Yacht Death Mystery:Martha Nolan Family Sues Investor for ASSAULT — What Really Happened That Night?

  A major twist in the mystery death of a New York  fashion designer on a Hampton’s yacht.  Female on top is not breathing at the Montauk Yacht Club. 32 Sag Harbor Road.  The family of Martha Nolan O’Sullivan just filed court records that accused the man she was last seen with of assault.

 What we know about him and the allegations that claim he might have thought he was having a romantic encounter with the swimsuit designer who is roughly 30 years younger than he is. We’re on the case.  That’s the detail nobody can shake because on the night Martha Nolan died everything about that boat’s name should have meant calm water and easy night, champagne and a sunset.

 Instead it became the last 3 hours of a 33-year-old woman’s life and 1 year later nobody, not the police, not two separate medical examiners, not the family’s own lawyers can tell you exactly what happened on it. Here’s what we know for certain. Martha Nolan, publicly known as Martha Nolan O’Sullivan, died on August 5th, 2025 aboard a yacht docked at an exclusive club in Montauk, Long Island.

She was the founder of East by East, a swimwear label she built from nothing after moving to New York from Ireland in 2015. She was 33 years old and the man she was with when she died was Christopher Durnan, 60 years old, a widower, a former insurance executive and an investor who had put a quarter of a million dollars into her company.

 O’Sullivan died on August 5th, 2025. And 1 year later we still don’t know her cause of death. We do know that she was aboard a boat at a swanky yacht club in Montauk on Long Island and that boat was owned by a 60-year-old man who was also an investor in her fashion company. This is a court summons that is providing a major twist in this mystery.

 We just got it out of New York and it is addressed to that yacht owner, a man named Christopher Durnan. He was with Martha at the time of her death. Now the documents notifying him that Martha’s family is going to sue him for wrongful death and it alleges that Martha’s death may not have been an accident. The document accuses Durnan of assault among a couple other things which we’ll talk about.

 The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s autopsy reportedly found no evidence of obvious trauma when they did an autopsy on Martha Nolan, but an independent autopsy that was ordered by Martha Nolan’s family reportedly found trace amounts of cocaine in her system. The Daily Mail was the first to report that.

 The family has said that it wasn’t an amount of cocaine that would lead to an overdose. Now, there’s a couple other clues coming out of that independent autopsy that we need to talk about and how it could factor into not just the wrongful death lawsuit, but figuring out exactly what happened on this boat. Nolan’s family wants $50 million.

 Now, before we get to that part of the story, I need to remind  this case has sat in a kind of legal limbo. No arrest, no charges, just an open investigation and a family desperate for an answer nobody will give them. And now that silence has just been broken, not by police, but by a courtroom filing.

 Martha Nolan’s family has served Christopher Durnan with formal notice they’re suing him for wrongful death. And buried in that filing is a word that changes everything about how we have to look at this case. Assault, let’s define that because it matters. A wrongful death claim doesn’t require a criminal conviction. It doesn’t even require an arrest.

 The burden of proof is lower than beyond a reasonable doubt. It only requires a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not. That’s a civil standard, not a criminal one.  No, there’s no need that there be a criminal suit. Um, sorry, there’s no need that there be a criminal case. Um, you know, candidly, it it would help.

Um, someone else could do all this digging for you, uh, but it’s not required and there are um, there are plenty times where the a criminal case doesn’t develop. Again, remember, the standard of proof in a criminal case would be beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard of proof, uh, in a wrongful death lawsuit is significantly lower than that.

 So, as a net result, um, there are plenty times where there are wrongful death lawsuits where there are no criminal cases. And also keep in mind that, you know, the the the lawsuit itself casts a wide net.  Yes, there’s  a family’s lawyers choose to include the word assault in a legal filing, they are not guessing.

 They are telling the court on the record that they believe something violent happened to Martha Nolan before she died, not an accident, not a medical event, an act. So, how did we get here? Rewind to 2022. Martha Nolan is building East by East from pop-up shops in the Hamptons.  story. I need to remind you how we got here.

 So, O’Slattery went by Martha Nolan publicly. She was just 33 years old, and she had moved to New York from Ireland in 2015. And she really worked hard in a new country and became a rising star in the ultra-competitive New York fashion scene. And it also appears from social media that she was living a high-flying lifestyle of luxury, but as an entrepreneur, she was working hard for it.

