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The episode examines the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of actress Marilyn Monroe on August 5, 1962. While the official finding by the coroner was a "probable suicide" due to acute barbiturate poisoning, the episode explores the various theories and controversies that suggested otherwise.
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LearningTranscript
00:00This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.
00:11The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
00:22On August 5th, 1962, screen star Marilyn Monroe was found dead of barbiturate poisoning.
00:30Was it really a suicide, as her millions of fans were led to believe?
00:35We came to the conclusion that it was unquestionably a murder.
00:40I very strongly believe that Marilyn's death was an accident.
00:44It was our opinion that this case should most accurately be certified as suicide, or probable suicide.
00:51I know, based upon my particular involvement in it, that there was a cover-up of some of the information to the public.
00:58Marilyn Monroe did not commit suicide.
01:01She was politically assassinated.
01:04She was at the height of her career.
01:07She had everything to live for.
01:09Could this woman have taken her own life?
01:12Was it an accident?
01:13Or, was Marilyn Monroe the victim of murder?
01:28Who was this product of Hollywood?
01:30Raised in an orphanage and foster homes, Norma Jean Baker grew up in the Hollywood of the 30s.
01:41A fantasy land where anything could happen.
01:44It's glitter and magic filled the dreams of a troubled little girl who wanted desperately to be a part of it all.
01:53At 16, Norma Jean went off to the photographers and on to become Marilyn Monroe, one of America's biggest stars.
02:07Her life can be summed up in a series of headlines.
02:18The ultimate sex goddess.
02:23Adored by millions.
02:27Married to one of America's greatest athletes.
02:31Married to one of America's most gifted playwrights.
02:34Married to one of America's most gifted players.
02:37Divorced from them both.
02:40The troubled little girl became a confused and often desolate woman.
02:50On August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died of barbiturate poisoning.
02:56This product of Hollywood had become its victim.
03:00The story of her death has been carefully pieced together.
03:05The information about Marilyn Monroe came from personal friends, members of her household staff, and the first officer to arrive at the scene.
03:13Further information came from doctors, coroner's office personnel, and others who might give insight into the case.
03:20The purpose of this investigation is not to accuse, but to examine some of the inconsistencies that seem to exist.
03:28These inconsistencies become apparent when we examine the evening of her death.
03:34Mrs. Eunice Murray, Marilyn's housekeeper, states that Marilyn retired early, closing the door to her bedroom after receiving a phone call from a friend.
03:42Her spirits were high.
03:43She had made plans for the following day.
03:46In this recreation, Mrs. Murray explains what happened later that night.
03:54About midnight, I stepped out of my bedroom door and noticed immediately the telephone cord on the floor leading to Marilyn's room.
04:04And this was an alarm.
04:06There was a telephone that originated in another bedroom that Marilyn took to her room, but when she went to bed at night, she would take the telephone itself, the instrument, back into the room and cover it with pillows so she wouldn't hear it ring.
04:24She had that telephone cord that went under her door, and that was an alarm signal, the only one that I had.
04:33So I rushed to another telephone in the other bedroom and called the doctor, told him what I had observed.
04:42He said, try the door, which I did.
04:47And I went back and told him that I couldn't open the door, but I would rush outside and see if I could separate the curtains at the window.
04:56And I had to come back in the house and get a poker to separate the draperies.
05:06And I saw Marilyn lying with her face down.
05:09Almost immediately, it seemed to be, the doctors appeared.
05:15Dr. Greenson lived very near, within, what, less than two miles.
05:20And then, Dr. Greenson tried the door, of course, then went outside and took the poker from my hand and broke the glass of the window that he could get into.
05:37One of the windows didn't have the iron grill.
05:39And I ran around the house and into the house and stood at the door, waiting.
05:48And by the time he came to the door and opened it, he said, we've lost her.
05:54My name is Jack Clemons.
06:00On the night Marilyn Monroe died, I was a sergeant on the Los Angeles Police Department.
06:04I was a watch commander of West L.A. Division.
06:12When I arrived at the house, Mrs. Murray, who was Marilyn's housekeeper, showed me in.
06:17I met her psychiatrist, who had called me, Dr. Greenson.
06:20I was shown the scene, shown the body, and I was shown a table alongside the bed that contained a considerable number of bottles.
