by David Wayne
Sgt. Clemmons always maintained the belief that Marilyn’s death was a Homicide and that a cover-up hid the true facts of her murder.
SIGN OF FORCED ENTRY
An often overlooked fact is that the window of Marilyn’s bedroom (the one that did not have “anti-burglar” bars on it) was forcibly broken. A basic fact of crime scene investigation is that a broken window is always classified as inconsistent with suicide. That’s because a broken window—especially in the room where the decedent is found—is a clear and precise indication of a possible forced entry. That may very well be why the broken window became part of the cover story during the many long hours prior to the time When police were finally called—the fact that there was a broken window had to be accounted for. So, Dr. Greenson made up a story (or was told to), which we now know to be false.
He told police that the door to Marilyn’s bedroom was locked. We now know that is not true because the housekeeper finally admitted that Marilyn almost never locked her bedroom door and that, indeed, she had not locked it on her final night. Even so, by saying that it was locked made it feasible for Dr. Greenson to have broken the window in order to get in and try to help Marilyn. We know that the window was not broken during the day or evening hours because Mrs. Murray, the housekeeper and support worker caring for Marilyn, made no effort to address a broken window. She certainly would not have let the world’s most famous movie star go to bed with an unprotected window—she was charged with Marilyn’s care by her psychiatrist and was very attentive and industrious in that regard (and did, in fact, immediately address the issue of the broken window at the moment that she knew of it, even in the very difficult early morning hours, by calling her son- in-law to come over and repair it). Therefore, the window was apparently broken close to the time of Marilyn’s death.
The locked filing cabinet in which Marilyn kept her most important personal papers, which was located in her guest cottage, was also forcibly broken into on the night that she died.
SIGNS OF A STRUGGLE: Many fresh bruises were noted on the victim’s body, especially a very large bruise on the lower left side of her back. The medical examiner later stated that the large bruise was clearly a “sign of violence” that should have been investigated as such. Also noted were bruises on her arms and on the backs of both legs. Autopsy report reads “The colon shows marked congestion and purplish discoloration;” which the head of the medical/ legal section at the District Attorney’s office considered the “smoking gun,” indicating homicide.
VICTIM DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO DRUGS THAT KILLED HER: Marilyn was being successfully “weaned” off of Nem- butal by her two doctors—who were working together, gradually reducing both her reliance upon and her access to the drug; so she was taking much less of a dosage. The prescriptions filled during the last five weeks of Marilyn’s life are almost completely accounted for. The only Nembutal that Marilyn had even possible access to was a prescription on August 3, 1962 for twenty-five capsules. Yet, the autopsy revealed a massive overdose, many times more than the amount to which she had access.
Her clear lack of access is further evidenced by the fact that, on her final day, her psychiatrist— after a two hour Saturday afternoon session at Marilyn’s home— telephoned Marilyn’s doctor to ask if he could come over and give her something to help her sleep because she had had a tough day (her doctor was unable to comply). Upon leaving Marilyn’s home that evening, Marilyn’s psychiatrist was professionally confident that Marilyn had calmed down and would be fine and, as a failsafe, even asked the housekeeper (who watched over Marilyn and reported directly to her psychiatrist) to spend the night at Marilyn’s home, just to keep an eye on her.
The lack of access is further evidenced by the fact that Marilyn called Dr. Greenson later in the evening to relay some good news, and she used that occasion to ask him if he had taken her Nembutal prescription. Dr. Greenson answered that no, he had not—but he was therefore cognizant of the fact, and relieved, that Marilyn had no access to any Nembutal. It is further confirmed via the testimony from a friend who stated that Marilyn telephoned her between 9:00 and 9:30 PM, told her she was having trouble getting to sleep and asked her if she had any sleeping pills that she might be able to bring over to Marilyn (the friend was unable to comply). Minutes later, Marilyn was dead.