 She was the founder of a clothing line called East by East. They made swimwear.  Hi guys. This is Martha from East by East. I am the founder, the creative director.  Nolan reportedly started the brand in 2022. New York magazine wrote a big exposé about this case in November of last year where there were several new pieces of information that were put out into the public.

 And the magazine article reported that Martha wanted to make East by East a global brand. And she started out small though with pop-up shops in the Hamptons, and she was really working her way into the really wealthy crowd.  Working her way into a world of money she wasn’t born into. To grow the brand, she sells a 13% stake to Christopher Durnan.

 He becomes not just an investor, but a fixture at the yacht club where Martha would ultimately die. And on the night of August 4th into August 5th, the two of them go out on his yacht. They’re drinking Dom Pérignon, bottles that run two, three hundred dollars each. They watch the sunset.  According to Durnan’s own attorney, it’s a business meeting.

 But Martha’s family doesn’t buy that framing. They believe Durnan saw that night differently, that he may have thought this was something else entirely, a romantic encounter. And here’s where the story gets its first real crack in the narrative because shortly after Martha died, Durnan’s attorney told New York magazine that the two of them had actually dated, that Durnan loved her, that he’d met her family in Ireland.

 Then, almost as fast as it was said, it was walked back. We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, the attorney later clarified. Martha’s family says the version about meeting her family in Ireland simply isn’t true.  but this brand, especially if you wanted to make it a global brand, they needed more money.

 And on the night Nolan died, she and Durnan allegedly went out for an evening cruise on his yacht. New York magazine reports that Durnan and Nolan sipped champagne, they watched the sunset before they returned to the yacht club. Members of Nolan’s family told the Daily Mail that it appears that Durnan may have thought that this was not a business meeting, but a romantic encounter on the boat.

The 60-year-old, they note, stocked the boat with bottles of Dom Perignon champagne, which is the good stuff that can go between two and $300 if not more for a bottle. Now, Nolan reportedly was in a relationship with a man her age, and she was actually texting with him the night that she died.

 But the lawyer for Durnan, and to be clear, Christopher Durnan has not been charged in connection to this crime, said that his client and Nolan were more than friends. Remember, she’s 33, he’s 60 years old. Just pointing that out. Now, this is another odd part of the story. According to New York magazine, shortly after Nolan died, Durnan’s attorney said, quote, “They actually dated.

 He had told me after it happened that he loved her and that he had met her family.” He claimed that Durnan had visited Nolan’s family  contradiction in your head because it’s the anchor of this entire case.  Nolan’s family pushed back on the idea that the two of them were anything more than business partners.

 And Durnan’s lawyer, according to that article, did walk back some of those comments saying, quote, he goes, “We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend.” Now, the attorney reportedly wouldn’t say anything more about whether Durnan and Nolan had been physically intimate, saying that it wouldn’t be fair to her memory to share those pieces of information.

 So, Nolan and Durnan are supposed to be on this business  A man’s own lawyer changed the story about the nature of his relationship with a woman who died on his boat. That’s not proof of a but it’s the kind of inconsistency that makes prosecutors and juries start asking why. Now to the timeline, because this is where the real tension lies. At 9:20 p.m.

 a friend jokes in a group chat that maybe Martha’s phone died or maybe she’s dead. Grim in hindsight, but just a joke at the time. Martha responds 10 minutes later, “Lol, I’m at the yacht club now. My phone is on.” That’s the last message anyone gets from  What happens next? Durnan’s lawyer told New York magazine that Nolan and his client, they’re on this boat called Ripple.

 And he says the two of them talked business and they apparently had been on the water for a decent amount of time. Then at 9:20, a friend makes a joke in a text message to Nolan on a group chat that says, “lmao, I’m sure her phone died or maybe she’s dead.” Obviously, at that point it was just a joke. Nolan responded to that text at 9:30 saying, “lol, I’m at the yacht club now. My phone is on.

” But about an hour later, Nolan did die. Durnan’s  Somewhere around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., according to Durnan’s own account, Martha goes limp. He says it looked like a heart attack, but the 911 call doesn’t come in until midnight. That’s a full hour, maybe more, that nobody can account for.  Durnan’s lawyer says around 10:30 or 11:00 Nolan went limp.