06:29I was shown one empty bottle that I was told had contained approximately 45 Nebutal.
06:38I put out a call over the police radio for two more units to meet me at the scene.
06:43And another sergeant to take charge of the scene on a field unit to protect the scene, because when the press, et cetera, begin to arrive, this would be necessary.
06:52There were two things at the scene that disturbed me.
07:00One was the time element between the discovery of the body and the call to the police station.
07:06As I was told, the housekeeper had discovered Marilyn's body at approximately 11.30 or midnight, but they had not phoned the police until about 4.30 a.m.
07:15I was told by Dr. Greenson that this was because I had checked with the publicity department at the studio.
07:26That didn't make much sense.
07:27The other thing that would have obviously occurred, had the situation been as it had represented to me, was that there would have been vomit from her because you simply cannot swallow that much barbiturates without throwing some of it up later on.
07:45It has a very violent reaction in the stomach.
07:49Experts throughout the country became intrigued with the case.
07:51Dr. Sidney Weinberg, coroner of Suffolk County, New York, questioned the finding of the suicide investigation team.
07:59People who have died as a result of excessive ingestion by mouth of barbiturates is that in their agonal stages, as they're dying, they throw up.
08:18They have regurgitation, and this regurgitated material comes out onto the pillowcase or whatever they're resting on.
08:29A member of the suicide investigation team was psychiatrist Robert Littman.
08:34No, people don't go through contortions.
08:40They seldom vomit.
08:43It depends on how much water they need to take down the pills.
08:46The absence of agreement between expert opinions and the facts he observed led Jack Clemens to begin an investigation of his own.
08:55Sort of an unofficial investigation, you might say.
08:59In association with several civilians, no one on the police department was involved in this except myself.
09:07We came to the conclusion that it was unquestionably a murder.
09:12The reason being quite simply the fact that the coroner's report did not show a trace of barbiturates anyplace in her digestive tract.
09:24At the autopsy, her stomach was empty.
09:28What that means is that a considerable period of time, several hours, had elapsed between the time she ingested the fatal pills and the time she died.
09:42But that is quite common.
09:43Now this is the perplexing thing.
09:47It's inconceivable that a person could take that amount of panobarbital by mouth and not have any trace of it chemically in the stomach.
10:02There would have been some residue in the digestive tract and there was none.
10:07Therefore, she could only have gotten it through another method.
10:12Specifically, there are two ways she could have gotten it.
10:14One was a hypodermic needle.
10:16The other was a suppository.
10:18There is a very high rate of absorption from a suppository.
10:23She had a lethal dose in her blood that she did not swallow.
10:28Therefore, it had to be given to her by somebody else.
10:31That person she had to know and she had to trust.
10:34Now, if the death was caused by injection, and she did it herself, then where is the syringe?
10:44It was not present at the scene.
10:46And if she didn't do it, then someone else had to do it.
10:50So I do not hesitate at all to call this what it simply is.
10:54It is a murder.
10:55And I do not hesitate at all to further go and say that a conspiracy existed between the police department,
11:05between the coroner's office, and between the L.A. County District Attorney's Office
11:09to conceal this murder and pass it off as a suicide.
11:15My name is Lionel Grandison, and I was a deputy coroner's aide at the time of Marilyn Monroe's death.
11:20I believe that there was a cover-up of Marilyn Monroe's death.
11:25It's not really clear to me if she was murdered or if, in fact, it was suicide.
11:30But I know, based upon my particular involvement in it,
11:33that there was a cover-up of some of the information to the public.
11:38And I signed her death certificate.
11:40The person who signs the death certificate is their responsibility to look through the file,
11:46be sure that all the information there pertaining to the death is in the file,
11:49and that if it's not, you go and seek it out.
11:52But supposedly, when it gets to that death, that all the information is there.
11:57But in Marilyn's case, it was not there.
12:00So, looking to do my job again, I went through the various, the suicide team's report,
12:07the medical examiner's report, the toxicologist's report.
12:10All the various reports that are supposed to be a part of a folder, okay, I went to seek them out.
12:16And everywhere I went, I found that there was no information on it.
12:19Why should I sign the death certificate without the information?
12:22Well, when I went to Dr. Kerfee to ask him about this file,
12:26he told me that it was not my responsibility to ask questions about it to sign the death certificate.
