Monday, November 12, 2018

Diana The Lost Princess By:Stephanie Garza


       Was Princess Diana’s death really an accident or was she murdered? On the night of August 31st, 1997, the world not only lost a Princess but also a phenomenal leader and a lovable woman in a car crash. There are many conspiracy theories about the death of the lost princess:
      1. Was Princess Diana’s death an accident?
2. Was Princess Diana murdered?
Now, let’s examine the case and two of the conspiracy theories which go over the death of the one and only Princess Diana.
Princess Diana was known to be a very compassionate young woman. Also, the princess was a caring mother who would put her children's needs before her own trying to ensure that her children would be raised as close to normal as possible. In an article by Top Biography Books, “Diana was said to be a caring mother, trying to raise her children as normally as possible” (“Princess of Wales Diana Biography.” 1). Even when Diana hit a rocky road in life, which ended her marriage to the Prince and caused her to withdraw from the public life, she kept one of her lovable traits of being compassionate and continued her charity work.


 Diana was very charitable. She also brought the problems of homelessness and drug abuse into the light. Diana even shook the hands of patients that had AIDS in a Middlesex hospital and took it upon herself to once visit victims of an Irish Republican Army bombing in Northern Ireland (“Princess of Wales Diana Biography.”1). Not only did the Princess take part in many charities, but she took part in forty-four and made plenty of appearances on her behalf.  (1).  This involved her still “visiting the terminally ill people in hospitals and traveling to Bosnia to meet the victims of land mines and meet Mother Teresa in New York City’s South Bronx in June 1997” (1). As of today, Diana is known by the world as “the people’s princess” due to her loving composure (”1). Princess Diana even has a famous quote stating, “I don’t just want to be a name on a letterhead”, which is stating that she doesn’t just want to be another princess in the books, but instead wants to be remembered for doing something for those less fortunate, which was a success for the people’s princess (1).

