The Murder of Marilyn Monroe (31 page)

11:00 p.m.

Arthur Jacobs arrives on the scene but does not go into the guest cottage.

~ 11:00 p.m.

Schaefer Ambulance attendant James Hall and his driver Murray Liebowitz arrive. Per Hall, Pat Newcomb is the first person he and his partner saw. From the outside, still hysterical, she screams at Hall and Liebowitz, “She’s dead! She’s dead! I think she’s dead!” When Hall asked her what’s the matter, Newcomb replied, “I think she took some pills.” Pat then directs them into the guest cottage where they find a naked Marilyn lying faceup on the bed with her head hanging over the edge, still unconscious with no sheet or blanket underneath her. Hall noted no odor of pear from her mouth so Marilyn definitely did not orally ingest the seventeen chloral hydrates.

~ 11:00–11:30 p.m.

With Liebowitz’s help, Hall drags Marilyn away from the guest room and into the hallway where there’s a hard surface. Next, Hall said he and Liebowitz dropped Marilyn “on her fanny,” taking credit for the bruise on the “left side of [her] lower back,” which Noguchi noted in his official autopsy report was “a very fresh bruise.” Hall therefore deduced years later, “Dead bodies don’t bruise. She was still alive.”

Hall tells Liebowitz to get the resuscitator from the van. When Liebowitz returns, Hall puts an airway down Marilyn’s throat and per Hall, Marilyn’s color is coming back and Hall believes they can safely take her to the hospital. Hall then tells Liebowitz, “Get the gurney.”

11:30 p.m.

Peter’s best friend Joe Naar and his then-wife Dolores claim Peter called (which could have only been from Marilyn’s house), asking Joe, who lived four blocks from Marilyn, to go over and check on her. Two minutes later, according to the Naars, Peter calls back telling them not to go. Dolores thought the two calls, so close to each other were “calculated to mislead us.”

~ 11:30–11:45 p.m.

Before Liebowitz leaves the guest cottage to retrieve the gurney, suddenly Greenson arrives and says he’s “her doctor.” Greenson tells Hall to remove the resuscitator, which was in fact doing its job. Hall defers to him because he had always been told to never challenge an M.D. Per Hall, Greenson then takes a syringe with a long heart needle already attached to it out of his medical bag and tells Hall, “I’ve got to make a show of this.”

Next, Greenson fills the syringe with a “brownish fluid” (Nembutal) from a pharmaceutical bottle. Hall then notes something peculiar about Greenson: “he had to count down her ribs—like he was still in premed school and had really never done this before.”

This makes sense since he’s a psychiatrist who doesn’t normally deal with needles. As Dr. Greenson injects Marilyn in the heart, James Hall saw Peter Lawford and Sgt. Marvin Iannone enter the guest cottage. Greenson did not dilute the solution first making the shot lethal regardless of what’s in the syringe and the amount injected into the body. The five eyewitnesses to Marilyn Monroe’s murder by Ralph Greenson were Schaefer Ambulance attendant James Hall, Schaefer Ambulance driver Murray Liebowitz, Peter Lawford, Pat Newcomb, and Sgt. Marvin D. Iannone. Within minutes, Marilyn dies.

In the early 1990s, Hall would identify the hysterical woman as Pat Newcomb and the man who comforted her as Peter Lawford. In 1992, to Detective Franklin, Hall identified the policeman as Sgt. Marvin D. Iannone. In 1993, Hall also identified him to Donald Wolfe.

Per Officer Lynn Franklin, Otash said that at 11:45 p.m. he “observed Sgt. Iannone, in uniform, in conversation with Peter Lawford.”

Greenson then tells Hall he can leave because he’s going to pronounce her dead. For years, says Hall, he believed the solution was adrenaline in an attempt to save her but now Hall thinks the shot was intended to murder her.

Greenson’s brother-in-law and Marilyn’s attorney Mickey Rudin would later claim on a recorded interview that he arrived sometime before midnight and that Greenson was the one who called him to say Marilyn was dead.

~ 11:45–11:50 p.m.

Marilyn’s next-door neighbor to the west, Abe Charles Landau, arrives home with his wife Ruby Landau and they see several cars parked up the narrow street including a limousine, a police car (per Hall and Otash, Sgt. Marvin Iannone’s), and an ambulance (Hall and Liebowitz’s).

