The Murder of Marilyn Monroe (24 page)

After they were denied entrance to Marilyn’s funeral, the Lawfords boarded a plane and headed for the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Pat Newcomb joined them there soon afterward and, as documented by a photograph of them aboard the
Manitou
dated August 12, 1962, they then went on a Maine cruise together. Newcomb, Lawford, and JFK are all smiling in the photo, taken four days after Marilyn’s funeral. Meanwhile, according to biographer C. David Heymann, Bobby Kennedy “left San Francisco on a camping trip to Oregon with his children,” three days after his erstwhile mistress’s demise. “Ironically,” Heymann continued, “they were joined there by his early travel companion, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.”

The official police report #62-509 463 filed by Detective Sgt. Robert Byron on August 8, 1962, read in part: “An attempt was made to contact Mr. Lawford, but officers were informed by his secretary that Mr. Lawford had taken an airplane at 1:00 p.m. His secretary stated that she did expect to hear from him and that she would request that he contact this Department at his earliest convenience.”

Lawford would continue to ignore the police department’s interview requests for the next thirteen years, which was, to say the least, both strange and suspicious when the issue at hand was an alleged suicide.

Coroner Curphey gave Dr. Litman and the Suicide Prevention Team their conclusion to the case
before
they even began the official investigation. Declaring it a suicide, Curphey told them to work backward and, as Litman later informed biographer Donald Spoto, the Team eventually decided it was a case of “probable suicide” based on the “physical evidence” and the “past history of having made overdoses.”

Deputy District Attorney John Miner disagreed. In 1962, while serving under District Attorney William McKesson, Miner was also the liaison to the coroner. In this capacity, he oversaw the autopsy performed on Marilyn Monroe by Dr. Thomas Noguchi. “It takes time to swallow thirty or forty capsules,” Miner later stated. “And if she had swallowed them, she would have been dead before they all dissolved. There would be residue in her tummy.”

Something unheard of then happened next. Miner remembered, “I was called on a Sunday, and the techs wouldn’t even have gotten to the specimens until the following day . . . Somebody took those specimens and flushed them down the toilet . . . Somebody wanted the diagnosis of suicide to stick and didn’t want any interference by analysis of the scientific evidence.”

Noguchi himself told Anthony Summers, “For some reason, I felt uncomfortable and shortly after the case was formally closed I called Toxicology and requested the check . . . Abernathy told me the organ specimens had been destroyed.”

Years later, talking about Coroner Curphey, Thomas Noguchi recalled, “He certified the manner of death to be ‘probable suicide.’ When you weigh all the factors, it tends to indicate a more likely suicide. But the office could not find necessary factors to state it as suicide.”

Oddly, Dr. Greenson told Dr. Litman he wasn’t sure if Marilyn had committed suicide. And Greenson went a step further during the late afternoon of August 8, the day of her funeral, after Coroner Curphey had dispatched John Miner to interview the psychiatrist in his Beverly Hills office on 436 Roxbury Drive. Sitting there with Miner, who happened to be a colleague of his from the Psychoanalytic Institute, Greenson said he was certain his star patient had
not
committed suicide.

Miner would remain adamant about this throughout many years. “What we really have is a coroner chief medical examiner who had a preconceived notion of what happened and labeled it accordingly and was
completely wrong
,” he’d remark. “Curphey chose to adopt it and in a way it was the easiest political solution.”

Miner ruled out suicide by oral ingestion as, in this particular case, it wouldn’t have been medically possible. “With that massive amount of intake, there would have been undissolved capsules,” he reasoned. “She would have died before all of those capsules had been absorbed. So, the notion of oral intake of the barbiturates simply does not scientifically stand up. It just didn’t happen that way.”
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On October 13, 1973, biographer Maurice Zolotow publicly released portions of an interview he had conducted with Dr. Greenson, discussing the last day of Marilyn Monroe’s life. The Greenson family has sealed the full Greenson-Zolotow interview in Special Collections at UCLA, ensuring it will remain unseen by members of the public until January 1, 2039, along with most of Greenson’s other writings alluding to his legendary patient. Greenson chillingly told Zolotow:

I will always believe it was an accidental suicide, because her hand was on the receiver, her finger still in the dial. I’m convinced she was trying to phone me. If only she had reached me . . . Her room was locked and bolted—doors and windows. How could a murderer have entered?

That same year, author Norman Mailer noted in his Marilyn Monroe book that, “Dr. Thomas Noguchi stated for
Time
magazine that ‘no stomach pump was used on Marilyn.’”

