Marilyn Monroe

by Donald Spoto

  The first flaw in the story was the idea that light shone under the door: new, deep-pile white carpeting had recently been installed in Marilyn’s bedroom, so thick that for two weeks it had prevented the door from being fully closed, which it could not be until a slightly pressed arc was worn into the carpet. No light could be seen beneath the door. Confronted with this later, Eunice quickly amended her account to say that she became alarmed when she noticed the telephone cord leading under the door.

  But there were even more serious problems.

  For one thing, there was never an operating lock on Monroe’s door, a fact Murray conceded years later in written correspondence. On February 9, 1987, archivist and genealogist Roy Turner wrote to Eunice (whom he had befriended), asking, “Was Marilyn’s door locked when you found her?” She replied in one handwritten word following his question: “No.” This would have been entirely true, for Marilyn never locked her bedroom door; leaving the door unlocked had been a lifelong habit, especially reinforced since the Payne Whitney experience. “She didn’t lock doors,” Pat said years later. “I never thought about that, but it’s true.” Ralph Roberts and Rupert Allan concurred.8

  Moreover, the idea that Eunice parted the draperies of Marilyn’s bedroom window with a fireplace poker and found the actress, sprawled dead across her bed, is impossible to accept. The window coverings were not draperies but the heavy blackout fabric from Doheny Drive, nailed across the casement and beyond both sides of the window by Ralph Roberts soon after Marilyn moved in. Disturbed by the slightest light when trying to sleep, Monroe had them installed in one piece: there was no part in the middle for Eunice to push aside even if the windows had been open.

  The question of timing also proved troublesome for Eunice. When she was interviewed by Sergeant Jack Clemmons, the first police officer arriving on the scene at four-thirty-five on the morning of August 5, Eunice said she had called Greenson to the house at about midnight. But soon she must have realized the problems this would cause, for Greenson had not called the police until four and a half hours later. And so, by the time a detective interviewed her later that Sunday morning, she changed the time of her call to Greenson to three. The summons at about midnight would, however, have been consistent with the news reported to Lawford by Ebbins, that Rudin and Greenson were at the house before one-thirty, and that Marilyn was already dead.

  Greenson told the police the same story as Murray, but his version never changed because he agreed to be interviewed but rarely, never wrote a memoir and was never challenged. The failure in both versions to mention the presence of Milton Rudin further damages the credibility of Greenson’s account.

  The weakness of this official version effected many results, not least among them a series of fantastic conspiracy theories, the inventions of nefarious plots and counterplots, government-inspired murder and so on. The problem is obvious for any theory involving the FBI, the CIA, organized or disorganized crime, the Kennedys or Kennedy cronies: there is simply no concrete evidence to support any such claim.9

  The psychiatrist and the housekeeper always neatly escaped scrutiny themselves—he because of his accomplishments, prestigious position and canny retreat behind the curtain of professional confidence, and she by virtue of a brilliantly calculated public image, reinforced via print and television interviews, as a dear little old lady.

  But as their individual histories and their actions that final evening revealed, and as the medical record would soon confirm, it was these two alone who had something to hide.

  1. In a desperate move to save the picture, Fox had decided to replace Cukor.

  2. See FBI File # 77-51387-293, dated August 6, 1962 and registered August 21, 1962.

  3. The Naars and the Ebbinses eventually withdrew, too, after Lawford told them Marilyn, Marlon Brando and Wally Cox—the original trio invited—had all begged off.

  4. Italics are the author’s.

  5. Italics are the author’s.

  6. Joe DiMaggio, Jr., was able to fix the time of his conversation. In his subsequent police interview, he said that Marilyn picked up the phone while he was watching on television the seventh inning of a baseball game: the Baltimore Orioles against the Anaheim Angels, being played in Baltimore that Saturday evening. The game began just after seven-thirty Eastern Daylight Time, which would have put the seventh inning at about ten o’clock (or seven o’clock Pacific Daylight Time).