METHOD OF DEATH: The only way that the massive amount of drugs could have entered Marilyn’s body was anally. (Forensic experts ruled out all other possibilities.) Combined with her bruises and, especially her bruised colon, this is a clear indicator of possible murder. The chief of the Medical/ Legal Division for the D.A. later stated: “That autopsy, Dr. Noguchi and I saw a considerable area of the sigmoid colon, which is the lower portion of the large intestine, which was congested and dark purplish in color. This is totally anomalous. I’ve seen many other autopsies of barbiturate deaths and I have never seen that phenomenon.”
INDICATIONS OF RAPID DEATH: Rapid death is a sign of possible murder because it is inconsistent with a typical overdose. In a typical drug suicide, the victim succumbs slowly and usually vomits and experiences muscle contortions as their body attempts to expel the toxic substance. There were no signs of these typical reflex actions at Marilyn’s death scene. Instead, the body lay perfectly straight with no mess from vomiting or gagging.
It was a known fact among her friends that Marilyn had difficulty swallowing pills and often gagged when taking only one. To posit that she swallowed scores of capsules without gagging or vomiting is simply not believable.
The victim also displayed cyanosis (bluish discoloration of the extremities) and still had stool in her colon.
Cyanosis is the deep blue-purplish discoloration to the skin, gums, fingers, or mucous membranes that occurs from a sudden and overall lack of oxygen in the blood. An overall lack of oxygen is usually the result of a trauma, such as strangulation, choking, suffocation, or drowning. A heart attack or blood clot can cause cyanosis because they also quickly cut off the oxygen supply.
When present in a drug overdose, cyanosis can be an indication of a massive amount of drugs introduced rapidly into the victim’s body. For example, a heroin addict who ODs by injecting an inordinately strong dose of heroin would be likely to have cyanosis.
In Marilyn’s case, we know that she did not suffer from the most common medical causes of cyanosis, i.e., she did not suffer a heart attack, severe blood clot, cyanide poisoning, severe lung disease, pulmonary embolism, or cyanotic heart disease; nor did she suffer a trauma that cut off her breathing— the autopsy would have revealed that. So, her cyanosis was quite possibly caused by a massive amount of drugs entering her system in a rapid manner.
The fact that she still had stool in her colon is another indication of rapid death: Had she been conscious when a deadly amount of drugs entered her anally, the logical reaction is to intentionally evacuate the bowel in order to expel the lethal enema content.
The significance of the rapidity of death did not go unnoticed by the Medical Examiner. As Dr. Noguchi later noted:
No one has been able to
explain why Marilyn “was
laughing happily” on the
telephone “and dying only
thirty minutes later.”
ABSENCE OF SUICIDE NOTE: Marilyn was a dramatic person. If she had actually planned to commit suicide, it is very surprising that she would not leave a note.
VICTIM WAS NOT DEPRESSED: Marilyn’s last phone calls and other conversations on her final day provide a verifiable record of her not being in a suicidal frame of mind. Moments prior to closing her bedroom door for the final time, she was bubbling with so much laughter that it literally made her housekeeper smile at the fact of so much happiness in the home.
SIGNS THAT BODY WAS MOVED POST-MORTEM: One thing is definitely for sure: Lividity never lies. Lividity (the bluish markings that result from the settling of blood after death) is “fixed” within four hours post-mortem. That means that during the period of the first four hours fol
lowing death—and only during that period—any movement of the body creates marks that will not go away. The lividity marks tell a very precise story of exactly how the body was moved during those four hours, and since Marilyn’s body was not officially moved prior to 6:00 AM (over eight hours post-mortem, which is too late for lividity), we, therefore, can be sure that no lividity markings were the result of transporting her body or any other officially known capacity. Marilyn had “primary” lividity (very pronounced markings) on the front of her head, neck, and upper chest. She also had “secondary” lividity on her back. Tertiary lividity (mild and general) also appears on the front side of her body. Therefore, there is clear evidence that she was actually moved twice. We know from that evidence that Marilyn died with her head down—in fact, the lividity is so pronounced that it indicates that she died with her head down and even hanging off the edge of the bed. The body was then moved twice. The lividity markings define precisely how and when the body was moved: At a point between approximately 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM, Marilyn’s body was turned from its original face-down death position and was placed flat on her back. Her body remained in that position, not for just a couple of minutes, or time for a “quick clean-up,” but for a substantial period of time. Her body was then turned back to its original death position of face-down upon her bed, as it was positioned at the time that the police arrived. And that’s nobody’s “theory” either—it’s hard forensic science from clear forensic facts.
