“It was more like a journal,” Rothmiller said. “The majority of the entries were notes about conversations Marilyn Monroe had with John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. The subject matter ranged from Russia and Cuba to the Mafia and Sinatra. I remember she referred to Castro as ‘Fidel C.’”
Norman Jefferies also verified the existence of the diary. He recalled that Marilyn kept her red diary either in her bedroom or locked in the file cabinet located in the guest cottage. Jefferies said that on the night she died, her file cabinet was broken into and many of the contents were removed. On Monday, August 6, Jefferies returned to the Monroe residence with Eunice Murray to open the house for Inez Melson, Marilyn’s former business manager and executrix of the estate. The driver for the coroner’s office arrived while they were waiting for Melson. Jefferies recalled that Murray had the red diary in her possession and gave it to the driver along with one of Marilyn’s address books. Jefferies couldn’t explain when or how Murray had obtained the diary. Though the diary offered Grandison no clue as to next of kin, he recalled that Bobby Kennedy’s name appeared frequently, as did comments about government figures and activities. Grandison remembered seeing the names of both Kennedy brothers, as well as comments about the CIA and the Mafia. He also recalled the names of Jimmy Hoffa, Fidel Castro, and Frank Sinatra. When he left the office that day, he locked the diary in the safe at the coroner’s office, but when he opened it the next day, the red diary was gone. According to Grandison only three others knew the combination to the safe: Phil Schwartzberg, the coroner’s administrative assistant; Richard Rathman, who was in charge of administration; and Coroner Curphey.
In the meantime, a peckish press was grabbing any tidbit of information regarding Marilyn’s last days. Dozens of people claimed they were the last person to speak to her by telephone. The police department received letters containing all sorts of wild allegations. One person “knew for a fact” that Joe DiMaggio had killed his ex-wife in a jealous rage. A stuffed animal she received on the day she died was supposedly connected to a “secret message” that drove her into suicidal despondency.
At a press conference held on Monday, August 6, Curphey revealed that “Marilyn Monroe definitely had not died from natural causes,” adding that she may have accidentally taken an overdose of sleeping pills. He announced that her death would be probed not only by the coroner’s office but by the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Team, the independent investigating unit of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, which had its offices on the campus of UCLA. This investigating team consisted of Dr. Robert Litman, a psychiatrist and professor at UCLA; Dr. Norman Farberow, a prominent psychologist; and Dr. Norman Tabachnick. The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner’s evening edition of August 6 referred to them as the “Suicide Squad.” Normally, coroner’s investigations are conducted by official investigators and the information gathered becomes a matter of public record, but by appointing a private group working free of charge, Curphey made the inquiry an unofficial investigation. No one interviewed would be put under oath, and no interview would ever become a matter of public record. To this day nobody has ever read the full report of the Suicide Squad other than Curphey, who took the findings to his grave. There is no record that the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Team ever participated in a coroner’s office verdict before or after Case #81128.
Litman, Farberow, and Tabachnick were all associates of Greenson, either as faculty of UCLA, as members and lecturers at the Psychoanalytic Institute, or as fellow committee members at the American Civil Liberties Union. Shortly after the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Team was recruited, it received a sizable grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, under a government welfare program initiated by Robert Kennedy and administered by his intimate friend of many years, David Hackett.
On Monday, August 6, the Suicide Prevention Team, headed by Farberow, held a press conference and announced that they would hold “exhaustive interviews regarding the probable suicide of Marilyn Monroe.” On Tuesday, they held another press conference, during which Farberow and Litman announced, “We’re interviewing anybody and everybody.” Responding to reporters’ questions, Farberow stated, “We will seek out all persons with whom Marilyn had recently been associated.” On Wednesday, another press conference was held, and Farberow assured the media that there would be “no limitations” to the scope of the inquiry, and that the team would “go as far back in her life as necessary.” Yet another hurried press conference was held on August 14. The Suicide Squad had been on the job for scarcely a week, a week largely spent organizing press conferences, and Farberow announced that the Suicide Prevention Team had concluded that Marilyn Monroe was “an emotionally disturbed person who suffered from deep inner conflicts,” and their investigation supported the suicide theory.
Because the team’s files have never been available to the public, there is no record of who they interviewed or what was discovered, but subsequent investigations have revealed a long list of close friends and associates who were not interviewed, among them Peter Lawford, Pat Newcomb, Eunice Murray, Arthur Miller, Joe DiMaggio, Robert Slatzer, Paula Strasberg, Natasha Lytess, Frank Sinatra, and Norman Rosten. The Suicide Prevention Team readily admitted that they had not interviewed John or Robert Kennedy.