On October 23, 1973, ten days after Maurice Zolotow released portions of his interview with Dr. Greenson, the latter used an article titled, “Psychiatrist Breaks Silence in Defense of Marilyn Monroe” yet again attempting to dispel murder theories as well as rumors of sexual liaisons with men in high office. The article categorically stated that Greenson “has denied that the actress may have been murdered. He also denied that she had been having an affair with the late President John F. Kennedy or his brother.”

“I’ve decided that all I can do I’ve tried to do,” Greenson said, “and somewhere it is written that this woman is not a bad woman and was not involved with all the political figures. Somewhere, if you will read long enough, you will find it.”

Nevertheless, just days after Marilyn died, Greenson had told the Suicide Prevention Team a completely different story: the actress had been in a “close relationship with extremely important men in government.” It was “sexual” and the men were “at the highest level.”
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At around the same time, Mrs. Murray recounted an accidental death story to Mr. and Mrs. Landau, the movie star’s next-door neighbors to the west. Abe Charles Landau subsequently recalled: “Mrs. Murray told us that Marilyn had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. She said Marilyn would take pills. Then she would wake up, forget that she had taken some, and take some more. And that’s what Mrs. Murray said happened.”

Still, more than a decade later, in the July 16, 1973, issue of
Time
magazine, a Marilyn Monroe–related feature again flipped this on its head: “It was not a case, says Noguchi, of ‘automatism’—that gray area in which a person used to taking pills becomes groggy, takes a few too many, and slips over the edge of death.” Under close scrutiny, Ralph Greenson’s account of what took place on that fateful night comes apart at the seams.
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THE KENNEDY VERSION

WAS LAWFORD’S CALL TO EBBINS A CRY FOR HELP OR JUST A REALLY GOOD ALIBI?

Milt Ebbins, Peter Lawford’s best friend and vice president of his production company Chrislaw, claimed he received a frantic telephone call from the actor at around 7:15, 7:40, or close to 8:00 on the evening of August 4, 1962, depending on which version of his account one chooses. Ebbins recalled Lawford being concerned that something was wrong with Marilyn; that maybe she took too many sleeping pills. As we’ve already seen, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Marilyn at 7:15 or 8:00 or even 9:30 p.m.

Biographers Peter Harry Brown and Patte Barham noted that, according to “master publicist” Rupert Allan, “Lawford’s story sounded as though it had been written for him by a public relations expert. It seemed more like an alibi than an actual event.”

Ebbins refuted any notion of Lawford driving to the Monroe residence on the night she died. “I was a confidant of Peter’s,” Ebbins informed Donald Spoto. “Believe me, I was a confidant of this man. He would’ve dropped it to me in a minute . . . Others told him, ‘[Comedian] Mort Sahl will go with you . . .’”

Ebbins further claimed that
he
phoned Marilyn’s house: “I called and got a busy signal. The operator said it was out of order. It’s off the hook!”

Now that we know Marilyn was not in trouble anytime before 9:30 p.m., it’s easy to see right through Ebbins’ fabrication. Nevertheless, it’s also interesting that he told Spoto, “Peter Lawford wanted to go badly. I said, ‘Peter, don’t do it. Please let me at least call Mickey Rudin and alert him and
then
, if we do that, you can go . . .’”

Milt Ebbins claims he phoned Mickey Rudin who at that time was at Mildred Allenberg’s house. Rudin supposedly said to Ebbins, “Let me check it out and I’ll get back to you.” A few minutes later, Rudin called Ebbins and relayed, “I talked to Mrs. Murray. She looked through the crack in the window. She said, ‘She’s fine. She does this every night. Every night she does this.’” Rudin allegedly concluded to Ebbins, “You don’t have to go over there. Please don’t go over there. You’re just gonna cause problems . . .”

When Milt Ebbins reiterated this to Peter Lawford, the actor still insisted on paying Marilyn a visit and demanded to talk with her lawyer and manager Mickey Rudin. Rudin then contacted Lawford and persuaded him to change his mind, but Lawford, “getting drunker by the minute,” persisted in calling Ebbins and repeating his desire to drive over to 12305 Fifth Helena Drive. “Go!” Ebbins recalled finally snapping. “You don’t need me,” prompting Lawford to purportedly back down and say, “I’m not going. I’m not going.”

Accordingly, addressing the possibility that Peter Lawford
did
subsequently visit Marilyn and then meet with private investigator Fred Otash, Milt Ebbins told biographer James Spada, “I know the way this story may go and I’m prepared for it. I can’t dispute you because you’re liable to have proof that it was true. All I can say is that I think my version is the true one.”

