Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs The Worlds Most Puzzling Mysteries Solved (19 page)

The next official evidence we have is the statement of Eunice Murray, the housekeeper, who claimed to have seen the light on under the bedroom door at
3 A.M.
and telephoned Dr. Greenson. He then confirmed he arrived and broke in through Marilyn's bedroom window at 3:
50 A.M.
to find the actress dead, at which point he telephoned the police. At 4:
25 A.M.
Sergeant Jack Clemmons of the Los Angeles Police Department received a phone call from Dr. Engelberg, Marilyn's personal physician, who told him his patient had committed suicide. Given what we know about the evidence today, it would have been quite impossible for Engel berg to diagnose suicide at that stage, although Clemmons is adamant that that is what he was told.

When the police officer arrived at the scene, he noted three people with the body, Eunice Murray, Dr. Greenson, and Dr. Engelberg, who led Clemmons to it and made a point of bringing to his attention the bottles of drugs on the bedside table. Clemmons noted: “She was lying facedown in what I call the soldier's position. Her face was in a pillow, her arms were by her side, her right arm was slightly bent. Her legs were stretched out perfectly straight.” The policeman's immediate reaction was that she had been placed in that position. Having been at the scene of numerous suicides, he knew that, contrary to what most people believed, victims of an overdose of sleeping tablets tend to suffer convulsions and vomiting before they die, often ending up in a contorted or twisted pose.

The testimony of the three witnesses convinced Sergeant Clemmons that they were lying. Publicly all three witnesses maintained their original story that the body was found at 3:
50 A.M.;
privately they stated the body had been discovered four hours earlier but they had been “not allowed” to contact the police until Twentieth Century-Fox had given them permission. Clemmons then noted that no light—let alone the telephone cable reported by Eunice Murray—was able to pass under the bedroom door and that it had no working lock. Crucially, there was no drinking glass in the room, or indeed any kind of receptacle that could have contained the water or alcohol Marilyn would have needed to swallow so many pills.

The police officer took a closer look at the window Dr. Greenson claimed to have broken to gain access to the room, and found broken glass on the outside, consistent with the window having been broken from inside the room and not from the outside.

The autopsy conclusions were that, judging by the high level of sedatives—eight milligrams of hydrate and four milligrams of Nembutal in her blood count and a much higher concentration, thirteen milligrams of Nembutal, in her liver—and the absence of any signs of foul play, Marilyn had taken her own life. These findings were soon disputed by some key forensic experts, however, who pointed out that no traces of Nembutal had been found in either her stomach or intestinal tract. There was also no evidence of the yellow Nembutal capsules, which would not have fully dissolved by the time the autopsy took place. An injection was ruled out because no needle marks were found and because such a high dose would have caused instant death plus residual bruising around the site of the puncture mark. So, as Marilyn appeared to have taken nothing orally and nothing directly into the veins, forensic experts concluded that the drug had been administered by way of an enema. This was consistent with the bruising on the victim's lower back and would account for the “abnormal discoloration of the colon.” In other words, the drugs that killed her must have been introduced anally.

Now, I'm no expert, but I think that most people would agree that to prepare a fatal cocktail of drugs and then push it up your own backside is an unlikely way to commit suicide. So despite Monroe's famously erratic behavior and ongoing depression, suicide has been ruled out by every mental-health professional reviewing her case. Indeed, it is alleged that detailed notes made of taped conversations with her psychiatrist only a week before her death reveal her as anything but suicidal. Yet those tapes, along with other vital evidence and statements, have all gone missing. John W. Miner has been consistently clear in his views: “Marilyn Monroe bears the stigma of suicide. That is wrong and must be corrected.”

So, if we are to rule out suicide, then there are only two other possibilities for us to consider: accident or murder. But if Marilyn did die as a result of rectally administered barbiturates, then it is hard to see how that could be an accident. Let's be honest, who could claim that they pushed a poisonous drug up Marilyn Monroe's rear by accident—and surely she would have noticed?

Marilyn's psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson, and her physician, Dr. Engelberg, were working together to reduce the insomniac actress's Nembutal dependency by replacing it with chloral hydrate, but taken together they are a powerful and dangerous mixture. One suggestion is that Engelberg had given Monroe a further prescription of Nembutal and forgotten to inform Greenson. As Engelberg was having serious marital problems at the time, other, more personal matters may have occupied his mind.

Perhaps Marilyn—who once commented, “Yes, I enjoy enemas, so what”—had been taking Nembutal throughout the day, explaining its presence in her liver and blood. Without knowing this, Dr. Greenson could then have prepared a chloral hydrate enema to be administered by Eunice Murray, which became deadly on inter action with the Nembutal. Any doctor would be reluctant to admit to such a mistake, especially in relation to such a high-profile patient, and this would perhaps explain the many discrepancies in the stories of those who found the body and the apparent staging of the scene that the police were unhappy about. It would also explain evidence that the body was discovered at 10
P.M.
and not 3:
50 A.M.
, along with an ambulance driver's account that Marilyn was taken to hospital in a coma before midnight where she died before the body was returned and “found.” Eunice Murray would certainly wish to stay quiet, as it would have been she who administered the fatal dose. So this is quite a powerful theory. But if it is true then the doctors involved would be guilty only of negligence, and certainly not murder.

But if not an accident, could it have been murder? Several witnesses have placed Bobby Kennedy at the scene on the day of the death. There is also reliable evidence that he removed Monroe's diaries and other notebooks. Her angry telephone calls to the White House and the fear of her speaking publicly were a real problem for the Kennedy administration. Indeed, it would be a mistake to rule out certain governments at certain times taking drastic action to prevent a scandal. But as Bobby Kennedy approached most matters from a very high moral standpoint, it is hard to believe he would personally hold Monroe down and push barbiturates up her bottom to kill her. He made no secret of his visit to Monroe that day and was seen there by many people, including a policeman. Are we to seriously believe he—or somebody he was with on that day—killed Monroe? After all, Marilyn Monroe, the drunken actress who famously sang a very breathy “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” at Madison Square Garden in front of the world's media, hardly posed a major threat to the most powerful government in the world. What classified information could she alone possibly have had that no one else had access to? The promiscuity of the Kennedy brothers was well known in 1962. Might the government's fear of the headline “I Slept with the President,” by Marilyn Monroe, have led to her assassination, when the chorus of replies would probably have been: “Who hasn't?”

The idea that the American government silenced Marilyn sounds like a classic urban legend, the kind of story that just grows over the years, so that the more times it is told the more true it appears to become. We know Marilyn died of a drug overdose and we know it could not have been suicide. So why push a killer drug up her bottom when a staged car accident, drowning, bullet in the head, or even a drugged drink that would leave residue in the stomach to make her death look like suicide would have been a better option? If the Kennedy government intended to kill off everybody who had em barrassing information or who opposed their administration, then why should they start with a scatty film star? And as for the idea that Marilyn Monroe was murdered by the Mafia, who staged it to look as if the Kennedys had been involved, that seems even less likely when a cold, clear look at the evidence is taken. Nobody can explain why anybody trying to make a murder look like suicide would use a killer enema—it just doesn't make sense. If the Mafia— who had perfected, by then, their concrete boots technique— had really wanted to get rid of her, then Marilyn is more likely to have vanished without a trace, either swimming with the fishes or wrapped inside a freeway overpass.

Instead, I think the biggest clue lies in a comment alleged to have been made on the night of Monroe's death by Dr. Greenson: “God damn it, he has given her a prescription I didn't know about.” So it seems after all that the death of the most famous woman on the planet might well have been a simple, tragic accident caused by the people Marilyn most relied on.