A New York City fashion designer found dead aboard a yacht in Montauk had blood around her head and appeared to be turning purple when emergency crews arrived, according to newly reported medical details.
Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra’s mouth, chest and the back of her head showed purple discoloration when paramedics reached her on a boat docked at the exclusive Montauk Yacht Club in the Hamptons last August, an EMT report obtained by the New York Post stated.
The report also noted purpling on her lips and beneath her nailbeds, with blood found on the floor near where her body was discovered.
Officials further documented that Nolan-O’Slatarra, the Irish-born founder of the fashion brand East x East, was cold to the touch.
The 33-year-old’s body “had dried blood in oral, head and chest area,” the report said, while adding that there was “no active bleeding observed or obvious sources of trauma.”
Paramedics tried to revive Nolan-O’Slatarra at the dock, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her official cause of death remains pending.
The EMT report also referenced an unidentified “additional male” who was present when she went into cardiac arrest. He allegedly told responders he had been in bed with Nolan-O’Slatarra before he was unable to wake her and called 911.
Christopher Durnan, 60, the boat’s owner, is the only person previously confirmed to have been at the scene and was also identified as the last known person to see her alive.
Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra, 33, was found dead on a yacht in the Hamptons in August 2025
A newly released EMT report documented the disturbing way her body was found on a yacht named Ripple that is owned by Christopher Durnan, 60
Durnan, an investor, met up with Nolan-O’Slatarra on August 4 on board his yacht called Ripple to discuss her swimwear fashion company, according to a preliminary filing that was brought forward on Tuesday and reviewed by the Daily Mail.
He was then spotted sprinting naked down the dock around midnight on August 5, screaming for help for Nolan-O’Slatarra.
His lawyer, Robert Holdman, has claimed that his client was naked because his clothing was ‘soaked’ in the victim’s vomit.
The Daily Mail previously revealed that law enforcement sources initially thought that she might have died of a possible drug overdose.
But her heartbroken family isn’t convinced and believes that Durnan presented suspicious behavior that night.
‘Durnan was found naked on the dock and claimed he had stripped because Martha had vomited on him, but no soiled clothes or signs of vomit were found at the scene or in the autopsy,’ the family’s lawyer, Michael Bowe, told the Daily Mail.
According to Bowe, the EMT reports left Nolan-O’Slatarra’s family alarmed, especially because ‘law enforcement told the family the scene had been cleaned before responders arrived.’
Her family presented a three-page preliminary filing on Tuesday as they prepare to file a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against Durnan, who is believed to have invested more than $200,000 in her fashion boutique.
The filing accuses him of causing her death through assault and negligence. Her family plans to sue him in the New York Supreme Court.
Nolan-O’Slatarra’s family is now planning to file a wrongful death suit against Christopher Durnan (pictured above), the owner of the yacht who had invested more than $200,000 into the fashion designer’s beauty boutique
Meanwhile, Holdman has maintained that his client was not responsible for her death.
Nolan-O’Slatarra went limp between 10.30pm to 11pm on the night of August 4, and Durnan feared she was having a heart attack, Holdman said.
Durnan then tried to perform CPR on her to no avail, the attorney claimed.
‘She was gone almost immediately,’ Holdman told New York Magazine last year. ‘She was non-responsive.’
Nolan-O’Slatarra arrived in the US about a decade ago and soon took to her glam new life in the Big Apple, telling The Irish Independent in a 2024 interview that she ‘loved’ living on the Upper East Side.
Her social media pages showed her living it up on private jets, sipping champagne, going to concerts, and cozying up to her sales exec boyfriend Nicholas DiRubio during a helicopter ride.
The fashionista went on to establish several companies, including fashion accessories brand Duper and luxury swimwear label East x East.
Mourners embrace following the funeral of Martha Nolan-O’Slatarra at the Cathedral of the Assumption, Carlow on August 20, 2025
She grew up in the small town of Carlow, Ireland, roughly 55 miles outside of the capital city Dublin.
She left home at 16 after she ‘forced’ her parents to send her to the highly regarded Institute of Education, a private secondary school in Dublin.
Tuition at the school costs families up to €11,850 (approximately $13,785) per year, as outlined in the school’s fee schedule for the 2025/26 academic year.
Her funeral service was held at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow on August 20, 2025.
