On May 8, Betty Broderick died while serving a life sentence in prison
Credit: Don Kohlbauer/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA/Shutterstock; California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
NEED TO KNOW
- Betty Broderick killed her ex-husband and his new wife in their bed on Nov. 5, 1989
- The murders came after years of custody and financial disputes between the former couple
- Thirty-six years later, Betty died in prison while serving a life sentence
Betty Broderick, who died on May 8, spent the last three decades of her life in prison for murdering her ex-husband and his new wife.
Prior to the shocking double homicide on Nov. 5, 1989, and the acrimonious divorce that preceded it, Betty and Dan Broderick appeared to have the perfect life. He was a successful lawyer in the medical malpractice field, and Betty was a stay-at-home mother to their four children.
But behind the scenes, their marriage was full of strife, as Betty claimed in her 2015 memoir, Telling On Myself. In the early 1980s, Dan began an affair with Linda Kolkena, a 20-something receptionist whom he had hired to be his legal assistant. Betty had suspicions about the relationship early on, which Dan continually denied. Eventually, he decided to leave Betty and filed for divorce in 1985.
Dan's clout in the local legal community reportedly gave him the upper hand in court, which Betty described to the Los Angeles Times as “putting a housewife in the ring with Muhammad Ali.”
On the morning of Nov. 5, 1989, seemingly fed up after losing custody of her children and watching her ex-husband sell their family home with no profit going to her, Betty shot and killed Dan and Linda in their bed. Over three decades later, she died at 78 on May 8 while serving a life sentence for her crimes.
So, what happened to Betty Broderick? Here's everything to know about the double homicide she committed and what happened in the aftermath.
Who is Betty Broderick?
Credit: J T Macmillan/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA/Shutterstock
Betty was born in 1947 and grew up in Westchester County, just outside of New York City. She was raised in a strict Catholic household and attended religious schools with her four siblings, per Telling On Myself.
Looking back, Betty wrote that her parents primed her to grow up to be a housewife; she regularly took care of her youngest sibling and other children in the neighborhood. Betty then dabbled in modeling and also got a job at a local restaurant and department store.
After graduation, she enrolled at the nearby University of Mount Saint Vincent in 1965, where she studied English and early childhood education.
How did Betty Broderick and Dan Broderick meet?
Credit: San Diego Union-Tribune/Shutterstock
Dan and Betty first crossed paths while she was on a trip to Indiana to attend a University of Notre Dame football game, per Esquire. At the time, she was 17, and he was in his early 20s, preparing to enroll in medical school at Cornell University.
When Dan moved to N.Y.C. to begin school, the pair connected once again and went on to date on and off throughout Betty's time in college.
“He was very ambitious, very intelligent and very funny. And I am those three things. We were from the same kind of background. We both wanted the same things in the future,” Betty told the L.A. Times. “All I wanted to be was a mommy. He promised me the moon. The guy asked me to marry him every day for three years."
What happened during Betty Broderick and Dan Broderick's marriage?
Credit: Sdut/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
After graduation, Betty got a job as a teacher, the couple married and they started having kids. According to Betty, their relationship continued to deteriorate after the family relocated to Somerville, Mass., while she was pregnant with their second child, as reported by the L.A. Times.
In Telling On Myself, Betty claimed that she attempted to return to living with her parents when she realized that Dan had allegedly taken control of her bank accounts. Then, following a difficult third pregnancy, the infant died shortly after birth.
When Dan later graduated from Harvard, the family moved again, this time to San Diego, where he got a job at a law firm. He later started his own practice, and the couple became ingrained in the city's elite social scene.
But at home, Betty and Dan still struggled. She claimed that he was not an involved parent and wrote that when she got a job as a real estate agent, he refused to help out with the kids. Their oldest daughter, Kim, recalled her parents often fighting.
"Once Mom picked up the stereo and threw it at him," she told the L.A. Times. "And she locked him out constantly. He'd come around to my window and whisper, ‘Kim, let me in.' ”
Kim continued, “And she was always telling me they were getting a divorce. She'd say, ‘Who are you going to live with?' I was dying for Dad to divorce her. I'd say to Dad, ‘Just take me the day you leave.' ”
Amid Dan and Betty's marital struggles, he met Kolkena, a former flight attendant whom he hired to work as his legal assistant.
Dan continued to deny his affair with Linda while tensions escalated in his home with Betty. In 1985, Dan and Betty separated, and he officially moved out, per CBS8.
In June 1985, Betty allegedly entered the family home and trashed the bedroom by shattering mirrors and spray-painting the walls, curtains and fireplace, according to a declaration filed by Dan and acquired by the L.A. Times.
Meanwhile, Dan had also taken over care of the couple's children. Since he moved out, Betty had been dropping off the children one by one on his doorstep with all of their belongings. Instead of proving that Dan was unable to care for the children, he took over as their primary parent.
