 |
| Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell at the Chinese Theater |
Marilyn Monroe is an American icon who was known for her
movies, modeling, dubious love life and frequently imitated good looks. She is
perhaps the most famous Hollywood sex symbol of all time. Adding to her allure
in another way is the manner of her death. It is steeped in drug addiction,
depression, suicide attempts, high profile affairs and obvious cover-ups.
To delve into the particulars of Marilyn Monroe's life, we
would need to pen a book. Even her death is book-worthy, as evidenced by the
slew of books on the topic. Here, we will try to focus on key details,
particularly those that made her death something of a mystery. There will be
some conjecture from contemporaries, but later conjecture will be left out,
given that many modern accounts and theories are sensationalized or based
purely on circumstance. In other words, just because she might have slept with
someone, according to gossip columns, does not mean that someone killed her.
More on that later.
The death of Marilyn Monroe occurred some time in the late
night of August 4 or the early morning of August 5, 1962. The cause of death
was "acute barbiturate poisoning" (overdose) and was ruled a
"possible suicide." Accidental suicide cannot be ruled out, given the
reason for her death and the fact that she had overdosed numerous times before.
In fact, she had been resuscitated after overdosing on several occasions. There
is much debate over the time of death.
We know that Marilyn was on the phone at least from 7:00
p.m. to about 7:45 p.m. on the night of August 4, with an interval of 15
minutes between two phone calls. She spoke with her stepson, Joe DiMaggio, Jr.
and with actor Peter Lawford. Several people claim to have spoken with her, but
Peter was adamant that she ended the phone call on a weird note and that her
phone was busy from then on that night. Joe said she sounded chipper. Peter
said the opposite.
After Lawford spoke to Monroe, he made a few phone calls to
establish whether she was okay. Her lawyer–Mickey Rudin–instructed him to
stay away from the house in case she was using drugs. Lawford contacted the
maid on another line and asked her to check on Marilyn. She said that she did
and Marilyn was fine. At around 12:00 a.m., by the maid's initial testimony,
she finally became worried, and the bedroom door was locked (there was no
working lock on the door), so she called Marilyn's psychiatrist Ralph Greenson.
Again, according to their initial testimony, he found her body by breaking in
through her outside doors a little later.
Worth noting is that Marilyn Monroe's agent Arthur P. Jacobs
got a phone call from Rudin around 10:00 p.m., according to Jacobs' future
wife. She said that he was informed by Rudin that Marilyn died of an overdose.
This is long before the maid and the psychiatrist claim she died, even
according to their later testimony and that of doctors.
The police were not called until 4:30 a.m. Some witnesses
say Marilyn left in an ambulance earlier and came back. Other witnesses,
including neighbors, say none other than Bobby Kennedy arrived at her house in
the evening with two unidentified men. The only thing we know for sure is that
police were not called to the scene until early morning. Once there, they say
they found several strange details. Firstly, the bed was clean, which does not
line up with overdose. The maid was washing laundry. There was no cup in the
room, despite the fact that Marilyn was known to have difficulty swallowing
pills. A cup showed up later on the floor, but police insist it was not there when they first arrived.
Police initially put the time of death at around 12:30 a.m.
The coroner initially put the time of death as between 9:30 and 11:30 p.m. In
the morning, the maid began saying that she did not call Marilyn's psychiatrist
until 3:00 a.m. and then the doctors put the time of death at 3:50 a.m. to
suit. However, time of death was ascertained by the onset of rigor mortis. If
the police arrived mere minutes after the time of death, it would be unusual
for rigor mortis to have set in by then.
The pathology findings indicated that Marilyn Monroe had not
orally taken the medicine that killed her and that it was not injected, either.
There is a possibility that she took the medication orally throughout the day,
which would have made the intestinal evidence hard to read. However, she took
enough to kill 10 people. She would have been dead long before that time if she
had ingested it slowly. That leaves us with an enema of one or both of the
medications that killed her. It seems doubtful that she would have administered
it herself. Therefore, if that was the case, someone helped her with her
medication. It is entirely plausible that whoever did it kept quiet about it
for fear of murder charges. Of course, there is also the possibility that it
was murder, as conspiracy theorists would have you believe.
It is very possible that Marilyn's friends waited until she
was cleaned up before calling the police to spare their deceased friend's
dignity. Public relations were a major deal in Hollywood in those days and
Marilyn was a public relations sideshow. She was sleeping with everyone and
their brother, according to gossips. They liked to think she was chasing the president–the Happy Birthday, Mr. President performance only months earlier had not
helped. Is it possible she died far earlier than the maid and the psychiatrist
would admit? That would explain how Rudin seemed to know before anyone else.
This brings us back to Rudin. He called Lawford at 1:00 in the morning to tell
him Monroe was dead. Why did he wait so long if he knew at 10:00 when he called
her agent? The real mystery here seems to be Rudin's apparent psychic abilities
and the pick-a-number act doctors, the maid and the psychiatrist played with
the timeline. These mysteries cannot be solved with the available evidence.
Much of the evidence, including phone records and police
reports, has been lost or stolen. Some say the FBI files in the vault on the
actress indicated that the FBI encouraged her to kill herself to stop her from
speaking about her affair with Robert Kennedy, though it is a rough
interpretation of the somewhat illegible files. Witness testimony changed and
"expert" opinion changed throughout the years following her death and
even until now.
Sources
Bell, Rachael, Marilyn Monroe, retrieved 12/23/11,
trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/celebrity/marilyn_monroe
Peress, Robin, What causes rigor mortis?, retrieved
12/23/11,
http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/rigor-mortis-cause.htm
FBI Vault, Marilyn Monroe, retrieved 12/23/11,
http://vault.fbi.gov/Marilyn%20Monroe
No comments:
Post a Comment