Justin Riccio

Prof. Munksgaard

COM 310

12 December 2022

Final Paper

The Murder of Princess Diana

In the early hours of August 31st, 1997 a true tragedy struck this world. Diana, Princess of Wales

along with film producer Dodi Fayed and his chauffeur Henri Paul were killed, when Henri who

was inebriated and driving crashed into a support beam in the tunnel. A death that shook the

world, having her be one of the few unorthodox members of the royal family and one who had

affairs while married to Prince (now King) Charles III. Diana was not one who “fit in” with the

royal family, though she did try her hardest. After her divorce she was exiled from the royal

family which they seemed to have made “unpalatable” and wanted her gone. Since she wasted no

time getting back into a relationship and was rumored to be pregnant, the royal family thought

only one thing: remove Diana. In total, there are eight infamous claims and conspiracy theories

that surround the “murders of these people” and we will focus on a handful of these claims

throughout the course of this paper. (Source for these theories comes from independent.co.uk)

While this is a wild conspiracy theory, there are a lot of claims that are able to be made and

backed up with “evidence”. The basis of this reality is rather slim, there is not a true “kernel of

truth” other than personalized speculation. This all started practically from the jump of the

incident. It goes back to that night, and continues to evolve today. The main theory does not

really have an extreme “evolution” though new claims continue to be made practically on an
annual basis. Mohammed Al-Fayed (the father of Dodi Fayed) is one of the prominent pushers of

this claim and the entire conspiracy theory. Besides that, there are not many “prominent leaders”

when it comes to this theory. While people may have spoken out about it, it is no QAnon where

it is a cult. It’s more entertaining speculation than it is ride or die. The first being that Diana was

pregnant during the time of her murder. Al-Fayed has made a lot of claims regarding the death of

his son. He has been pushing a pregnancy narrative since the crash happened. Saying that he

believes they had the both of them killed because the royal family “could not accept that an

Egyptian Muslim could eventually be the stepfather of the future King of England”

(independent.co.uk). Al-Fayed also claimed that her organs were removed almost immediately

after she was pronounced dead. According to Mohammed, there are over 100 documents and

tapings that allege Diana was having an affair and pregnant at the time. He also demanded that

the NSA re-investigate and that another doctor take another look at the autopsy. Because of their

status as a couple, Al-Fayed claimed that the British Crown was spying on her and his son. He

also believes that the FBI, CIA, and NSA had assisted in this and hid crucial documents

surrounding this incident (abcnews.go.com). Diana also pushed into this conspiracy a little bit,

but never to a full extreme. After faulty brakes on her car and the death of one of her bodyguards

due to an accident, she “believed” that she was being watched and waited (claim taken from both

independent.co.uk and cbc.ca). She had true questions and fears of her safety due to these

instances, and they were never brought to any proper attention or established concern. One of the

more known and well disputed claims is that the paparazzi caused this accident. Either they

pushed her car off the road, or accidentally caused the driver to speed and swerve into the pole

while going double the speed limit in the tunnel are the two claims up for dispute. The paparazzi

are still the main blame in this instance, and for good reason due to the fact that they were
swarming this car and took a photo seconds before the fatal crash of everyone in the car. This ties

into people claiming that there were “mysterious and bright flashes” in the tunnel. Others also

said that there were odd and mysterious vehicles that showed up right before the crash. All of

these claims, and there were hundreds of them (and more still “release) but they all lacked one

crucial detail: proper evidence.

While it is entertaining and fun to lean into conspiracy theories, there is one thing for certain:

Princess Diana was not murdered by anybody besides the driver of her Mercedes: Dodi Fayed's

chauffeur Henri Paul. There are many speculations and claims on why Diana was murdered, but

they simply do not add up. To put the cherry on top, almost all of them come from one man:

Mohammad Al-Fayed. A man whose son was unfortunately killed in this crash along with

Princess Diana. But we cannot let the basic concept of occam's razor slip out and cut our hands.

The facts are there, and the claims have been heard, matched, and disputed. Princess Diana was

killed in a fatal car crash that was not intended by anyone. Henri Paul was found to be very

intoxicated on prescription drugs, he was going almost 80 MPH while in a 40 MPH tunnel.

