Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (18 page)

In that context, the cover-up forced the hand of other investigative agencies. Evidence seemed to be disappearing much quicker than those investigating the crime could unearth it. Therefore, under the probable guise of “National Security,” the agencies with less clout were apparently placed in a position in which they were forced to play ball, succumbing to the efficiently wielded bureaucratic power coming from higher up.

“Summers notes the DA’s office no longer possesses the reports on Monroe and RFK filed years ago by one of its own investigators, Frank Hronek, now deceased. On the November 5, 1988 edition of Fox TV’s The Reporters, former Deputy DA John Miner said his own report on Monroe is also missing from the DA’s office.”
¹⁴⁹

In any cover-up, there are obviously facts that an individual or individuals believe
need
covering up; and in the case of Marilyn’s death, that fact would certainlyappear to be the affairs with President Kennedy and then Attorney General Robert Kennedy. A cover-up could also be the result of obscuring the fact that others were trying to make that fact public knowledge. There were reportedly wiretaps of Marilyn’s phone lines that were
not
authorized by the Justice Department; the suggestion being that someone, such as organized crime, was attempting to obtain proof of an affair between Marilyn and one of the Kennedys and then use that evidence to blackmail or smear the White House.

“If Summers is correct, local police and prosecutors were investigating Monroe’s death at the same time the FBI was eradicating local evidence of her affair with RFK. Local officials therefore had to know of Hoover’s illegal effort to save Kennedy from scandal. Certainly, it is hard to imagine that LAPD Chief Parker didn’t know the FBI was seizing or destroying evidence on his turf. That the affair remained secret for years suggest that the LAPD and the DA acqui-esced or assisted in, Hoover’s cleaning up after RFK.”
¹⁵⁰

In short, the simple fact of the matter was that Marilyn apparently (and admittedly) had an extramarital sexual liaison with the President of the United States and then had a sexual relationship with the Attorney General- and that
could not
be made public. Combine that with the fact that the Attorney General was drawn into the crime scene near the actual time of death and you’ve got a whopper of a cover-up to come up with. But the Kennedys knew how to play hardball, even with the tough guys from the rough side of town, and in 1962, they had their horses all lined up to play it to perfection . and they did.

Evidentiary Indications of Violence

•An abrupt change quite obviously took place at Marilyn’s home on the night of her death because she quickly went from “laughing and joking” on the telephone with “her laughter ringing through the house” during the calls just prior to her death—to a corpse at a crime scene. As Chief Medical Examiner Thomas Noguchi later noted in his book
Coroner:

No one has been able to explain why Marilyn “was laughing happily with Joe DiMaggio, Jr.” and then “dying only thirty minutes later.”
(Coroner,
Thomas T. Noguchi, M.D. & Joseph Dimona, 1983)

•Several friends who spoke to her shortly prior to her death reported that she sounded fine, i.e., there was nothing suicidal in her behavior during the final moments. She was planning things, making a hair appointment, and expressing her desire to continue conversations. As Dr. Noguchi noted: “Monroe’s friends and associates said that her career, which had been in a decline, was now on an upswing. So, they insisted, there was no reason for her to have suddenly committed suicide.” Therefore, we have a very non-suicidal victim, closing her bedroom door for the last time, in a very non- suicidal frame of mind, and entering a bedroom which does not at that time have a
broken window allowing access from the outside
(as it did a short time later).

•That broken bedroom window on the window without burglar bars is very consistent with
forced entry.

•Her final phone call reportedly contained a highly suspicious event in which the caller stated that she put down the telephone to go and check on a noise that she had heard and never came back to the call.

•Victim was quickly incapacitated. She is checking on a noise one moment, and is dead a few minutes later. Something apparently rendered her incapable of further action.

•The high presence of Chloral Hydrate (known as “knockout drops” for their quick debilitating effect) at a level of seventeen to eighteen tablets minimum, suggests it may have been used to silence the decedent (it is clearly far in excess of anything close to a normal dose and, at the level present, would render a person defenseless and unconscious).

•Large, fresh bruise reaching from lower-left back down left hip. Dr. Noguchi later stated that this bruise was an obvious “sign of violence” that should have been thoroughly investigated and was not.

“On Monroe’s lower left back was an area of slight ecchymosis, a dark reddish-blue bruise that results from bleeding into the tissues through injury. And the color of the bruise indicated that it was fresh rather than old. A bruise means wreckage. Human tissue and blood vessels have broken under the impact of an external blow ... “

“There is no explanation for that bruise. It is a sign of violence.”

•In addition to the large hip bruise, the Coroner’s initial examination report also noted bruises on victim’s arms and on the backs of both legs. That’s an indication that force had possibly been used to hold the victim down.

•Bruised colon. The autopsy report reads: “The colon shows marked congestion and purplish discoloration.” According to John Miner, head of the Medical-Legal Division of the D.A.’s Office, this was the “smoking gun” that pointed to homicide.

•Both Medical Examiner Noguchi & District Attorney’s Office Miner later concluded that the vehicle of ingestion was anal:

“Noguchi and I were convinced this was absolutely the route of admitting the fatal dose.”

