NEW YORK — It has been more than a decade since the death of Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, following an automobile crash in a Paris tunnel.

Dodi Fayed’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, appears for the inquest.

Since that accident in August 1997, authorities on both sides of the English Channel have attempted to resolve the questions that have swirled around her death, many of them fueled by the allegations of Fayed’s father that the accident and death were orchestrated by British forces intent on preventing Diana’s marriage to Fayed.

An extensive inquiry by the French concluded that the accident was the result of negligence and drunk driving by the chauffeur, Henri Paul. A subsequent British police investigation reached the same conclusion. Neither inquiry found any evidence to support the conspiracy theory offered up by Fayed’s father.

Now, a judge overseeing a British inquest, a procedure mandated for any unnatural death of a British citizen, has asked a jury to provide a final verdict as to the cause of Diana’s death. Read more

The jury of six men and five women began deliberating Wednesday after hearing from more than 250 witnesses over a period of six months. Their options include a finding that her death was accidental or that it was an unlawful killing caused by the gross negligence of the driver, or a combination of both of these theories.

The presiding judge has specifically precluded the finding of any conspiracy, ruling that the vast evidence considered did not offer any reasonable evidence to support such a claim.

A decade is an extraordinarily long time to wait for an official cause of death, but then Diana’s was an extraordinary life in so many ways. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised then that it has taken so long to resolve these issues.

But I never would have imagined that weekend morning in August of 1997, when I was the first network anchor to announce the death of Diana while anchoring the Weekend Today Show, that questions about her death would still exist more than ten years later. It is time to finally allow Diana’s soul to rest in peace. Hopefully, this inquest jury will now write the final chapter of Diana’s life.

– Jack Ford, In Session anchor