Spoto told Ebbins that, at eleven thirty on the night of August 4, Lawford called his best friend Joe Naar and urged him, “Go over to Marilyn’s house.” Spoto then recounted how Naar puts his trousers on and got ready to leave when he received another call from Lawford, saying, ‘I just had a call from the doctors. They’re there. Everything’s fine.’”

Ebbins countered, “That’s a lot of crap . . . Number one, Peter never talked to Rudin that night because Rudin told me to tell him [about Marilyn’s death] . . . I called Peter immediately and the phone was dead. And [his maid] Erma Lee says, ‘We don’t answer the phone when Peter goes to bed. Nobody picks up the phones downstairs. Upstairs, he pulls it out of the wall . . .’”

According to Milt Ebbins, Erma Lee was Peter Lawford’s mistress as well as his maid, and she insisted he never left his house that night. Furthermore, Ebbins claimed he received a call from Mickey Rudin at around four in the morning, saying, “We’ve got some problems.” When Ebbins asked, “How’s Marilyn?” Rudin replied, “Not good,” before revealing that was something of an understatement. “What’s the matter with her?” Ebbins enquired, prompting Rudin to say, “Well, I’m here with Dr. Engelberg and Dr. Greenson, and they just pronounced her dead and we just notified the police. And you’re the first one that knows about it . . . You better tell Peter.”

As for accusations that Bobby Kennedy had Marilyn Monroe killed, Ebbins told Spoto, “Come on! Bobby Kennedy had more ways. He could’ve gotten rid of Marilyn Monroe with a phone call to Peter Lawford . . . Of course, we noted she had a mental problem for years. Marilyn thought she was going to wind up like her mother. She was scared to death of that.”

Milt Ebbins told James Spada, “Marilyn was destined to die. She’d tried suicide four times. Peter felt guilty about not going over to save her, but Dr. Greenson told him, ‘Don’t feel responsible—it was bound to happen. She would have done it again if it hadn’t worked that time . . .’ Greenson told Peter that Marilyn had tried to commit suicide four or five times and he said, ‘Peter, she was doomed. It was only a matter of time,’ that unless she was confined for a lengthy period, she was going to die . . . The only thing I could think of was to get her lawyer, manager, and doctor involved, and it was done in minutes . . . I was on the phone to Peter all night the night Marilyn died. Until one-thirty at least. After that, he wouldn’t answer the phone.”

Director Bill Asher remembered, “I heard from Peter at eight or nine . . . Then he called later, maybe midnight, probably one o’clock to go over with him.”

Lawford’s good friend producer George “Bullets” Durgom was a guest at his Saturday evening party on August 4 where, Durgom claimed, the host expressed his concern about visiting Marilyn’s home. In the
Say Goodbye to the President
documentary, Durgom recalled how Lawford “mentions maybe I ought to go up there and see if she’s okay. I said, ‘Well, I don’t know, Peter, if you should do that at this time. I mean, I’m sure everything’s all right. If we go up there and there is anything going on, who knows what kind of story this will wind up being?’”

Milt Ebbins told Spoto, “There were two numbers. Peter didn’t have the other number . . . Rudin asked me to let him check it out—to see if there was any trouble.” Rudin agreed to this account and said, “I did not call [Greenson]. He had had enough quite frankly. He had spent the day with her. But I did call the housekeeper.”

On August 9, 1962, Ebbins told a reporter about Lawford calling him on that Saturday night: “He said Miss Monroe told him she would like to come but that she was tired and was going to bed early. He said he noticed nothing unusual, except that she did sound tired.”
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This is odd: on August 9, 1962, Ebbins recalled there being “nothing unusual,” yet thirty years later he informed Donald Spoto about a tremendous panic and how “Peter Lawford wanted to go badly.”

Peter Lawford’s mother Lady May Lawford, who once described her son as “such a big mistake,” relayed what she recalled happening on August 4: “The night that Marilyn died, I called Peter out at the Santa Monica beach house . . . In the background I thought I heard that awful Boston accent of Bobby Kennedy . . . Then [Peter] hung up.” Lawford’s mother was absolutely certain Marilyn Monroe shared a bed with both Kennedy brothers. “I knew that Marilyn was seeing Jack Kennedy,” Mrs. Lawford asserted. “I also knew that Marilyn was seeing Bobby Kennedy. They often used Pat and Peter’s beach house . . . If Jack or Bobby asked him to, he would have done anything . . . So it is with Marilyn’s death—Peter had a part in the cover-up.”
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