  7. However, he heeded the advice to stay away. As both his maid Erma Lee Riley and his friend George Durgom insisted, Lawford never left his home that night.

  8. Between March 15 and June 30, according to their invoice #7451, the A-1 Lock & Safe Company of 3114 Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica, installed only two locks in the house: a cabinet lock for Cherie Redmond’s files, and a replacement lock for the front door of the house. Additional locks were not installed until August 15 and 21, after Marilyn’s death (A-1 invoice #7452).

  9. For a detailed treatment of the alternates proposed for the death of Marilyn Monroe, see the Afterword.

  Chapter Twenty - three

  AUGUST 5, 1962

  IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of August 5, Sergeant Jack Clemmons was serving as acting watch commander, replacing an off-duty lieutenant normally in charge at the West Los Angeles station of the Los Angeles Police Department. At four twenty-five, his desk telephone rang and a caller said simply, “Marilyn Monroe is dead, she committed suicide.” Because this was a quiet night at the station, Clemmons decided to investigate the matter personally.

  Arriving at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive about ten minutes later, Clemmons was led into Marilyn’s bedroom, where he found her lying nude, prone and lifeless, with a sheet pulled over her body. In the room were Greenson and Engelberg; by this time, Milton Rudin had departed. Clemmons then observed (and later wondered about the fact) that Eunice was busy operating the washing machine at the time of his arrival.

  According to the sergeant, Eunice then offered him a sketchy account of the night’s events, including the fact that she had discovered Marilyn’s body “at midnight.” Clemmons asked immediately why it had taken so long for police to be notified, and at once Greenson replied that the doctors “had to get permission from the publicity department at the studio before we could notify anyone”—an absurdity as stated, but at the same time a possible allusion to the earlier presence of Arthur Jacobs.

  By this time, word of this tragic case was quickly circulating as newspapers and wire services monitored police radio frequencies; within minutes, more policemen began to arrive on the scene—among them were Officer Marvin Iannone (later chief of police in Beverly Hills) and Detective Sergeant Robert E. Byron, who assumed control of the case and who proceeded to question Greenson, Engelberg and Murray. At this point, Eunice changed the time of her discovery of Marilyn’s body to about three o’clock.

  Like Clemmons before him, Byron was unimpressed with the statements he was able to elicit, especially those of Eunice: “It is officer’s opinion that Mrs. Murray was vague and possibly evasive in answering questions pertaining to the activities of Miss Monroe during this time,” he noted in his official report.

  Another officer who responded to the scene before dawn that Sunday morning was Don Marshall, a plainclothesman also in the West Los Angeles division. Marshall arrived to find Clemmons still in charge of the scene, and he was assigned to “take a look around and see if Monroe had left a suicide note.” Marshall spent the next several hours carefully examining any and all papers he could find in the house.

  Near the bed was an English-language telegram from Paris, offering Marilyn an opportunity to appear in a one-woman show, but otherwise Marshall’s thorough search satisfied him there was indeed no suicide note. He remained on duty at Fifth Helena throughout the day, during which he questioned Marilyn’s neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Abe Landau, who lived at 316 South Carmelina, only a few yards away at the corner of Fifth Helena Drive. The Landaus, reported Marshall, assured him they had heard no disturbance the night
before, and that in fact Miss Monroe had been “a very good neighbor.”

  At this point, the level of activity increased, as Pat Newcomb had joined the gathering crowd that now included Greenson, Engelberg, several police officers and Milton Rudin, who by now had returned to the scene. Pat remained at the house for about two hours before returning home to cope with a stream of calls from the press worldwide. Then, shortly after five-thirty, Marilyn Monroe’s remains were covered with a pink woolen blanket, strapped onto a steel gurney, trundled out the driveway and loaded into a battered Ford panel truck for an interim stop at the Westwood Village Mortuary—exactly why is unclear, for the circumstances of death required an autopsy, which could only be done downtown, at the office of the coroner. Most likely, this hiatus occurred until Rudin, as Marilyn’s attorney, had the opportunity to contact Inez Melson, her business manager and the conservator of Gladys’s affairs, and Joe DiMaggio, who Rudin rightly foresaw would best manage the funeral details.

