The death of Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood’s brightest star with an iconic smile, remains shrouded in mystery. The rumors about her death have never gone away. Was it a suicide or drug-overdose accident? Or was it a murder?
On August 5, 1962, the blond, 36-year-old actress was found dead in her Los Angeles home. She was nude, lying face down on her bed and clutching a telephone receiver in her hand when her psychiatrist broke into her bedroom at 3.30 a.m. She had been dead for an estimated six to eight hours. No suicide note was found.
Empty bottles of pills, prescribed to treat her depression, were littered around the room. After a brief investigation, Los Angeles police concluded that her death was a “probable suicide,” but conspiracy theories persisted.
Marilyn Monroe’s death is comparable to the untimely death of Princess Diana, who had died tragically under suspicious circumstances which stirred a global frenzy.
Born on June 1, 1926, as Norma Jeane Mortenson, Monroe spent her childhood in a series of foster homes and orphanages due to her absent father and a mentally unstable mother.
In 1942, at the age of 16, Marilyn Monroe married her co-worker in an aircraft factory, but the marriage did not last long, and they divorced a few years later.
In 1944, she took up a career in modeling and in 1946 signed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox, taking her screen name as Marilyn Monroe.
She did some small roles and then returned to modeling again, famously posing nude for a calendar shot in 1949.
With performance in successful movies like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), her popularity rose steadily and she won unprecedented admiration throughout the world. She started to gain popularity as a diva and love goddess.
In 1954, she married the baseball great, Joe DiMaggio, which won her huge publicity. However, the marriage ended just eight months later.
The world got to know about her comedic talent in ‘The Seven-Year Itch‘ (1955). The film, which won her a great appreciation, featured the iconic scene where she stands over a subway air vent, and the wind from a passing train billows up her skirt.
Credit – Wikimedia Commons
In 1956, she married playwright Arthur Miller but the marriage ended in 1961. She was fired from her latest 10th Century Fox film for constantly being late for the shoot.
She began to grow discontented with life due to her multiple failed marriages and dwindling movie career. Heartbroken, she slipped into a depression and relied upon psychiatric treatment, drugs, and alcohol to deal with her depression.
Lonely and depressed, Marilyn Monroe killed herself, which is quite normal to assume. But people close to the actress do not agree. In the weeks leading up to Monroe’s death, things were getting better for her and she was looking forward to the future.
She was in negotiations to sign new contracts and also had bought a house, which she was renovating herself. Even on the day of her death, she held several meetings and made plans for the coming weeks and months.
As with the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales, every detail of Marilyn’s last days has been minutely scrutinized with a microscope. However, unlike Diana, everything about Monroe’s death is confusing and unclear. Even the time of death is contradicted. Monroe’s doctor called the police to register the time of death as 4.25 am on Sunday 5 August, but evidence suggests that she died around eight hours earlier.
The coroner’s official report stated “overdose of Nembutal capsules” as the cause of Marilyn Monroe’s death but there was no trace of drugs in her stomach, suggesting she did not take the drugs orally. Leading to the question – Did someone murder her by injecting the lethal drug?
Her body seemed to be neatly posed on the bed with perfectly straight legs, unlike the contorted bodies of people who succumb to a drug overdose. Also, drug overdose victims vomit at the time of death which did not happen in this case.
Reconstruction of events on the day of Marilyn Monroe’s death
On Friday, August 3, 1962, Pat Newcomb – Monroe’s agent stayed over for the night. Monroe woke up feeling cranky due to a lack of sleep. But she was excited about the furniture delivery from Mexico. When the actress’s housekeeper, Eunice Murray, arrived at 8.30 am, Monroe was already up and tiling the floor.
Pat woke up at noon, and she and Monroe argued, apparently over Pat’s getting up so late, but it was soon settled. Pat and Monroe planned to sunbathe by the pool and then join the actor Peter Lawford, and his wife Pat (sister of John F. Kennedy) for supper.
All of a sudden, Monroe’s mood worsened when she received a stuffed toy in the post without a note. Monroe then asked her housekeeper, Murray, if oxygen was available in the house. Probably, she had begun to fear for her life.
Pat Newcomb said Monroe was in a pleasant mood at the time. However, the actress’s psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson, who had come for his daily visit, claims Marilyn was in a highly emotional state.
Dr Greenson asked Newcomb to leave and requested Murray to stay overnight with Monroe and take care of her. He left the actress’s home at 7:00 pm. As per Murray, Monroe took the telephone into her bedroom, after which she never saw the actress alive again.