Princess Diana was also rebellious by doing things her own way and breaking protocol. “Diana even picked her own engagement ring from a local catalog” (Fogler 4). Although all the royal engagement rings are custom made, the princess decided to break protocol and pick her own out. Even though she broke protocol she even set a trend due to both of her sons following her footsteps by writing her own wedding vows (4).
 The lost princess made sure to stay active in her children's life (Fogler 5). She even went against her husband's wishes to name her children Arthur and Albert and took it upon herself to choose the names Harry and William (7). The” royal couple even broke protocol by not following the separation traits by taking nine-month-old William, as well as a nanny, with them on a six-week tour to Australia and New Zealand” (7). Diana made a huge difference in her kid's life by sending them to a public school (8). It didn’t stop there; “she was so set on making sure her kids had as much as a normal life as possible that she even took them to get hamburgers at McDonald’s, rode the tube bus, and let them wear jeans and baseball caps; they even white-water rafted and rode bicycles (8). They even attended Disney and stood in line like everyone else (8). William was very grateful for the lengths his mother went to for them to have somewhat of a normal childhood. William told ABC News Katie Couric in 2012, “She very much wanted to get us to see the rawness of real life”, “and I can’t thank her enough for that, cause reality bites in a big way, and it was one of the biggest” (8).
 Once the rumors of Prince Charles’ infidelity started airing, Princess Diana took it upon herself to wear a clingy rushed minidress for a Serpentine Gallery benefit which surely broke the queen’s dress code (Fogler 9). Diana was even bold enough to wear a necklace the queen gave her as a wedding gift as a tiara to an appearance (9). The press even got the opportunity to get a very revealing interview with the princess, which was done secretly (10). Her interview soon become personal when she addressed Prince Charles longtime relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles; "A woman’s instinct is a very good one; obviously I had knowledge of it from people who minded and cared about our marriage... There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” (10). When asked about her own affair with James Hewitt she didn’t deny it, “Yes, I adored him.  Yes, I was in love with him. But I was very let down” (10). Diana was her own women, who didn't let others tell her what to do.
We will be looking at the conspiracy theories that relate to Princess Diana: Was Princess Diana’s death an accident or was she murdered?
Many sources feel as if Princess Diana’s death was accidental. On the tragic night of her death she was out in “Paris enjoying a night with Egyptian billionaire heir Dodi Fayed, whom Diana was dating for about a month” ... “After spending over a week on Fayed’s yacht in the French Riviera, while traveling to London the couple decided to stop in Paris” (Brayson 1). But of course, the Princess’s presence in Paris wasn't going to go unnoticed for long. The local paparazzi soon became aware of the couple's presence in the city.  Later that night the lovebirds went to the restaurant Ritz, because of the privacy of the public rooms (“Princess Diana Died in Paris. Here's What Happened.” 1). Although the paparazzi doesn’t get passed the restaurant’s doors, they do however lurk in the Place Vendome out front (1). Due to the overbearing paparazzi out front, Diana and Dodi slipped out back after dinner a few minute's past midnight into a waiting Mercedes that belonged to the Ritz (1). The driver of the vehicle was a hotel security man; Dodi’s bodyguard rode shotgun while Dodi and Diana shared the backseat. The couple's apparent destination was Al Fayed’s town house about four miles away (1). Then unfortunately a chase ensued with at least one motorcycle, carrying a photographer (1).
After a quick right onto the Cours la Reine, the Mercedes followed the road into a tunnel, rose again to street level, then plunged again into a tunnel, this time beneath the Pont de l'Alma, just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower and down the hill from the Arc de Triomphe (“Princess Diana Died in Paris. Here's What Happened.” 1). By now another motorcycle, a motor scooter and at least one car were in pursuit. It was 35 minutes after midnight. As square pillars separating westbound from eastbound traffic loomed into view, the driver suddenly lost control just as he swerved left entering the tunnel (1). About one third of the way through the tunnel, with a bang and a sickening squeal of tires audible to tourists strolling along the river, the car slammed into a pillar at a speed police estimate at 85 miles per hour (1). It ricocheted off the opposite wall. The entire front of the sedan accordioned into the front seat. The roof collapsed to the level of the front passengers' knees. And as if in cruel mockery of the limits of technology, the two front airbags deployed (1). Fayed and the driver were killed on impact. But the princess however was rushed to Pitie Salpetriere Hospital which was about four miles away (1).  Doctors made the announcement: shortly before 4 a.m., Diana, 36, had been pronounced dead (1). However, the lost Princess could have walked away with her life after that tragic night with just the buckle of her seatbelt. The pathologist that performed Diana’s autopsy stated:
I wish I could say she would have died whatever happened, but the fact is, if she had worn her seatbelt, she would have been here for Prince William and Harry's weddings,” he told the Daily Mail. Had she been strapped in “she would have walked away with a black eye or maybe a broken arm, but nothing more. "Instead, she was hurtling forward with the weight of one and a half elephants, and the human body is not designed to suffer those forces. (Tahir 1)
            The public announcement of the death of the princess was delayed for two hours so Prince Charles could wake up both sons, William and Harry, at Balmoral Castle and deliver the horrible news of their mothers' death, the mother whom took them to burger joints and to visit homeless shelters (1). Although there is conclusive evidence suggesting it was a murder.
Was Princess Diana murdered? There are many conspiracy theories that deal with the death of the lost princess involving pointing fingers at many different people to blame her tragic ending on. Some of the main suspects were the paparazzi, the driver, and the Royal Family (Brayson 1). Reports have claimed that paparazzi had “run the car off the road in their relentless pursuit to obtain photos of the couple” (1). The “original French investigation placed the blame all on the driver, whose blood alcohol intake had been three times the legal limit at the time of the accident” (1). Not only was his alcohol level way over but prescription drugs were also found in his system (1). Later in 2008 a British inquest into the crash, known as Operation Paget:
blamed both the driver and the paparazzi in equal measure, with a jury concluding that the driver had been “grossly negligent” and the paparazzi’s actions which witnesses testified to, including attempting to block Diana’s vehicle with their cars, led to her “wrongful death. (1)
Regardless of the “findings of these investigations, there are also some, namely Fayed’s father, Mohammed Al Fayed, who maintain that Diana’s killing was an assassination orchestrated by the British Royal Family” (Brayson 1).
The lost Princess was murdered due to the high-speed chase put on by the paparazzi. According to the survey in which I asked multiple people was the death of Princess Diana an accident or was she murdered the survey favored in the fact that the Princess was indeed murdered.
The twenty-year anniversary of Princess Diana’s death took place in 2017. Not only will the phenomenal leader never be forgotten, but neither will the tragic accident that took place on August 31st. These are the conspiracy theories about the death of the Princess:
1.Was Princess Diana’s death an accident?
2. Was Princess Diana murdered?
The conspiracy theory that best solves the death of the Princess is she was murdered. Regardless of the seat belt altercation if the paparazzi would have never put on the high-speed chase, the lost princes would still be here today.



Works Cited
S Brayson, Johnny. “People Are Still Debating Princess Diana's Death.” Bustle, Bustle, 15 June 2018, www.bustle.com/p/what-happened-the-night-of-princess-dianas-death-the-story-is-so-tragic-72244.
S Fogle, Asher. “14 Ways Princess Diana Bucked Tradition.” Good Housekeeping, Good Housekeeping, 22 Apr. 2018, www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g3675/princess-diana-royal-protocol/.
 S “Princess Diana Died in Paris. Here's What Happened.” Newsweek, 30 Aug. 2017, www.newsweek.com/shock-dianas-death-654172.
T “Princess of Wales Diana Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, Advameg, Inc., 2018, www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Diana-Princess-of-Wales.html.
Tahir, Tariq. “Princess Diana 'Would Have Been at Harry's Wedding If She'd Worn a Seatbelt'.” The Sun, The Sun, 22 Sept. 2018, www.thesun.co.uk/news/7320231/princess-diana-would-have-been-at-prince-harrys-wedding-if-she-had-been-wearing-a-seatbelt-pathologist-claims/.


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