Per Jefferies, not long after Marilyn’s death, plainclothes officers orchestrated the “locked room” story. They broke the window Greenson would later claim to police he had to break in order to enter Marilyn’s bedroom yet the movie star’s inside doors, not including the front and back doors, had no operable locks many years before she owned the house.

Next, the principals at the scene move the pill bottles and Marilyn’s body to the main bedroom, and lay her facedown on the bed to disguise needle marks through the process of postmortem lividity.

AUGUST 5, 1962:

~ 12:00–1:00 a.m.

Peter’s friend Bill Asher claims Peter called him, saying they should go over there to check on Marilyn. Asher, admittedly irritated by this call, claims he again advised against it.

12:10 a.m.

Near the intersection of Robertson and Olympic Boulevards, Beverly Hills Detective Lynn Franklin pulls over an inebriated Peter Lawford in his Lincoln Continental sedan with the headlights off going 70–80 MPH with Greenson in the front seat and Bobby Kennedy in the backseat. Not eager to give Peter a ticket with Bobby in the backseat, Detective Franklin gives them proper directions to go to the Beverly Hilton Hotel since Peter, drunk and hysterical, was driving in the opposite direction heading toward downtown Los Angeles. At the time of the stop, Franklin said he did not correlate Bobby Kennedy with Marilyn Monroe as news of her death was still hours away.

~ 12:30–2:00 a.m.

Bobby takes a helicopter from the Lawfords’ to Los Angeles International Airport, boards a private plane, and is flown back to San Francisco.

4:25 a.m.

Norman Jefferies, Pat Newcomb, Mickey Rudin, and Hyman Engelberg are all at the scene when Greenson calls the police reaching watch commander Sgt. Jack Clemmons. In Greenson’s own words (from a newspaper article on August 5, 1973), he claims to have said he wants to “report the death of a person, a sudden and unexplained death” while Clemmons says Greenson told him his star patient had instead committed suicide, not an accidental death as Greenson allegedly told his family.

4:45 a.m.

When Clemmons arrives, he talks to a sarcastic Greenson, a frightened housekeeper (Mrs. Murray), and a depressed Engelberg. Greenson tells Clemmons that Marilyn committed suicide. Greenson points to the empty bottle of Nembutal, which he implies speaks for itself. According to his initial suspicions, Clemmons believed Marilyn was murdered and that her body had been moved.

He asserts she did not die facedown on the bed in the soldier’s position: her arms at her side and her legs perfectly straight. Clemmons would later reflect that Marilyn had been placed that way to disguise needle marks. He also found it strange how Mrs. Murray was running the laundry after Marilyn’s death.

During this time, Jefferies, Newcomb, and Mickey Rudin hide in rooms Clemmons later admitted he didn’t search, including the guest cottage. Clemmons reflected he should have looked since he had noticed quite a few cars in Marilyn’s courtyard.

5:25 a.m.

Per the 1982 District Attorney’s Report, Clemmons notifies Detective Sgt. Robert E. Byron of Marilyn’s death.

~ 5:30 a.m.

Sgt. Marvin Iannone dismisses Clemmons from the scene.

~ 5:45 a.m.

By the time Detective Sgt. Byron arrives, he notes Greenson is no longer at the house but places Pat Newcomb on the scene. Had Greenson still been there, he surely would have been hounded by reporters and couldn’t have conceivably escaped their photographs, none of which have survived.

Westwood Village Mortuary employees Guy Hockett and his son Don arrive. The elder Hockett notes that rigor mortis is advanced and places Marilyn’s death roughly between 9:30 to 11:30 p.m. on August 4.

~ 6:00–6:30 a.m.

Per reporter Joe Hyams, the Hocketts strap Marilyn into a gurney then lift the gurney into their Ford Panel truck and drive away.

~ 6:30–7:00 a.m.

