On the night of August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died of an overdose of Nembutal, a Barbiturate. She was found lying naked in her bed, face down, clutching the phone tightly in her hand. There were several empty bottles of sleeping pills on the table next to her bed. Her housekeeper, Eunice Murray, had been there all night. Around 3:30 a.m., August 5th, she became alarmed that Marilyn's light was still on and that the door was locked. She called Marilyn's psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, and he immediately rushed over. When he arrived they looked in Marilyn's window and saw her lying on the bed. They then proceeded to break into her room, and when they found out she was dead they called the police. The coroner pronounced it probable suicide. This is the official version of what happened. But one must also take into consideration the cover-up, the conflicting stories of what happened, and the inefficiency with which the investigation was carried out. Marilyn Monroe did not die by her own hand, it was someone else's. Who killed her? Was it the Kennedy’s or the Mafia? What reasons did anyone have for killing Marilyn Monroe? Did she know too much? Was she a security risk? Was her death used to blackmail the Kennedys? Whoever the person, whatever the motive, Marilyn was dead, and it was due to foul play.
The man who performed the autopsy on Marilyn was Dr. Noguchi. His report stated that her blood contained 8 milligrams percent chloral hydrate, and her liver contained 13 milligrams percent phenobarbital (the chemical found in Nembutal), but no alcohol was found. Dr. Christopher Foster, a pathologist, says Marilyn had taken ten times the normal therapeutic dose of Nembutal, and twenty times the recommended amount of chloral hydrate. Some say she had to have ingested somewhere from thirty to forty pills. "The colon showed marked congestion and purplish discoloration," which means something had been put there that should not have been; drugs are a possibility. Dr. Noguchi declared it a suicide. Marilyn, at this time in her life, did not fall into the pattern of a person who is suicidal. Suicidal people feel that they are completely worthless, they cannot do anything about their life, and they think everything is terrible. Some "clues" to suicide are preoccupation with thoughts of death (ideas about heaven or hell), statements of worthlessness, settling of affairs (such as wills), giving away prized possessions, suicide threats, depression, and a sudden and apparent peace of mind. The fact that a person has attempted suicide in the past may or may not be a warning sign. "One suicide in ten is successful, and the overwhelming majority never try again". According to Langone there are two types of suicidal people, "attempter" and "committers". Attempters do not actually follow through with suicide; committers are the ones who do. Ninety percent of all the attempters are females whose fathers are either physically or psychologically absent. Attempters are even further divided into three subdivisions. The second group of attempters is mostly made up of women who are crying out for help, attention, and love; they go out of their way to make sure they are "discovered" in time to be saved and achieve their goal which is usually to influence the conduct of others. If Marilyn was at all suicidal, she was an attempter, not a committer. She fits into the category well, she grew up without a father, and the times she did attempt suicide she always made sure someone "saved" her. In her last few weeks, Marilyn showed no signs of possessing any suicidal tendencies. She had been making many plans for the future. She told Henry Rosenfeld that she would be coming to New York, she talked with Lena Pepitone about plans to throw a party in September, she talked with Gene Kelly about plans for a musical, she talked to Sidney Skolsky about making a film on Jean Harlow, Julie Styne talked with her about a musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, she was planning on meeting friends for dinner on Sunday, August 5th, on Monday she was going to fly to New York, and she made dinner plans with another friend for a future date. She had just purchased a house and was working on that too. None of the people she talked to that last week said she sounded depressed, in fact they said she never looked better and was in great spirits. Marilyn herself said, "Let's all start to live before we get old". Marilyn was not obsessed with thoughts of death, she was not depressed, she never threatened suicide, and she did not make statements of worthlessness. In her last days, Marilyn was not suicidal. People who oppose any sort of murder theory bring up the fact that she had tried to commit suicide several times in the past, but what better way to kill Marilyn then to make it appear like suicide? Why would anyone want Marilyn Monroe dead? There are two possibilities; one is that she could have been a security risk. Marilyn had been having affairs with John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy for quite some time. Marilyn would meet the Kennedys at Peter Lawford's, the brother-in-law, house. They talked with her about many things that were political and confidential. Marilyn once said, "Bobby liked to talk about political things"; she wrote everything down that they told her in a little red diary, because once Bobby has yelled at her for not remembering something he had once told her. Robert Slatzer recalls Marilyn showing him a diary and allowing him to read it; he said it contained notes on conversations with the Kennedys and included references to the Bay of Pigs and Cuba. The Kennedys knew about her diary. Marilyn had been threatening to hold a press conference telling every one of her affairs with the Kennedys, or to show a notebook, which she kept of some of her conversations with Bobby, to his wife Ethel Kennedy. This would have ruined the Kennedy's political careers, and would have ruined Bobby's marriage. To them Marilyn was a threat that they needed to take seriously. Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn's ex-husband and close friend, holds Robert Kennedy responsible for her death. Marilyn was also associated with the mafia. She would frequent Frank Sinatra's Cal-Neva Lodge where several mobsters such as Sam Giancana, Jimmy Hoffa, and Johnny Roselli also stayed often. Associating herself with the mafia was dangerous for her because of her connection with the Kennedys. The mafia may have tried to use Marilyn's death to get Robert Kennedy to ease up on organized crime or be destroyed by exposure. This would not have been the first time they had done something like this. In 1961, mobsters used chloral hydrate in a scheme to discredit a man running for local office. Chloral hydrate was one of the drugs found in Marilyn's body. Several reports were made by the DA's investigator, Frank Hronek, on her relations with the mafia and the events that took place at the Lawford house. There is no trace of his reports in the DA's files. He suspected the mafia, specifically Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, was involved with her death. He believed she was murdered. Marilyn might have been the tool used to try to discredit the Kennedys or might have been killed to keep her silent, either way it was murder. There is a large amount of evidence that points to murder. The investigation by the coroner was flawed, and the police investigation was covered up, many questions were left unanswered, evidence was destroyed, and there were several conflicting stories as to what took place that Saturday and Sunday. On Friday, August 3, Robert Kennedy flew from the east coast to the west coast and landed in San Francisco. On Saturday, the day she died, she made several phone calls, and had a few visitors. One of her visitors was her psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson. At around 5 p.m. she had another visitor, Robert Kennedy. Of the phone calls made that night, one was to actress friend, Jeanne Carmen. Marilyn was asking for sleeping pills because she did not have any herself; Jeanne told her that she did not have any to give her. At about 7:40 p.m., Marilyn called Dr. Greenson and asked him if he had taken her bottle of Nembutal pills when he was over earlier; he told her he had not. Marilyn did not take any sleeping pills, but mysteriously several empty bottles showed up on her night stand, one of which was dated Friday, August 3. Mrs. Murray, Marilyn's housekeeper, had seen Marilyn's light on and, supposedly at 3:30, she became alarmed that her light was still on and the door was locked. She called Dr. Greenson, and when he came over. They called the police. A policeman noticed that a filing cabinet had been forcibly opened, and DiMaggio noticed that all of her personal notes were gone, including her diary. The coroner noticed when he got there, at about 3:40, that rigor mortis was very advanced. He said it takes four to six hours to reach this stage. Natalie Jacobs, the wife of Arthur Jacobs (who was in charge of Marilyn's public relations), says she distinctly remembers hearing the news of Marilyn's death before 11 p.m. on Saturday. Eunice Murray later admitted that she actually became alarmed at midnight, not at 3:30. Then why did she wait till 3:30 to call the police? Deborah Gould, ex-wife of Peter Lawford, says the delay was to get Bobby out of town. Bobby Kennedy had chartered a helicopter that night back to San Francisco. Peter Lawford went to Marilyn's house to clean up and to do what he could before the police and the press arrived. The investigation began like a routine inquiry into an unnatural death; fingerprints were lifted and photographs were taken, but one week after the investigation started it died suddenly. According to many people in the police department, it was due to pressure form high up. Lawford told his ex-wife that the Kennedys "ensured there would be no proper inquiry into her death. Marilyn Monroe's phone records from early August until her death are missing, and have been missing for a long time. They were before mid-morning Sunday. Only one person had enough power to seize phone records before they 'disappeared' into the system to be processed, and that was the president, who at this time was John Kennedy. The phone records are not the only things missing. Almost none of the paperwork remains that had been dine, even the routine death report is missing. The case was handled by Captain Hamilton in an atmosphere of secrecy, which excluded even his most trusted employees. In the 15/7's, informal suspicion reports, Robert Kennedy’s name were mentioned frequently. In 1962, Chief Parker took the files on the case to Washington DC, to "show to someone," that was the last anyone ever saw of them. To this day, police do not welcome research on Marilyn Monroe. Robert Slatzer wrote a book mainly about Marilyn and her involvement with the Kennedys, and was told that if he published that book his life would be in danger. When informed about her death the Kennedys took it lightly and sort of joked about it; it did not bother them at all. There are medical facts that also point towards foul play. No drinking glass was found, and the plumbing in Marilyn's bathroom did not work, so she had nothing to swallow that many pills with. No residue from the capsules was found in her stomach and intestines, but the content of the drugs in her blood was so high that if indeed she did ingest the pills some trace of the drug would have been left behind. Dr. Keith Simpson, the top government forensic expert in Britain said, "The barbiturate levels in the blood and liver are high enough, in my experience, to make it likely that you would find a residue of the capsules in the stomach. Yet none were found." Then the doctors thought maybe it had been injected directly into her bloodstream, but during the autopsy the doctor checked with a magnifying glass for needle marks, even checking under the tongue. None were found. If she did not swallow it and it was not injected that leaves only one possibility, an enema. An enemy is a process used to clean out the bowels. Enemas were used frequently in those days as a way to achieve "instant" weight loss. Marilyn often received several enemas because she suffered from chronic constipation. It is know that Marilyn did in fact receive enemas in her last few days. When Deborah Gould asked her ex-husband, Peter Lawford, how Marilyn had died he said, "Marilyn took her last big enema." Her colon, as stated before, showed congestion and purplish discoloration. Dr. Noguchi said that he felt uncomfortable with his decision of suicide, and when he went to look over the organ specimens again he found out that they had been destroyed. The specimens should have been preserved; no medical photos remain either, even though many were taken. Lionel Grandison claimed he had been pressured into signing her death certificate. What do all these facts mean? They tell us that something suspicious had taken place. Marilyn Monroe lived a sad life with an even sadder ending. Her whole life she was used by men to their advantage, even after she was dead. Marilyn was not suicidal in her last days, she wasn't even depressed. She was happy. There are too many discrepancies surrounding her death for it to be a suicide. Too many things point to murder, whether it was the Kennedys or the mafia, someone wanted her dead. Yet even though it has been 28 years since she has died, she still lives on today in our hearts and in our minds.