During the 1982 district attorney’s investigation, twenty years after Marilyn Monroe’s death, the issue of her property was raised. “No property was recovered from the victim,” District Attorney John Van de Kamp insisted. The publicity-seeking district attorney, who went on to become California’s attorney general, made a concession. “The property report in our possession is a photocopy of the original,” he said, adding, “so it is impossible to state categorically that it has not been surreptitiously altered to reflect the failure to recover property.”
When Dr. Thomas Noguchi was interviewed by the district attorney during the 1982 investigation, he went on record saying, “I saw no such item [red diary] as part of the Monroe property.” From these two statements, we must wonder who is right. The district attorney said there was no property, Noguchi said there was [some] property.
Increasing public pressure fell upon local politicians. County supervisor Mike Antonovich was given the facts. Rather than a grand jury inquiry, on October 8, 1985, Antonovich called for an investigation into Marilyn’s death. His request was approved by all members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the same board that demoted Dr. Noguchi. The investigation was put in the hands of the new county district attorney, Ira Reiner. The ball was in his court, taking the heat off the Board of Supervisors. But, like his predecessor, the district attorney wanted no part of the investigation. Though he was ordered to investigate the facts and allegations surrounding Marilyn’s death, in defiance of the Board of Supervisors, Reiner proclaimed the probe was just a “review” and a “threshold investigation.”
In July 1985, Sam Cordova had been elected foreman of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury. The respected fifty-six-year-old businessman was selected as one of six members to serve on its investigation committee. Cordova accepted his appointment, leaving behind his profitable business endeavors.
The Los Angeles County’s Grand Jury investigation committee began its preliminary probe into Marilyn’s death. Cordova soon told the media that all committee members had signed an order calling for the first ever grand jury investigation into the actress’s demise. His announcement infuriated Ira Reiner.
The grand jury foreman suspected that Monroe had been murdered. His investigation might have caused the cover-up to fall apart. Before the media could learn of the grand jury’s intentions, judicial adviser and supervising criminal judge Robert Deuich, who had an excellent working relationship with Cordova, was advised of its decision.
October 28, 1985, was black Monday for Cordova. The honorable Judge Deuich terminated the grand jury foreman, a step never before taken in the history of Los Angeles County. Like the deputy coroner’s aide, Lionel Grandison, Sam Cordova would be removed from office and effectively gagged because he had questioned the “official” report of Marilyn’s death. Cordova’s dismissal, many consider, was at the direction of the district attorney. Immediately after Judge Deuich fired Cordova, the judge went on a two-week holiday to an undisclosed location, conveniently unavailable to answer any further questions.
Shortly before the eleven o’clock news on October 30, just two days after the grand jury foreman was fired, KABC, the Los Angeles ABC network station, broke in with a promotion. Anchorman Paul Moyer announced there would be a surprising new development about Marilyn Monroe’s death. As the late evening newscast unfolded, Dr. Thomas Noguchi was on camera. He had lived in America for thirty-three years, but his command of the English language was limited. This is an exact quote of the coroner’s televised statement: “She had a bruise in the back, or hip, that had never been fully explained. We did not look for corroborating evidence, and further I saved the specimens, but before we had the chance to study the stomach contents, the contents of the intestines specimen were no longer available.”
Moyer was overwhelmed and the medical examiner continued, [sic] “I wish we had the tissue, it might give an indication today that we have something to hide.”
The assigned reporter from San Diego, Paul Dandridge, asked a direct question, “Was Marilyn murdered?”
Noguchi responded, “Could be.”
A still defiant Ira Reiner responded on November 7, 1985, to Noguchi’s recent admission of possible foul play, the Board of Supervisors’ demands for another investigation, and to the recently dismissed foreman of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury: “For this office to approach the Criminal Justice Committee of the Grand Jury with a request for an investigation into the death of Ms. Monroe, we would first need to have sufficient cause to believe that a crime has been committed under the California Statute of Limitations. Murder, of course, is not barred by the statute of limitations; however, no evidence, new or old, has been brought to our attention which would support a reasonable belief or even a bare suspicion that Monroe was murdered.”
Ira Reiner backed out of a new probe into Monroe’s death, even though more evidence was presented and witnesses uncovered. “As public prosecutors we cannot support a Grand Jury investigation concerning matters of historical interest by artificially cloaking them in the guise of a criminal inquiry.” His response was not challenged by the county, but it is nevertheless questionable. The district attorney was not interested in newly exposed changes in the facts, which could act to implicate that office even further.
Throughout the years, the District Attorney’s Office has claimed there is no evidence of foul play in the death of Marilyn Monroe. On April 25, 1986, under the Freedom of Information Act, public release of the district attorney’s files was again demanded. Richard W Hecht, Director of the Bureau of Central Operations, under the direction of District Attorney Reiner, referred the request to his assistant director, Dan Murphy. For reasons unexplained, the District Attorney’s Office denied the request and refused to release its “investigation” file.
The time will come.
Chronology
• Marilyn Monroe was assassinated in Brentwood, California, August 4, 1962.
• John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, November 22, 1963.
• Robert F Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles June 5, 1968.
• Joseph P. Kennedy died November 18, 1969, from self-starvation six months after Mary Jo Kopechne drowned at Chappaquiddick.
• Phil Alderisio was murdered in prison in 1971.
• Sam “Momo” Giancana was murdered in Chicago, June 1975.
• Johnny Roselli was murdered in 1975.
• Jimmy Hoffa disappeared in 1975. His body was never found.
• Anthony Spilotro was murdered with his brother, Michael, in June 1986.
Epilogue
The last week in Marilyn Monroe’s life was fraught with the grim realization that many of her previous decisions hadn’t been good for her. Her priorities were changing. She valued more than ever the very special place in her heart and life for those few who had remained loyal, loving, and understanding, the ones who had loved her unconditionally. She was ready to understand the profound long-term love she had for Joe DiMaggio. And he was ready to understand the enduring love he had for her, despite the countless times his pride got in the way of his forgiveness. Ultimately, Marilyn Monroe had reached a place in her life where being true to herself and her feelings was more important than her career.
But the tide of her life’s decisions was impossible to turn. Destiny was in charge. Resolutions had been exhausted. Time had run out.
Authors’ Note
The massive private investigation into Marilyn’s death required us to penetrate an incredible maze of a cover-up that left few clues. Weeks turned into months, months to years. After two decades of intensified probing, Miss Monroe’s mysterious death was solved.
In 1962, Los Angeles Counties Suicide Squad conducted a cursory scrutiny of Marilyn’s final days. They concluded she took her own life. While our initial objective was to investigate the cause and origin of the actress’s demise, we were compelled to dig deep into her past. Your authors uncovered intimate secrets, skeletons in her closet, an
d previously undisclosed facts about the real Norma Jeane, alias Marilyn Monroe.
Crypt 33: The Saga of Marilyn Monroe goes beyond anything any Monroe biographer has ever written. For this reason, the subtitle The Final Word, has been included. We trust you will agree.
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