Per Jefferies and Mrs. Murray, before the police seal the house, they notice that Pat Newcomb doesn’t want to leave. Per Jefferies, he sees Pat “looking through drawers and going into Marilyn’s bedroom. She had spent Friday night at the house and perhaps she was looking for something she left there. The police had to control her . . . They had trouble getting her out of the door.” That’s because she was looking for the red diary that Jefferies a day later said he saw in Mrs. Murray’s possession, the same diary that Bobby Kennedy couldn’t find the night before.

Note:
On Monday, August 6, Jefferies will witness Mrs. Murray give the red diary and one of Marilyn’s personal address books to a driver for the Coroner’s Office before executrix Inez Melson arrives. After a day at the Coroner’s Office, per Deputy Coroner’s Aide Lionel Grandison, the red diary was gone.

~ 8:00–8:45 a.m.

Per Deputy Coroner Robert Dambacher, he and his partner Cletus Pace transferred Marilyn Monroe’s remains from the Westwood Village Mortuary back to the Coroner’s Office in downtown Los Angeles.

~ 9:00 a.m.

Dr. Thomas Noguchi will perform the autopsy overseen by Deputy District Attorney John Miner. Noguchi noted what he later considered strange observations, “The stomach is almost completely empty. The contents is [sic] brownish mucoid fluid. The volume is estimated to be no more than 20 cc. No residue of the pills is noted. A smear made from the gastric contents and examined under the polarized microscope shows no refractile crystals . . . The contents of the duodenum is [sic] also examined under polarized microscope and shows no refractile crystals . . . The colon shows marked congestion and purplish discoloration.”

Thomas Noguchi at first notated needle marks on Marilyn’s body, but in a later revision of the autopsy report, Noguchi had handwritten “No needle mark,” which contradicted his initial findings. A confidential source relayed to Jay Margolis, “There were needle marks behind her knees, the jugular vein in her neck, and bruises on her arms and back.” In addition, according to Allan Abbott, Noguchi also found a needle mark under Marilyn’s left armpit. Last, there was the needle mark to the heart, which apparently was never included on any of the autopsy reports, especially the “official” one.

9:30 a.m.

Bobby Kennedy attends Mass in Gilroy, California, with his wife Ethel and four of their children at St. Mary Parish.

10:30 a.m.

Noguchi completes the autopsy, signing his report on Marilyn Monroe, reluctantly declaring her death a “probable suicide.”

AUTOPSY REPORT

OFFICE OF COUNTY CORONER

File 8 #1128

Date: Aug. 5, 1962

Time: 10:30 a.m.

ACUTE BARBITURATE POISONING

INGESTION OF OVERDOSE

(final 8/27/62)

ANATOMICAL SUMMARY

E
XTERNAL
E
XAMINATION
:
Lavidity [sic] of face and chest with slight ecchymosis of the left side of the back and left hip.

Surgical scar, right upper quadrant of the abdomen.

Suprapubic surgical scar.

R
ESPIRATORY
S
YSTEM
:
Pulmonary congestion and minimal edema.

L
IVER
AND
B
ILIARY
S
YSTEM
:
Surgical absence of gallbladder.

Acute passive congestion of liver.

U
ROGENITAL
S
YSTEM
:
Congestion of kidneys.

D
IGESTIVE
S
YSTEM
:
Marked congestion of stomach with petechial mucosal hemorrhage.

Absence of appendix.

Congestion and purplish discoloration of the colon.

E
XTERNAL
E
XAMINATION
:
The unembalmed body is that of a 36-year-old well-developed, well-nourished Caucasian female weighing 117 pounds and measuring 65½ inches in length. The scalp is covered with bleached blond hair. The eyes are blue. The fixed lividity is noted in the face, neck, chest, upper portions of arms and the right side of the abdomen. The faint lividity which disappears upon pressure is noted in the back and posterior aspect of the arms and legs. A slight ecchymotic area is noted in the left hip and left side of lower back. The breast shows no significant lesion. There is a horizontal 3-inch long surgical scar in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen. A suprapubic surgical scar measuring 5 inches in length is noted.

The conjunctivae are markedly congested; however, no ecchymosis or petechiae are noted. The nose shows no evidence of fracture. The external auditory canals are not remarkable. No evidence of trauma is noted in the scalp, forehead, cheeks, lips or chin. The neck shows no evidence of trauma. Examination of the hands and nails shows no defects. The lower extremities shows no evidence of trauma.