeking a sum of $50 million in damages. Durnan has not been charged with any crimes in connection with the death.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d4d173\" class=\"body-graf\">A lawyer for Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra\u2019s family, Michael Bowe of Brithem LLP, said in a statement to NBC News that the family has conducted their own investigation of Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra\u2019s death and \u201cdoes not believe Martha died from intoxicants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-ecbfc7\" class=\"body-graf\">He said that EMTs found \u201cblood in her mouth, on her chest and head, on the floor, and possibly behind her head\u201d and reported \u201cthe body was cold despite her allegedly having just lost consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-4564ea\" class=\"body-graf\">Durnan did not immediately return a request for comment. An attorney for Durnan, Robert Holdman, told <a href=\"https:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/article\/martha-nolan-mysterious-death-hamptons-fashion-star.html\" target=\"_blank\">New York Magazine<\/a> last year that his client was \u201cabsolutely destroyed\u201d over Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-a4e426\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cHe watched his friend die in trauma,\u201d the lawyer said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-be2f93\" class=\"body-graf\">The Suffolk County Medical Examiner has not publicly released a final cause and manner of death for Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra. The examiner\u2019s office did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-9b15ce\" class=\"body-graf\">The Suffolk County Police Department issued a statement in the days following Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra\u2019s death saying that her autopsy \u201cdid not show evidence of violence and her final cause of death is pending further examination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-a9a050\" class=\"body-graf\">The police department declined to comment on the discrepancy between their statement and the new allegations.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-ece7c3\" class=\"body-graf\">East Hampton Town Police responded to a 911 call from a man reporting a woman unconscious on a boat docked around midnight the day she was pronounced dead, according to last year\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-27a365\" class=\"body-graf\">She was pronounced dead on the boat by first responders after good samaritans attempted to perform CPR on her, police said.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d24eb4\" class=\"body-graf\">Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra was originally from Ireland and owned a swimwear company<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/eastxeast\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\"> East x East<\/a>. She said in a 2024 interview with the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.ie\/irish-news\/irish-fashion-designer-33-found-dead-on-yacht-in-new-york\/a1435871231.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Irish Independent that<\/a> she came to New York to follow her dreams as a businesswoman.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d3b696\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">\u201cI was the small town girl who needed to get out to achieve her big dreams,\u201d she said. \u201cI always knew I wanted to be successful, that I was money-driven, business-driven \u2014 and that fashion is a tough industry and it would be a slow road.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The family of a New York City fashion designer found dead on a boat in the Hamptons last year is preparing to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the man she was with when she died. Martha Nolan-O\u2019Slatarra, 33, was found dead on a boat owned by Christopher Durnan, 61, and docked at the Montauk&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260811-Martha-Nolan-OSlatarra-ch-1002-a22237.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}