While paparazzi were surrounding him and taking pictures, he could have narrowly avoided

them or simply gone the limit and let them fade away. But he simply gassed up, sped up, and

swerved around them which was one of the moves that made three people meet their untimely

demise. No matter how you may look at this case, it is a very simple explanation. Diana was not

wearing her seatbelt when this accident occurred and was tossed around the car once it made

impact. She was not found to be pregnant during this time, the very extensively detailed autopsy

made it very clear that she was showing signs of nothing other than normal menstruation. To

back up these claims, her friends, family, and confidantes also made it clear that she was on
contraceptives and going through regular cycles of menstruation. These claimed documents to be

held by the NSA, CIA, FBI that al-Fayed says they have are one thing: fake. Twenty-five years

later they are still nowhere to be found, seen, or even heard of. It truly is heartbreaking to have to

come to the tight gripes of reality that your son passed away in an extremely unfortunate and

preventable way. The fact that a family chauffeur was the reason behind the death of three people

including himself is not something that anyone can take lightly. But that being said, having no

proper evidence surrounding the tens of claims that he himself made is just throwing him further

down a deep dark rabbit hole of lies. Even when you google “Princess Diana murdered” you get

a whole boatload of articles that dispute these claims within the first sentence. One thing that is

odd is how she “predicted her death” saying quote “'I am going to [die] in an accident —

helicopter, plane or car crash'” (cbc.ca article). That can go for anyone, the chances of you dying

in a car accident are a lot higher than we are to pay attention to. If I said “I will die one of these

days between now and my death date” and then I died, that does not mean that “OMG I

PREDICTED MY OWN DEATH?!?!?!”. Diana talks about dying young, as unfortunately

sometimes younger people do. It’s a dark speculation, once we wrap our heads around this

concept of death it is hard to not think that “we may be next”. But it is all a series of chances, and

to fixate on the random sentences she muttered once or twice is just a waste of time. The fact is,

if the British Royal Crown wanted her dead, they wouldn’t have taken two other people with her.

They would have done what Courtney Love did to Kurt Cobain! (Jokes, jokes, jokes… or maybe

not.) But they simply would not kill a chauffeur and a movie producer. The investigation into her

death lasted longer than these conspiracies. An 832 page report was established shortly after the

original investigation deemed that her death was a tragic accident. All of these eyewitnesses,

confidantes, royal family friends, etc… all used their “perspective” for their fifteen seconds of
fame. This fame dried up faster than a sponge on fire. Even though there was confirmation of her

death throughout that massive report up until 2004, they were still trying all possibilities.

Leaning into these conspiracies as ideas of “what if…”. But they always came up empty-handed

with nothing on their hands besides skin.

It’s a rough world that we live in, people die who were not meant to die as young as they did.

Princess Diana was one of these people. Unfortunately it’s not our decision on who goes when.

But one thing we can confidently say is that she was not murdered by anyone else except for her

chauffeur and lack-thereof when it comes to safety concerns of the road. She was unbuckled

while the car crashed, and the impact of the crash gave her a rare heart injury that caused her

untimely death. All of this is known FACT. What is unknown, and disproven is the mindless

claim that she was murdered by the CIA, FBI, NSA, British Crown, etc… Her death was not

something that was taken lightly by any of these organizations either. She may have been

divorced and separated from the crown, she still had children with a Prince. No matter what

media outlets may push to create this controversial narrative, she was someone who was loved

by many, and loved many. She maintained a healthy relationship with the royal family after her

divorce from Charles III. There was no foul play involved when it came to the death of Diana

besides ignorance.
 Works Cited

ABC News. “Diana Conspiracy Theory Pursued Again.” ABC News, ABC News Network,

https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80573&page=1.

CBC. “Expert Investigation Reveals the Truth about Princess Diana's Death 25 Years Ago | CBC

Documentaries.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 8 Sept. 2022,

https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/expert-investigation-reveals-the-truth-about-princess-diana-s-

death-25-years-ago-1.6554844.

Griffin, Andrew. “Eight Conspiracy Theories about Princess Diana's Fatal Crash.” The

Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 20 Dec. 2022,

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/princess-diana-death-conspiracy-theories-

b2248362.html.

Spyscape. “Princess Diana Conspiracy Theories: Was the Fatal Crash All It Seems?”

SPYSCAPE,

https://spyscape.com/article/princess-diana-conspiracy-theories-was-the-fatal-crash-all-it-seems.

Stern, Marlow. “The Man Who Investigated Princess Diana's Death Tells All.” The Daily Beast,

The Daily Beast Company, 18 Aug. 2022,

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-man-who-investigated-princess-dianas-death-tells-all.