12:31We made our report to Dr. Theodore Kerfee, who was the medical examiner at that time.
12:38Immediately upon receiving our report, he did call a press conference,
12:41and we announced our findings to the press.
12:44No one in the office ever saw this report from the suicide team.
12:49At the time when Dr. Kerfee told me to sign the death certificate,
12:53that was one of the specific questions I asked him.
12:56What about the report from the suicide team, okay?
12:59He said that we were covered by the fact that we stated probable suicide, okay?
13:05And that he had both an oral and a written report from the suicide team
13:10that would come into the report at a later date.
13:13Some experts feel the conclusion of probable suicide should be questioned.
13:18I'm not saying that Marilyn Monroe was murdered,
13:22but I offer the possibility in view of the evidence that that possibility does exist.
13:28And unless further information can be supplied,
13:33the findings of a complete investigation,
13:36until I would see those personally,
13:39I'm very unsatisfied with the certification.
13:45I believe that Marilyn did not commit suicide purposely.
13:50I think it was an accident.
13:52It's the only reasonable, logical conclusion that I would have.
13:56And I have good reason to believe that.
14:00Because she had told me that if ever there came a time
14:05when I knew that she had taken some sedation,
14:08I should watch very carefully, unless she went to sleep,
14:11that she wouldn't take another dose of sedation.
14:14Her own housekeeper cannot accept the suicide charge,
14:18but thinks it was an accident.
14:21Psychiatrist Robert Littman reports on the findings of the psychological autopsy.
14:26Our main problem in this case was to distinguish between suicide and accident.
14:32It is quite possible for someone who is chronically or habitually using large amounts of sleeping pills.
14:43And Miss Monroe had a chronic, difficult sleep problem.
14:47Such people sometimes will overdose accidentally
14:52without deliberately meaning to take the overdose.
14:56When people do that, usually there are signs of disarray and confusion in the room
15:04because they've been toxic, intoxicated.
15:08And there are often pills scattered around
15:13because they've lost track of them.
15:17And usually there still are pills left on the scene
15:20because people who are abusing drugs, using large amounts,
15:24the thing they dread most is to run out.
15:27So they always maintain a supply.
15:31We think of suicide then
15:32when we have someone who has made special provision to get extra pills,
15:39which was true in this case.
15:41And someone who has used up all their pills,
15:45which was true in this case.
15:48Suicide? Accident?
15:49Or was Marilyn Monroe, as some believe, the victim of murder?
15:53A tale of intrigue has been suggested.
15:56A tale woven around not only the inconsistencies in the case,
15:59but around wiretaps, blackmail,
16:02and the alleged existence of the mysterious diary of Marilyn Monroe.
16:07Milo Spiriglio, a private investigator with the Nick Harris Detective Agency.
16:12In 1975, a noted investigative reporter by the name of Al Stump
16:16brought to us a gentleman by the name of Bob Slatzer,
16:19an investigative reporter and an author.
16:22He had an incredible story to tell us.
16:24He believed that Marilyn Monroe was murdered and did not commit suicide.
16:29It's not very often we would investigate a client.
16:31In this particular case, we found it necessary.
16:33Mr. Slatzer's story was so incredible
16:36about the death of Marilyn Monroe,
16:38the possibility of a homicide,
16:40the probability of a famous person or persons involved.
16:43We checked Mr. Slatzer's story out.
16:45At that point, we were convinced Mr. Slatzer had a story to tell,
16:49and we had an investigation to do.
16:51Hollywood writer-producer Robert Slatzer
16:53wrote a book on the death of Marilyn Monroe.
16:56Shortly before Marilyn was found dead,
17:00possibly a little bit over two weeks before,
17:03she had called me quite alarmed one afternoon
17:05and asked me if I could pick her up
17:07and drive out to the beach north of Malibu.
17:10There were some things she wanted to show me and tell me about,
17:12which included the diary.
17:14The entries in her diary were quite interesting
17:15and involved national security,
17:17which startled me, quite frankly.
17:21Lionel Grandison saw Marilyn's personal effects
17:24in the county coroner's office.
17:26I had an occasion to look through the diary again,
17:28looking, and it had some pretty bizarre information in there
17:33that no one had spoke about at that time.