•Massive and obviously fatal overdose delivered anally is further indicative of homicide (oral ingestion, injection and I.V. were medically ruled out). Her body had enough toxicity to kill fifteen people and that’s way over-kill, by any stretch of the imagination. That’s the type of math used by killers, not by suicides.

•Victim had restricted access to Nembutal. It has been clearly established that Marilyn did not have access to anywhere near that much Nembutal. She
may
have had a prescription for twenty-five capsules (although that was missing, per her psychiatrist), but she clearly did not have access to more. The drug levels in her blood were
far
in excess of twenty-five Nembutal capsules.

•The conflicting statements in witness testimony are separable into two distinct groups: all her friends, who had no reason to lie, stated that she sounded fine; and all of her “handlers” (doctors, lawyer, housekeeper, and Peter Lawford), who were quite obviously covering something up and got caught changing their stories, stated that she was very, very upset.

•Even though her two doctors (who certainly knew better) were present at scene, the police were not called for
over six hours.
When the police asked them what they were doing all that time, they answered “talking.” When asked what they were talking about, they simply gestured blankly. Something was obviously wrong, and a cover story was obviously being prepared. The body had definitely been moved and the witness statements were transparently false.

•Drawers and cabinet in Marilyn’s guest cottage were reportedly broken into on the day of her death and things were obviously taken. It was known by friends that the cabinet in the cottage was where she usually kept her personal journal, in which some said they had wit-nessed her taking notes about Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s comments, at times even in his presence. The existence of her journal, or diary, has been disputed. However, her filing cabinet had definitely been broken into on the night of her death and her home had obviously been “sanitized.”

Therefore, we have an intelligent, successful woman, retiring to bed at 7:50 p.m. on a Saturday night, in an excellent and notably non- suicidal frame of mind, bringing her phone into her bedroom for the last time, not locking her bedroom door (as Mrs. Murray eventually concedes), near a window that is obviously not broken at that time as far as the knowledge of she and Mrs. Murray (because had they thought it broken, they surely would have addressed a broken, unbarred window allowing access to the world’s most famous star’s bedroom—and, further to that point, Mrs. Murray indeed said she did immediately address the issue of the broken window as soon as she learned of it, by calling her son-in-law to come over and board it up— and that was even in the middle of the night). Therefore, that broken window, allowing access from the outside, was not, to their knowledge, at that time, broken—and it was broken later that night. That spells foul play. Her last caller referred to her hearing a noise and then never coming back to the phone. No tape marks on mouth doesn’t rule out foul play.

If she wasn’t subdued, she could have simply yelled for Mrs. Murray, who was certainly within earshot. But note that if Chloroform had been used to control her, it would likely not show up at the autopsy. As Dr. Michelle Dupre, Medical Examiner and forensic pathologist states: “But if the person, say, was given Chloroform to knock them out, it is not likely that that would show up.”
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But severe bruising did show up at autopsy, and some of the bruising was consistent with having been held down.

•John Miner, head of the Medical-Legal Department at the D.A.’s Office, was the only person granted the opportunity to listen to Marilyn’s taped private psy-chiatric sessions, and even then only under the legally binding condition that he not discuss their contents:

“But what he heard on the tapes, and his debriefing interview with Dr. Greenson, had con-vinced him that Marilyn Monroe had NOT committed suicide.” (Marshall,
The DD Group, p. 399,
emphasis in original)

•Medical Examiner Noguchi concluded:

“Thus, if Miner’s evalua-tion in 1962 was correct, the only conceivable cause of Monroe’s death was murder.”

•Dr. Sidney B. Weinberg, Chief Medical Examiner, Suffolk County, New York, investigated the case and concluded:

“The evidence points to all of the classic features of a homicide, much more so than a suicide.”

•Sgt. Jack Clemmons, Night Watch Commander, LAPD, who was the first officer on the scene, maintained to his dying day that it was murder. Decades later, he stated:

“In my opinion, Marilyn Monroe was murdered that night. In fact, it was the most obvious case of murder I ever saw.”

Based on the work and statements of Dr. Thomas T. Noguchi, M.D., Chief Medical Examiner, Los Angeles County, California; John Miner, Deputy District Attorney, County of Los Angeles, California; Dr. Sidney B. Weinberg, Chief Medical Examiner, Suffolk County, New York; Sgt. Jack Clemmons, Los Angeles Police Department. See: Coroner,
Thomas T. Noguchi with Joseph DiMona, 1983; “Did Marilyn Monroe Commit Suicide? Or was she murdered because of her political involvement?’; Sherman A. Meeds, Jr., May 19, 2009.

MEDICAL & LEGAL IMPLI-
CATIONS

It’s not really the
cause
of Marilyn’s death that’s observably noteworthy from an evidentiary standpoint; it’s the
vehicle of delivery.
We know that her bloodstream contained a huge amount of the two powerful tranquilizers, Nembutal and Chloral Hydrate; enough to kill fifteen people. However,
as a clear result of the autopsy,
we know that they were not ingested into her body in typical fashion. Her stomach and digestive tract were thoroughly examined and revealed an extremely curious finding: there were
no traces of the drugs in the stomach.