The family and estate of the Irish-born woman who died last summer on a boat docked at Star Island in Montauk, under what they call suspicious circumstances, has filed a wrongful-death suit against the man who owned the boat. They are seeking $50 million.
Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra, who was 33, died on board the boat Ripple on Aug. 5. The founder of the swimwear brand East X East, she was born in County Carlow, Ireland. She moved to New York City in 2015.
Local police did not accuse Christopher Durnan, a Garden City-based insurance executive and owner of the boat, of any crime at the time. He has never been charged by any agency in connection with the death.
Elma Geraldine Nolan, the woman’s mother, and Marcello de Peralta, the executor of her estate, have filed preliminary paperwork in New York County seeking a civil judgement. Since the estate received authority to sue from a Manhattan probate court, the suit will play out in that county rather than in Suffolk, where Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra died. It claims that Mr. Durnan assaulted Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra sometime between Aug. 4 and 5 and then committed “gross negligence and reckless conduct” that “caused the decedent’s injury and death.”
At the time of the incident, boaters at the Star Island Yacht Club reported hearing screams. Mr. Durnan was described by multiple news outlets as a naked man running down the dock from the boat, yelling for help. In published statements, two witnesses who had been on other boats docked at the club that night said they had climbed aboard the Ripple and attempted CPR on the woman, and they had placed the initial 911 call that led East Hampton Town police to the scene.
Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra reportedly told friends that she was going to the yacht club that evening for a meeting to discuss her business with a potential investor, and had texted her boyfriend, who was out of town, that she would order an Uber ride home at around 1 a.m.
Mr. Durnan’s lawyer, Robert Holdman, confirmed last year in an article published in New York magazine that Mr. Durnan had indeed invested in the swimwear brand.
That night, the lawyer said, the two had discussed business on the deck for an hour or so, until Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra “suddenly went limp” around 10:30 or 11 p.m. Mr. Durnan, he said, thought she was having a heart attack and tried to perform CPR, but “she was gone almost immediately. She was nonresponsive.”
In the days following Ms. Nolan-O’Slatarra’s death, the Suffolk County medical examiner’s office said they did not find “evidence of violence and her final cause of death is pending further examination.”
According to her mother, who spoke to The Irish Independent newspaper, the family was told that a final postmortem report, including the results of toxicology testing, would take at least three months to complete, and they commissioned a second, private autopsy, which was conducted before the body was returned to Ireland for the funeral.
Michael Bowe, a lawyer for Ms. Nolan and the estate, did not respond by press time when asked for comment this week on the conclusions of the private autopsy. In the year since she died, authorities have yet to announce an official cause.
Earlier this month, Mr. Durnan sold his Montauk house, on Soundview Drive. It was listed publicly for $3.5 million.
Mr. Durnan was allegedly involved in a 2021 altercation with a retired New York City police officer, Michael Balfe, who claimed Mr. Durnan bit him during a concert in the East Village honoring 9/11 first responders. In a civil court filing, Mr. Balfe sued Mr. Durnan along with the concert venue. Mr. Durnan did not deny biting Mr. Balfe, but said it was a case of self-defense after Mr. Balfe started a fight with him.
The case is apparently still open, but no filings have been made since 2023.