17:35But I do know, all right,
17:36that these notations were in that book,
17:38and I know that that book only lasted
17:40around the coroner's office for about one day.
17:43I was especially concerned with Marilyn keeping that diary,
17:49and I asked her if she didn't think,
17:51if I, I mean, I told her I thought it was a piece of dynamite
17:55she was carrying around with her, quite frankly.
17:57And she said, well, don't worry about it,
17:59because she said, I carry it in my purse during the daytime
18:02when I'm away and so forth,
18:03and when I'm home, it's in my file cabinet.
18:07Somebody else must have gotten this information, too,
18:09because her file cabinet had been broken into
18:12on two different occasions within ten days
18:14before she was found dead.
18:16And it happened to be that many mysterious things
18:20began to happen about this time,
18:23including her fear of the telephone lines being tapped,
18:27which were eventually proven.
18:29Marilyn Monroe always had a fear
18:31that her phones were tapped.
18:33Little did she know that her rooms were also bugged.
18:36And Marilyn Monroe had very good cause
18:38to believe that her phones were tapped
18:40because of her involvement with some political people.
18:42In 1977, on the old Marilyn Monroe house,
18:47there was a leak on the roof,
18:49and they called in a repairman to repair it.
18:52This particular gentleman worked with the Signal Corps
18:54of the United States government
18:55prior to his construction type of business
18:58and was very well familiar with wire taps and room bugs.
19:02And he discovered a tremendous amount of wire inside the house.
19:06Now, this is not common household wire.
19:08The type of wire he found was what's known
19:10as direct room bugs,
19:13which is capable of keeping the entire house bugged
19:15for any length of time.
19:17And it was believed that the wires
19:19were in the house way back in the 1960s.
19:23Spiriglio told us that an article to this effect
19:26appeared in a newspaper,
19:27but we were unable to substantiate this claim.
19:31After her mysterious death,
19:33the Attorney General of the United States
19:34ordered a raid on the house
19:37of a person by the name of Bernard Spender.
19:40He was a noted wiretapper
19:43working directly for Jimmy Hoffa.
19:45The raid took 12 hours,
19:47and to our knowledge,
19:48it's the only raid that was ever bugged.
19:50The first five and a half hours of it
19:52was taped by the wiretapper,
19:55unbeknownst to the United States government.
19:57In those tapes,
19:59they found,
20:00according to very reliable sources,
20:03the tapes of the actual murder
20:05of Marilyn Monroe.
20:06It was on sound.
20:07The rooms were bugged
20:08as well as the telephones.
20:10The New York Times reported
20:12that a raid was made
20:13on the home of Bernard Spendell.
20:15He claimed that the tapes
20:16of Marilyn Monroe's murder
20:18were among tapes confiscated
20:20in that raid.
20:22After Spendell was arrested
20:24for electronic eavesdropping,
20:25he died in prison,
20:27eliminating any possibility
20:29of substantiating his claim.
20:31In the controversy
20:33surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death,
20:35both sides have made statements
20:37that remain unsupportable.
20:40Our investigation attempted
20:42to separate fact
20:43from rumored innuendo.
20:45But questions still remain.
20:48Why did so many hours elapse
20:50between the discovery of her body
20:52and the arrival of the police?
20:55Question.
20:57Did someone tape the intimate details
20:59of Marilyn Monroe's private life?
21:02Question.
21:03If a diary did exist,
21:05where is it now?
21:09Will we ever know
21:10what really happened
21:11on the night of August 5th, 1962?
21:14Once upon a time,
21:21in the magic land of Hollywood,
21:23a troubled little girl
21:24dreamt of fame and stardom.
21:27Her dream came true.
21:31Marilyn Monroe was at the height
21:33of her career
21:33when her Hollywood fantasy
21:35ended in tragedy.
21:37A tragedy shrouded in mystery.
21:40Tonight on the History Channel.
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21:46The world has embraced it.
21:47Relive hockey's greatest moments
21:49with Gretzky,
21:50Hall,
21:51Lemieux,
21:51Richard.
21:52The memories and the magic
21:54of the fastest sport on ice.
21:56Hockey's stories
21:57from the Hall of Fame.
21:59Tonight at 8
21:59on the History Channel.
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