 The lawyer says that Durnan described it like she had a heart attack.  I’m alone sir, she’s not breathing at the Montauk Yacht Club.  Tell me where you are.  32 Star Island Road.  Police say the 911 call came in around midnight, which New York magazine says does leave an hour unaccounted for compared to Durnan’s lawyer’s timeline of events.

 Durnan’s lawyer says that his client tried to save Nolan by giving her CPR. But in an odd twist, Durnan was allegedly  a detail that will not leave this case alone. When help arrived, Christopher Durnan was naked. Witnesses told the New York Post they saw him on the dock throwing sunscreen bottles at other boats to wake people up, screaming for someone, “Amy, to do something.

” His attorney’s explanation is clothes were soaked in Martha’s vomit, so he took them off. Maybe that’s exactly what happened, but ask yourself the question this case keeps circling back to, why is a man naked alone at midnight after what he calls a business meeting with a woman 30 years his junior,  Durnan was allegedly naked as he was looking for help.

 The New York Post spoke to witnesses who say they saw Durnan throwing sunscreen at people’s boats trying to wake them up yelling “Do something.” And you have to ask yourself, why would he be naked on a Monday night after having a business meeting with a 33-year-old woman? Durnan’s lawyer told New York magazine that his client had taken his clothes off because they were soaked in Nolan’s vomit.

 He also says that his client doesn’t know how long he did CPR for on Nolan, which is an explanation for any gap in time that people may have as they  Then there’s the toxicology. The Suffolk County medical examiner’s autopsy reportedly found no obvious signs of trauma, no strangulation, no blunt force injury.

 Case seemingly heads toward unexplained, but Martha’s family didn’t stop there.  have as they put the timeline together of what potentially happened on the boat. Now, there has been speculation about a white powdery substance that was reportedly found on Durnan’s boat after police had cleared the scene. Durnan’s lawyer told New York magazine that was not an illegal substance, but it was dust that was left behind by police as they were looking for fingerprints on board the boat.

 Now, Durnan’s lawyer also said that his client told detectives that Nolan had excused herself twice that night, and that suggests that maybe she had to go to the bathroom, or could be a sign of someone doing drugs. Nolan’s family’s lawyer has pushed back on that saying that she wasn’t a regular drug user, and the New York Post said the same as well, that she just wasn’t known for doing drugs according to people they spoke to.

 They ordered an independent autopsy, and that’s when investigators reportedly found trace amounts of cocaine in her system. Not, the family insists, an amount that could cause an overdose. Durnan’s side has pointed to another detail, that Martha excused herself twice that night, which they suggest could indicate drug use.

 Her family and people who knew her slightly reject that characterization saying she wasn’t a regular user. Two autopsies, two different pictures, and a family that no longer trust the official one enough to accept it as the final word.  So, that gets us to the question about how did Martha Nolan die? Because you had an inconclusive results related to the autopsy that the Suffolk County Medical Examiner did.

 So, then Martha Nolan’s family requested her own independent autopsy of her body. And that reportedly found only trace amounts of cocaine in her system. The Daily Mail was first to report that. And the family says that the cocaine in her system, it could have been there days before her death.

 And also again, they said that they don’t believe that it was an amount that would lead to an overdose. Now, the autopsy also showed that she was young and healthy. And it reportedly had confirmed that there were no signs of foul play like strangulation or blunt force trauma. But then, we just get this summons.

 And the new development we’re talking about today that is addressed to Christopher Durnan now raising questions about this case and what may have happened. So, the document states that the family of Martha Nolan plans to file a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit.  the case sits today, not as a closed file, but as an open wound in a courtroom.

 The lawsuit seeks $50 million, though legal experts are quick to point out that number is often symbolic more than exact. Some jurisdictions simply require plaintiffs to name a figure.  So, again, I think we need to be very, very careful here because as you said, we’re not exactly sure what happened. There’s an allegation up there that assault may have led to her death.

 It’s not the primary cause of death or it’s not the primary charge in the lawsuit itself. So, essentially what they’re uh insinuating is that something happened on that boat. Uh this wasn’t an overdose. Uh this was something a little more serious than that. Uh and consequently, uh if I were her lawyers or the lawyers of the estate, I would want to know that there was something there I could base the lawsuit on.

 This wasn’t purely conjecture. It’s not a fishing expedition. There’s something that they learned during the course of their own internal investigation that led them to believe that this lawsuit was appropriate.  Like what  What matters more is the strategy behind it. A wrongful death suit gives Martha’s family something a stalled criminal investigation hasn’t, the power of discovery.