  Just after eight o’clock that Sunday morning, August 5, the remains were at the City Morgue. At ten-thirty, deputy coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, on weekend duty, completed the autopsy.

  Back at Fifth Helena, the police remained in charge. Later, there were ridiculous reports that Fox executives had ordered the “burning [of] a pile of documents in the huge Mexican fireplace.” There were also rumors that “the locks on Monroe’s metal filing cabinet had been smashed with a crowbar and the drawers rifled” in order to remove documents compromising the security of the United States government. This is all utter nonsense, according to Officer Don Marshall, who was present all day: “Nobody was destroying anything.”1

  There was, however, some repair in progress. Eunice telephoned her son-in-law Norman Jeffries, asking him to replace the small pane of glass Ralph Greenson had supposedly shattered with the fireplace poker; this would prevent any disturbance to the interior of the house once the property was legally sealed off by police late Sunday night. With that and her laundry done, Eunice finally departed Fifth Helena Drive—one day beyond her scheduled date. She had left Marilyn Monroe’s home in very tidy condition indeed.

  Miles away, another kind of care was being taken by Thomas Noguchi as he performed the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe. With him was a brilliant observer who would also be crucial toward an understanding of Marilyn’s death.

  In 1962, John Miner was deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County and chief of its Medical Legal Section; as such, he was also liaison officer to the chief medical examiner–coroner’s office. Miner also taught forensic psychiatry at the University of Southern California and was particularly respected for his legal and medical expertise assessing suicides and deaths judged possible suicides. During his tenure as liaison officer to the coroner, Miner attended the postmortem examination for every death reported as unnatural, which numbered over five thousand autopsies. That year, the medical examiner—coroner of Los Angeles County was Dr. Theodore Curphey, who appointed Dr. Thomas Noguchi, deputy medical examiner, to perform the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe.

  The preliminary report from the Office of the County Coroner, dated and signed by Noguchi at ten-thirty on Sunday morning, is contained in File Number 81128 in the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Mortuary, Hall of Justice, City of Los Angeles. The first supplement, a report of chemical analysis of the blood and liver, was dated and signed by R. J. Abernethy, Head Toxicologist, at eight o’clock on the morning of August 13 (file Number 81128-I). Subsequently, on August 10, Curphey’s preliminary judgment was that death occurred because of a “possible overdose of barbiturates.” On August 17, this was amended to be a “probable suicide,” and on August 27, Curphey made his final statement still more forcefully, as “acute barbiturate poisoning—ingestion of overdose.”

  This decision was based on the major chemical findings of toxological analyses, which seemed clear and unambiguous.

  First, there were no external signs of violence. Second, there was in the blood a count of eight milligrams of chloral hydrate and four and a half milligrams of Nembutal—but in the liver there was a count of thirteen milligrams, a much higher concentration of Nembutal. These figures are crucial toward a comprehension of how she died.

  On her bedside table, police had found full and partly full bottles of several drugs, among them antihistamines and medications for her sinusitis. There were also an empty bottle that had contained twenty-five 100-milligram Nembutal capsules, a prescription dated August 3, 1962, on authorization of Dr. Hyman Engelberg; and ten capsules remaining from an original bottle of fifty 500-milligram chloral hydrate capsules, a prescription dated July 25 and refilled on July 31 on authorization of Dr. Ralph Greenson.

  This was important information for the Suicide Prevention Team, convened at the coroner’s request to come up with a psychological profile of the deceased at the time of death and thus the likelihood of suicide. “It was obvious to us, after speaking with Dr. Greenson about Marilyn’s psychiatric history,” said Dr. Robert Litman, a member of the team, “that the only conclusion we could reach was suicide, or at least a gamble with death.” But Litman and his colleagues did not believe that Marilyn took her life deliberately: “Since our studies from 1960, we have found no authenticated case where barbiturates were involved that a person was so drugged he didn’t know what he was doing.”