Today we know the name of only one person who was interviewed—the most important person of all, Dr. Ralph Greenson. As Marilyn’s psychiatrist, he presumably knew more about her state of mind than anyone else. She had been his patient for over two years and had visited him practically every day, often twice a day, during the last two months of her life. Greenson was greatly distressed by his patient’s death, and he was reluctant to give interviews. However, in order to complete the informal investigation, Curphey knew he had to interview the victim’s psychiatrist. Although John Miner was an attorney, he also held a degree in psychology and lectured at the prestigious Psychoanalytic Institute along with Greenson. They had been friends and associates for many years, and Miner became the logical person to conduct the interview. Miner recalled, “I knew Dr. Greenson personally. Dr. Curphey knew that, and so he asked me to interview Dr. Greenson.”
Curphey and Miner expected Greenson to reiterate his opinion that Marilyn Monroe had committed suicide, but Miner was amazed to find that Greenson had totally reversed his opinion. The interview took place on Monday, August 12, 1962, at Greenson’s office. Greenson imposed a condition: “A promise was exacted by Dr. Greenson,” Miner explained. “I would not reveal the content of anything I learned. He imposed this condition by reason of his professional ethics and consideration for Miss Monroe’s privacy. I gave him my word that I would not.” However, it was understood that Miner was free to arrive at conclusions and report his opinion as long as he didn’t reveal the content of their meeting.
According to Miner, they met for several hours, during which Greenson discussed “not only Marilyn’s habits, but also the private confidences she shared with her psychiatrist.” Greenson expressed his firm opinion that Marilyn Monroe had not committed suicide. Then he played a half-hour tape that Marilyn had made at her home on her own tape recorder. The contents of this tape also led Miner to conclude she had not committed suicide.
Miner later recalled, “Dr. Greenson was very strongly of the opinion that Miss Monroe did not commit suicide. He was very much distressed by her death. The notion that she committed suicide added to that distress, because he firmly felt that she did not commit suicide—very much so, very much so. That I can state. He did not bar me from saying that.”
Of all the circumstances, contradictions, and puzzles regarding the death of Marilyn Monroe, perhaps this Greenson interview is the most mind-boggling. It poses two unalterable questions: Why did Greenson reverse his opinion, and what was on the tape played for John Miner?
Without ever having testified under oath about his knowledge of Marilyn Monroe’s death, Greenson died in 1979.
Miner stated, “I gave my word to the man and he’s dead. So I don’t
expect ever to reveal it. It’s possible that a judge could order me to reveal it and put me in jail for contempt of court if I refused. I hope I never have to cross that bridge.”
After the interview, Miner left Greenson’s office a shaken man. He too became convinced that Marilyn Monroe had not committed suicide, and he filed his opinion in a memorandum to the district attorney as well as the coroner’s office.
When investigative journalist Anthony Summers asked about the contents of the memorandum, Miner recalled that it stated: “As requested by you, I have been to see Dr. Greenson to discuss the death of his late patient Marilyn Monroe. We discussed this matter for a period of hours, and as a result of what Dr. Greenson told me, and from what I heard on tape recordings, I believe I can say definitely that it was not a suicide.”
When Summers asked if Greenson thought Marilyn Monroe was murdered, Miner made the significant response, “That is something on which I cannot respond.”
When Noguchi learned about Miner’s memorandum, he stated, “If Miner’s evaluation in 1962 was correct, the only conceivable cause of Monroe’s death was murder.” Noguchi ruled out an accidental overdose, stating that “an accidental overdose of that magnitude was extremely unlikely. From my forensic experience with suicide victims, I believe that the sheer number of pills Monroe ingested was too many to swallow ‘accidentally.’”
The memorandum shocked Coroner Curphey. Two of the most important people in arriving at a probable-suicide verdict were Greenson and Miner, and both had changed their opinion. At this point Curphey should have called for a formal inquest and put witnesses under oath. Instead, he chose to suppress information, and Miner’s memorandum soon vanished from the files. Curphey called Grandison into his office and asked him to sign the death certificate, which indicated the cause of death as “probable suicide.”
Grandison said, “The standard procedure when we were about to close a case was that all the reports, charts, and other paperwork on the case were there in the file. It would contain the conclusions drawn by the pathologist, the determination of the police, and whatever other agencies made any type of investigation of the case. This file had none of that information in it.” Before signing the death certificate Grandison recalled, “I asked Dr. Curphey about the missing paperwork…. This was maybe the third or fourth time I had called the missing items to his attention.” Grandison also noted that the autopsy report had been altered. “I had seen the initial autopsy report, and this wasn’t the same report. The report had been completely changed.” When Grandison asked about this, Curphey lost his temper. “He got very angry,” Grandison vividly remembered. “He said, ‘Listen, you sign the death certificate…or else I’m gonna do something!’”
At the time Grandison was a young man with a wife and children, and he believed he would lose his job if he didn’t follow Curphey’s orders. Reluctantly, he signed the death certificate.
On August 21, 1962, Curphey and the Suicide Prevention Team called a joint press conference to announce the final findings of the “exhaustive investigation” that had lasted a full fifteen days. Farberow announced that Monroe had “suffered from psychiatric disturbances for a long time. She experienced severe fears and frequent depressions; mood changes were abrupt and unpredictable…. In our investigation we have learned that Miss Monroe had often expressed wishes to give up, to withdraw, and even to die. On more than one occasion in the past, when despondent or depressed, she had made a suicide attempt using sedative drugs. On these occasions she had called for help and had been rescued. From the information collected about the events of the evening of August 4, it is our opinion that the same pattern was repeated, except for the rescue…. On the basis of all the information collected, it is our opinion that her death was a suicide.”