SIGNS THAT DEATH SCENE WAS STAGED: The first officer on the scene— and an experienced Division Watch Commander, at that—flatly stated:
“It was the most obviously staged death scene I have ever seen.”
That is a pretty big red flag. All the witnesses were extremely evasive, their cover story had holes, the body had obviously been moved, and the room had most certainly been sanitized. It wasn’t that just a few things were a little bit off— everything was very noticeably false, and the officers’ interpretations clearly reflected that.
POLICE WERE NOT CALLED IMMEDIATELY: Police were not called for over six hours after the time that Marilyn’s entourage (her doctors, career managers, etc.) knew that she was dead. The six-hour gap is almost completely unaccounted for; plus the witnesses on the scene gave very feeble excuses. During that time period, it is known that a professional wire tapper came to Marilyn’s home and “swept it” of electronic bugs. All sensitive materials (such as things linking her to President Kennedy or Attorney General Robert Kennedy) were also removed from the home and the crime scene was clearly “sanitized,” and the housekeeper was already on her third load of laundry when police arrived at about 5:00 AM.
SIGNS OF AN OBVIOUS COVERUP:
•Federal agents immediately seized Marilyn’s telephone records in a move directed from very high in Washington;
•Marilyn’s housekeeper finally admitted that Attorney General Robert Kennedy had been at Marilyn’s home that day and that, after her death, “Robert Kennedy’s protectors” had to step in to shield him from political ruin. That protection apparently included everything from the seizure of records to “sweeping” her home clean of eavesdropping equipment in the pre-dawn hours;
•Police Department files, to this day, have still not been released. And a proper investigation of Marilyn’s death was never ordered or conducted;
•Key witnesses were never required to testify. One (the housekeeper) was allowed to immediately leave for an extended stay in Europe even though it was known that her story simply did not add up. Another, Peter Lawford, was “unavailable” to make a statement to police, until he finally availed himself and made a statement in 1973, eleven years later;
•A Grand Jury Foreman in 1985 stated his goal of re-opening the case of Marilyn’s death and requested the appointment of a special prosecutor, and, as he was holding the press conference to detail that, it was announced by a Superior Court Judge that he was replacing him with a new Grand Jury Foreman;
•The records of the suicide prevention team (which took statements from Marilyn’s friends and family regarding her state of mind) have, to this day, never been released;
•Even though “doctor-patient confidentiality” legally ends at death, Mar-ilyn’s psychiatric records and the tapes of her sessions, which are known to exist, have never been released;
•Even though it was known that tapes were made of the results of electronic eavesdropping at Marilyn’s home (by both the FBI and, independently by the Mafia), those tapes have never surfaced;
•Although TV programs like Unsolved History purport to be open- minded, it is apparent that they begin with the pre-formed conclusion that Marilyn’s death was intentional suicide. They distort the truth by asserting, for example, that the disorderliness of Marilyn’s bedroom and absence of photographs or other personal mementos were indicative of a severely depressed person who had decided days earlier to commit suicide. The actual truth of the matter, however, was that Marilyn was in the midst of redecorating her entire home and had saved her own room for last and that is why it looked the way it did. They also misrepresent the strong probability that the drugs were introduced via enema, by focusing only on the old-fashioned bag-and-hose type enema and how problematic it would have been, and not the simple bulb-type syringe enema, which would have been the type actually used. They also dra-matically reduced the estimate of drugs in Marilyn’s body by ignoring the drug content in the liver, rejecting the results of the two toxicologists attached to the autopsy, not figuring in the factor of absorption and assuming that Marilyn had the tolerance of a person who had never taken Nembutal before (when, in fact, her body was extremely tolerant to the drug).