  And yet Litman and his colleagues submitted a verdict of suicide because that had been Curphey’s initial judgment, because they had consulted only their colleague Greenson and because, as the Suicide Prevention Team, they pursued and rightly dismissed other options. She was neither psychotic nor, as Dr. Norman Farberow, another member of the team, added significantly, “an addict among addicts, and she had no physical dependency on drugs. Her intake could be considered light to medium. And she was certainly not mentally unbalanced so far as I could determine.” Besides, as Litman said, “We wanted to get this over with, to come to a decision, close the case, issue a death certificate and move on. But of course, that turned out to be a misplaced hope. Nobody ever moved on.”

  Thomas Noguchi, John Miner and at least three other highly respected forensic pathologists reached a quite different conclusion from that of Curphey and the Suicide Prevention Team.2

  “I did not think she committed suicide,” said John Miner thirty years later. “And after interviewing Dr. Greenson I was even more convinced that Miss Monroe did not commit suicide. In fact, he did not believe it himself.”

  Miner’s medical reasons for disbelieving the suicide verdict were supported by his interview with Greenson, from whom he learned that Marilyn was not only making plans for the future but that “she felt that she had put everything bad behind her and could now go forward with her life.”

  A systematic review of the postmortem chemical analyses provides the final crucial step from John Miner’s informed intuition to positive conclusions about Marilyn Monroe’s death. Whatever drugs caused it could only have been introduced into the body in one of three ways: by mouth, by injection, or by enema.

  Marilyn could not have died by oral ingestion of capsules for several reasons.

  First, the ratio of Nembutal found in the blood compared to that in the liver suggested to any competent forensic pathologist that Marilyn lived for many hours after ingestion of that drug. There was also “not a large reservoir left in the stomach or gastrointestinal tract to be drawing from”; in fact, as Noguchi’s report stated, there was no trace of drugs in the stomach or in the duodenum, where absorption occurs. This means that while Marilyn was alive and mobile, throughout the day, the process of metabolizing the Nembutal she had taken had already reached the stage where much of the toxic material had reached the liver and was beginning the process of excretion. “The barbiturates were absorbed over a period not of minutes but hours,” according to John Miner, “precisely as is indicated by the high concentration in the liver.” This report is consistent with what is known of Marilyn’s activities earlier that day, and what Greenson himself called her “somewha
t drugged” condition.

  Second, suicide by deliberate Nembutal overdose would have been an action entirely inconsistent with everything in Marilyn Monroe’s life at the time—especially after the call from Joe DiMaggio, Jr., as reported by him and by both Murray and Greenson.

  Third, had she for some unknown reason suddenly decided to commit suicide, she would have taken a large dose at one time (not many capsules throughout the day, which she well knew how to ingest intermittently and at which dosages). The barbiturate would have reached a toxic level rapidly, and she would have died. But in that case, there would almost certainly be a residue of pills in the stomach: “Forty or fifty pills simply are not going to dissolve so quickly in the stomach,” as Dr. Arnold Abrams reported. “The odds that she took pills and died from them are astronomically unlikely.”

  The possibility of barbiturate injection must also be rejected. A dose large enough to be lethal, injected intramuscularly or intravenously, would have resulted in an instantaneous death and a much higher level of barbiturate in the blood. As the district attorney observed in his 1982 review of the case and specifically of these blood levels, “This leads to a reasonable conclusion that Miss Monroe had not suffered a ‘hot shot’ or needle injection of a lethal dose.” Such a massive injection would also have left a swelling and bruise, the gradual disappearance of which would have ceased with death. But “every inch of her body was inspected with magnifying glasses,” according to Miner (thus, too, Noguchi), “and there was simply no needle mark.”