Curphey then stepped forward to announce the coroner’s verdict: “Probable suicide.”
The final verdict, however, has been languishing for over three decades on a dusty shelf in the subcellars of the Los Angeles Hall of Records. The true verdict as to what happened to Marilyn Monroe on August 4, 1962, has always been contained in R. J. Abernethy’s toxicology report.
As limited as the report was in 1962, computerized information banks available to the world of forensic medicine in the 1990s allow an analysis of the original report that yields definitive answers to the unanswered questions of decades ago. Abernethy’s report clearly states that the blood sample contained 4.5 milligrams (mg) percent barbiturates and 8.0 mg percent chloral hydrate. Computer analysis reveals that Case #81128 had to have swallowed from twenty-seven to forty-two Nembutal capsules (pentobarbital) to reach a blood level of 4.5 mg percent. In addition, she had to have consumed from fourteen to twenty-three chloral hydrate tablets to reach a blood level of 8.0 mg percent. The percentages in the blood, therefore, revealed that a total of from forty-one to sixty-five capsules and tablets had to have been ingested. However, this does not include the 13.0 mg percent pentobarbital that Abernathy’s report indicates was also discovered in the liver. Computer analysis reveals that an additional eleven to twenty-four Nembutal capsules had to have been consumed to account for the liver concentration. Therefore, a minimum of fifty-two to a maximum of eighty-nine capsules had to have been consumed for Case #81128, to succumb from the oral ingestion of the lethal dosage. However, in the thousands of fatal cases involving acute barbiturate poisoning due to the ingestion of an overdose, not one case involves the ingestion of over twelve capsules in which no residue has been found in the digestive tract. No case has ever been reported in which the victim has as high as 4.5 mg percent pentobarbital and 8.0 percent chloral hydrate in the blood and no refractile crystals or concentrations found in the stomach or intestinal tract. Yet Noguchi was unable to find capsule residue or any trace of refractile crystals or concentrations of the barbiturates in Monroe’s stomach or intestines.
Table 1 illustrates that Marilyn Monroe was on the high end of the mg percentage in the blood. Only Case #4 and Case #1 indicate slightly higher percentages in the blood. (All of the cases indicate stomach concentrations.) However, Monroe also had a high concentration of chloral hydrate, which is synergistic with pentobarbital and greatly increases its lethal effect. The combined dosage was sufficient to kill from nine to twenty people.
TABLE 1. Tissue Concentrations from Fatal Cases Involving Pentobarbital
Prepared by toxicologist Robert H. Cravey
Case number
Age
Sex
Estimated dose, gm
Dose by weight, mg/kg
Blood, mg/100 ml
Liver, mg/100 gm
Stomach,* mg
1
69
F
6
75
4.7
18.7
130
2
70
F
5
71
3.6
16.0
126
3
43
F
5
45
4.2
22.2
361
4
67
F
3
60
5.0
31.0
108
5
25
F
4
57
4.0
12.0
12
6
42
M
10
101
1.5
42.0
1350
7
26
F
3
60
4.4
26.0
301
8
21
F
3
51
2.3
7.0
40
9
38
F
2
36
&n
bsp; 1.0
7.5
65
10
54
F
4
83
4.1
19.6
370
11
72
M
5.6
65
1.8
13.5
2300
The information banks of forensic medicine further establish that there is no case on record of a fatal dose by oral ingestion involving such high concentrations in the blood of both pentobarbital and chloral hydrate. The victim inevitably dies before the fatal concentrations can approach such a high blood level. Monroe would have been dead before even 35 percent of the total barbiturates had been absorbed from the digestive tract into her bloodstream. It is not possible for the remaining 65 percent to have been absorbed from the digestive tract and to vanish without a trace, because when the heart stops beating, the blood stops circulating, and the bodily functions shut down, absorption from the digestive tract into the bloodstream abruptly ceases. The remaining pentobarbital and chloral hydrate could not have entered the bloodstream by ingestion, suppository, enema infusion, or any other absorption process.
How then was the fatal dose administered? It could only have been by needle injection, or what is termed a “hot shot,” in which the victim rapidly looses consciousness and succumbs in a matter of ten to twenty minutes.
Sergeant Jack Clemmons was correct that Sunday morning, August 5, 1962, when he returned to division headquarters with the conviction that something was very wrong. Marilyn Monroe did not commit suicide. Technology of the modern world of forensic medicine gives the final verdict—Case #81128 was a homicide victim.
6
The Disconnected
You know who I’ve always depended on? Not strangers, not friends—the telephone! That’s my best friend. I seldom write letters, but I love calling friends, especially late at night, when I can’t sleep.
The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe Page 5