The cover-up was effective because it succeeded in skewing perceptions to the point where crime scene inconsistencies were no longer obvious red flags:
A broken bedroom window was not viewed as it should have been: a sign of possible forced entry;
Severe fresh bruising was not viewed as it should have been: a sign of possible struggle;
Forced entry into Marilyn’s personal filing cabinet was inconsistent with a suicide scenario, but was obscured by the coverup.
VICTIM WAS CLOSE TO CRIMINAL ELEMENTS: The Chicago Mafia clearly played a major role in Marilyn’s career, and, to her final days, she maintained a close friendship with Sam Giancana, Don of the Chicago Mob (and the most powerful mobster in the country in 1962), as well as Johnny Roselli, Chicago’s top man in Hollywood.
VICTIM’S CRIMINAL FRIENDS HAD OBVIOUS MOTIVE: It has become apparent that the Mob had motive to kill Marilyn as a means of attempting to ruin the political career of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the Mob’s archenemy. It is known that Robert Kennedy visited Marilyn at her home on the day of her death, and it is also known that the two had a romantic affair. Especially in the context of 1962 America, that behavior was not publicly acceptable.
Source material for the above chart was derived primarily from the following:
Files of The Los Angeles Police Department; Coroner, Thomas T. Noguchi, M.D. & Joseph Dimona, 1983; The DD Group: Marilyn Monroe: An Online Investigation Into the Death of Marilyn Monroe, David Marshall, 2005; The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe, Donald H. Wolfe, 1998.; Goddess: The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, Anthony Summers, 1985; Marilyn: The Last Take, Peter Harry Brown & Patte B. Barham, 1992; Say Goodbye to the President (Documentary), Produced by George Carey & Christoper Olgiati, Directed by Christopher Olgiati, 1985; Unsolved History: Death of Marilyn Monroe (Documentary), 2003, Discovery Communications, Inc.
First and foremost, let’s examine the physical evidence, because it’s very revealing in this case. The autopsy was performed early on Sunday morning at about 10:30 AM (time of death was about twelve to thirteen hours earlier on Saturday night) by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Morgue. Thomas Noguchi was then a Deputy Medical Examiner and was charged with the study of Marilyn’s corpse. Deputy District Attorney John Miner was also present during the autopsy. Miner was head of the Los Angeles C
ounty District Attorney’s Medical-Legal Division and was a man at the very top of his field in medically-related law. In addition to being a prosecutor in L.A. for many years as Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County, Miner also co-founded the University of Southern California’s Institute of Psychiatry, Law and Behavioral Science in 1963.
The autopsy was supervised by Coroner Theodore Curphy, and others noted that it was the very first time that anyone could remember Coroner Curphy being present for an autopsy, let alone supervising one, as he ordinarily concerned himself with the running of the Coroner’s office.
Noguchi and Miner were aware of the reported circumstances: that Marilyn had died in a locked room, that her doctors believed she’d died from an ingestion of pills, and they had also studied the pill bottles themselves. It should also be noted that the autopsy confirmed that no stomach pump had been used to remove the contents of Marilyn’s stomach.
NO NEEDLE MARKS—FRESH BRUISING—MASSIVE OVERDOSE Marilyn’s body was first thoroughly examined for needle marks because they had been informed that it was a drug overdose, so that was considered a highly possible vehicle of entry into her body for the drugs. They did a full- body search, closely examining her entire body with a magnifying glass. They stated very clearly in the autopsy that their thorough examination concluded that Marilyn had no needle marks of any type, anywhere on her body. It has been posited by some writers that needle marks can quickly disappear, which is a good point. However, in the case of the massive and lethal amount of drugs in Marilyn’s body, the medical reality is that any injection, anywhere on her body, would have left very clear markings, simply as a result of the huge quantity of drugs involved. Dr. Noguchi specifically noted that the injection of any large quantity of barbiturates would have produced large swellings in the area of the injections, and both the puncture wounds and the swelling would have remained visible, because the healing process stops at death and death would have been rapid.
