More than a week after the body of Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra, a 33-year-old Manhattan-based Irish entrepreneur, was found on a boat docked at the Montauk Yacht Club, very little has been publicly disclosed by police about the circumstances of her death, while news outlets from around the world have attempted to surmise what might have happened.
Just after midnight on Aug. 5, East Hampton Town police received a call from an unidentified man reporting a woman unconscious on a boat named Ripple that was docked at the yacht club, according to a press release issued by the Suffolk County Police Department that night. Good Samaritans had attempted to perform CPR on the woman, they said, but first responders pronounced her dead at the scene.
County police were contacted around 4 a.m., and the homicide squad opened an investigation into Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death. The last update provided by county officials was an amendment to the press release the following day, which stated that an autopsy conducted by the office of the medical examiner “did not show evidence of violence,” and that a final determination of the cause of death “is pending further investigation.”
The story was quickly picked up by news outlets here and abroad. Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra had moved to New York from Ireland in her mid-20s, and had started two fashion brands and a marketing consulting service in 2021. She had also been working as the director of operations of a small investment management firm since June of 2024, according to her LinkedIn profile. One of her brands, East X East, which sells swimsuits and resort wear, had opened a seasonal pop-up at Gurney’s Montauk Resort last month.
Police have not released the identity of the owner of Ripple, the boat on which her body was found, though the New York Post and Newsday identified him this week as Christopher Durnan, 60, who operates the Durnan Group, an insurance company based in Rockville Centre specializing in workers’ compensation insurance.
The Post article also included accounts from unidentified eyewitnesses, who said they had been sleeping on another boat docked at the club on the night of Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death, and had been awakened by a screaming man whom they identified as the boat’s owner, and who they said had been running, naked, along the dock, screaming “Do something!” before the police arrived on scene.
The statements echo those included in a story published by 27East the day after the incident, which also reported that two crewmen from a nearby yacht had climbed aboard Ripple after hearing the man’s cries for help, and they were the ones who had attempted to resuscitate Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra and had called 911.
Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra’s mother, Elma Nolan, told The Irish Independent on Aug. 6 that she felt “numb and in shock.” She said that she had first learned of her daughter’s death from her other daughter, Jacqui, and that they “weren’t told anything about the circumstances.” The outlet reportedly “understood” that a full post-mortem report, including the results of toxicology testing, would take at least three months to complete.
More information came to light on Friday, when the Irish outlet Extra.ie reported that it had obtained a notice of death, filed in New York County Supreme Court on Aug. 6, as part of a pending uncontested divorce case between Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra and a man named Sam Ryan. All of the documents in the case had been filed by David Centeno, Mr. Ryan’s attorney, who specializes in uncontested divorces for which he offers fixed-rate plans on his website.
Mr. Ryan was not mentioned in a death notice released by Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra’s family on Saturday, though it did reference an “adored partner Nick,” who was identified by the Daily Mail on Tuesday as her 34-year-old boyfriend, Nicholas DiRubio, who had reportedly been out of town on the night of the incident. She had called him earlier in the night, according to reporting published by The Irish Independent on Sunday, and had told him that she planned to book an Uber and would be home around 1 a.m.
Newsday reported on Tuesday afternoon that it had learned that the Suffolk County District Attorney’s East End Drug Task Force had also opened an investigation into the death, though county officials would not confirm the claim. “We have not released anything beyond the press releases nor confirmed the information from sources other media outlets are using,” a spokesperson said yesterday.