Peter Lawford (brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy) claims he telephoned Monroe at 7.30 p.m. and she sounded depressed and incoherent and said, “Say goodbye to Pat [Patricia Newcomb, her publicist], say goodbye to the president, and say goodbye to yourself, because you’re a nice guy.”
Lawford got worried about Marilyn Monroe’s condition and telephoned several people, including Dr. Greenson, to check up on her. When he was unable to reach Dr Greenson, he called Monroe’s lawyer Milton A. Rudin, who in turn called Murray. Murray informed him that the actress was fine.
However, Lawford’s view is contradicted by Joe DiMaggio Jnr, the son of her second husband, who said Monroe was in a cheerful mood when he spoke to her over the phone at 7.30 pm.
Monroe was dead later that night. Murray claims she woke up and saw a light under Monroe’s bedroom door. Worried that something terrible had happened, she called Dr. Greenson at 3.30 a.m. Murray and Dr. Greenson gazed into Monroe’s bedroom window and saw her naked body sprawling face down on the bed. Dr. Greenson claims he immediately called Marilyn’s physician, Dr. Hyman Engelberg. Dr. Greenson then broke open Monroe’s bedroom window with a poker. However, the window had been fixed by the time the police arrived.
Were The Kennedys involved?
Monroe was romantically linked with both – then US President, John F Kennedy, as well as his younger brother, Robert F Kennedy.
It is rumored that Marilyn Monroe was killed when she threatened to go public about her affair with the Kennedy brothers, and reveal classified information she had learned during those affairs.
Another theory claims that Monroe threatened Robert Kennedy that she will reveal their affair to JFK. To protect his career and avoid embarrassment with JFK, Robert got her murdered. Though Robert claimed he was in San Francisco on the night the actress died, some witnesses sighted him in Los Angeles and even saw him entering Monroe’s house.
While some believe she was murdered by Joseph Kennedy, who was worried that Monroe would derail his son, JFK’s re-election to the presidency.
Marilyn Monroe’s death shrouded in mystery
Forensic evidence went missing shortly after her death, key witnesses contradicted each other, and some even changed their stories, which raised suspicion on ‘the suicide’ theory.
The Housekeeper is seen doing laundry at the odd hour
Sergeant Jack Clemmons, who was the first to arrive at the scene of Marilyn Monroe’s death, saw Monroe’s housekeeper Eunice Murray doing laundry in a washing machine when he arrived at the scene. Her doing laundry so early in the morning seemed odd to him. Sergeant also felt that Murray was acting strangely and was evasive when interrogated. This raises a suspicion that something fishy had transpired in Murray’s presence.
Incomplete Toxicology Reports During Her Autopsy
According to Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who performed the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe, the toxicology tests had only been performed on the blood and the liver – not on the other internal organs like the stomach and intestines which would have determined if the pills were taken orally or injected in the body – a vital clue which could have changed the course of the investigation from suicide to murder.
Dr. Nogushi did not find visual evidence of pills in Marilyn Monroe’s stomach, nor was there any sign of the yellow dye of Nembutal capsules that would have stained her stomach lining.
To get a clear picture, Dr. Noguchi asked the toxicology lab to test the other organs as well, but he was told that the organs have been disposed of as the case had been marked as ‘closed’. The incomplete toxicology reports raised suspicion of a cover-up in the case.
The Unexplained Bruise on Monroe’s Hips
The autopsy report mentions a fresh dark reddish-blue bruise just above Monroe’s left hip, which is a common area for injections, but which could also indicate a sign of struggle before her death. Curiously, Dr. Noguchi did not find it important to find the cause of the bruise.
The Housekeeper’s Timeline Changed Frequently
Strangely, Monroe’s housekeeper Eunice Murray gave conflicting versions about the timing of the events on the night of the actress’s death. During initial questioning, Murray had claimed she woke around 3.00 am and was alarmed to see the light under Monroe’s door, after which she telephoned Dr. Greenson, who arrived a few minutes later.
However, according to Sergeant Jack Clemmons, Murray told him that she had telephoned Dr. Greenson around midnight.
These conflicting timelines cast a shadow of doubt on Dr. Greenson and Murray who may have been dressing up the scene to cover up the actress’s death.
The Missing Diary
The actress was known to keep a diary recording all her affairs and conversations. Many witnesses claim to have seen the Kennedy brothers mentioned in the diary. Curiously, the diary disappeared from the coroner’s office.
We may never know the reality of her death, but what we know for sure is that Marilyn Monroe’s name will remain etched in history as one of the most famous women of the twentieth century.