 Depositions, subpoenaed phone records, the ability to ask Christopher Durnan under oath who he called before he called 911.  Well, they could want to conduct depositions. They could want to find more information about what happened uh that night. Obviously, there are police reports. I don’t know if uh if the estate has access to those police reports.

 I don’t know if they have access to the underlying autopsy report. I believe they uh had their own independent autopsy, but I don’t know if they had the ability to compare and contrast their own independent autopsy report with what the county examiners or the county coroner did. Uh so, that that could be one line of attack.

 Uh it could also be um to find out who Durnan spoke to shortly thereafter, whether or not he made phone calls. We know he was screaming for help, but you know, who did he call before he started screaming for help, if anybody? You know, did he make phone calls to associates? Did he make phone calls to friends? Did he make phone calls to people before he started yelling that something had happened on the boat? That’s all information that would be important.

 They could subpoena phone records. They could subpoena phone logs. They could subpoena computer records in order to find out exactly what was happening here.  In some cases, that’s the real unanswered question at the center of this case. Not whether Christopher Durnan is guilty of anything. No one has been charged, and that fact deserves to be said plainly and repeated because it’s the truth.

 lawsuit, and the document accuses Durnan of a couple things, including assault. Specifically, it says, quote, “The defendant intentionally and wrongfully assaulted the descendant, and gross negligence and reckless wanton conduct by the defendant toward the descendant.” Now, the New York Post is citing sources saying that the family’s autopsy found some kind of assault caused her death, and it’s unclear what that may be.

 And it is so important to point out that  question is why an investigation that’s now over a year old still hasn’t produced an answer for the people who loved Martha Nolan. Somebody in her orbit believes wrongdoing occurred.  Sure. I mean, clearly somebody in her orbit feels that wrongdoing occurred. Uh somebody feels as if this death death wasn’t accidental.

 And so, consequently, they filed a suit. Now, again, they may have been filing the suit to see what they can learn what what they can discover. Uh on the other hand, they may actually have some information that leads them to believe this is a viable wrongful death lawsuit.  Yeah, so like when when I look at them accusing him of assault, first and foremost.

 And and like to this point, there hasn’t been We know that the Suffolk County medical examiner doesn’t seem that they found any evidence of like blunt force trauma or strangulation. Um what might like, you know, anybody can sue anybody, I guess. But like what what type What would you need to be able to actually accuse someone of assault like this?  That’s not speculation.

 That’s what a formal legal filing represents. Whatever happened aboard the Ripple that night, one thing is certain, silence has a cost, and Martha Nolan’s family has decided they’re no longer willing to pay it quietly. The discovery process could take years.  So, uh uh hmm From a criminal defense standpoint, um if this gentleman were to be charged criminally, I would be thrilled that there’s a civil lawsuit that’s ongoing.

As a criminal defense attorney, if there’s a civil lawsuit that happens prior to or during a criminal case, I love it. It enables me to make an argument for my client that there’s some other reason as to why my client was charged with a crime. There’s some other incentive. There’s some other motivation.

 It gives me as a criminal defense attorney access to whatever goes on in that civil suit. Sometimes it’s far beyond the reaches that I as a criminal attorney can have. So, uh from a strategic standpoint, trust me when I tell you that uh if he’s going to  Depositions will point as expert battles between the two competing autopsies.

 All of it now unfolding in open court, whether Christopher Durn wants it to or not.  Well, I think that, first of all, I were his attorney, I would want to make sure that I have protected my client before I respond to this lawsuit. In other words, I want to make sure that this criminal case isn’t still ongoing.

 If the criminal case is still ongoing, then my client isn’t going to participate in this lawsuit. Either I’m going to plead the fifth across the board, or more likely, I’m going to file what’s called a stay of execution and indicate to the civil court that we can’t do anything just yet because there is an ongoing criminal prosecution, and therefore we can’t provide any answers until that wraps itself up or until we know that that’s not happening.

 And somewhere in that process, the answer this family has been chasing for over a year may finally surface. Not from a police department that’s gone quiet, but from a courtroom that doesn’t have the luxury of staying silent forever. We’ll be following where this goes. If this case moves, we’ll bring you the next chapter the moment it breaks.