What happened during Dan Broderick and Betty Broderick's divorce?
Credit: Michael Darden/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA/Shutterstock
In 1986, Dan sold the family home using a procedure that permitted a judge to sign over Betty's half, while claiming that she had refused to sign the sale papers, per the L.A. Times.
Dan also officially gained custody of the couple's four children. The former couple's children often ended up in the middle of their court battle, which Betty said drove her into a depression.
The following years were filled with complex legal maneuverings, during which Betty claimed she found it difficult to find adequate legal aid who would be willing to go up against Dan and his powerful legal team. As the five-year case unfolded, Betty continually lost court battles and continued to act out.
She eventually ended up spending a weekend in jail for leaving aggressive messages and for being in contempt of the court. Kim also recalled her mother allegedly threatening her father's life, and on one scary occasion, Betty drove her car into the new home Dan shared with their children.
“I opened the door to try to pull her out,” Dan claimed to the L.A. Times before his death. “As I did so, she reached for a large butcher knife under the seat.”
Betty was placed in a mental health hospital for several days after the incident. In January 1989, the divorce was finalized. Betty lost custody of her children and was set to receive $16,000 a month in spousal support and a cash award of $28,000.
What happened to Dan Broderick and Linda Kolkena?
Credit: Chris Cavanaugh/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA/Shutterstock
In April 1989, just months after the divorce was finalized, Dan and Linda married. Then, on Nov. 5, Betty received two letters in response to her new custody request. In the notes shared in Telling On Myself, Dan's legal team expressed concerns about Betty's custody proposal and threatened her with more legal action.
“I completely fell apart. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go back to court, and back to jail, and I didn't want my boys on a trial basis. I knew exactly what that meant: Dan would be my judge and jury, and I knew how that would go — an endless Salem witch trial,” Betty wrote.
She continued, “I had to make it stop. I could not live one more day like this, waiting for his next ‘Gotcha!' I just couldn't stand it. I felt like I had failed my kids and I had nothing left to live for."
In the early hours of the morning, Betty said she initially planned to die by suicide but changed her mind, rerouting to Dan and Linda's home.
“Obviously, I was not in my right mind. I wasn't even in a crazy person's right mind. I was dissociating and imagining scenarios that could never come to pass. I was no longer seeing or thinking clearly. This is what it feels like to go insane. I had, I was,” Betty wrote.
She then entered Dan and Linda's home using a key she obtained from her daughter. Betty came into the couple's room where they were sleeping and opened fire. Linda was instantly killed by two bullets, and Dan was hit in the chest.
Betty contacted her daughter Lee to tell her what she had done and then turned herself in to the police, per the L.A. Times.
What was Betty Broderick charged with?
Credit: Jack Yon/San Diego Union-Tribune via ZUMA/Shutterstock
After confessing to shooting Dan and Linda, Betty was taken to a local jail where she was held without bail.
During the highly publicized 1990 trial, Betty openly admitted that she had shot Dan and Linda but argued that she, too, had been a victim, per the L.A. Times, driven over the edge by years of alleged psychological abuse. She claimed that she could not be charged with first-degree murder because the killing was not premeditated and she had only intended to confront her ex-husband.
“I am not going to turn around and say someone else did it, or I didn't do it. My lawyers hate it because there is no law that says I can defend myself against his type of onslaught. [But] he was killing me,” Betty said during the trial.
Betty and Dan's daughter Lee also took the stand, alleging that her father often spoke disparagingly about her mother and had moods where he would “break things that would frustrate him.”
“Nobody would want to disobey him or make him mad when he was home from work,” Lee said, per the L.A. Times. The former couple's daughter Kim also spoke during the trial, although she recalled an unstable relationship with her mother and painted her in a more negative light.
Additionally, Betty's housekeeper took the stand, sharing through a translator that the two youngest children were “happy” around their mother but were “frightened and silent” around their father, who she claimed wouldn't let them “jump or play.” She alleged that the boys often did not want to return to their father after spending the weekend with Betty.
At the end of the first trial, the jury was hung with no verdict. After extensive deliberations, two members of the jury believed a manslaughter conviction should be ruled, while the 10 others pressed for murder. The judge declared a mistrial.
The case went to trial for a second time in 1991, during which experts declared Betty had histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders, according to the L.A. Times. This time, the jury agreed on a verdict, charging Betty with two counts of second-degree murder. She was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 15 years to life plus two years for illegal use of a firearm, the maximum under the law.
What happened to Betty Broderick?
Credit: Sdut/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
After her second trial ended in 1992, Betty went to prison at the California Institute for Women. She was eligible for parole several times but was denied on every occasion.
She was first up for parole in 2010, which resulted in a five-hour hearing in front of a judge. Betty recalled how her “whole world fell off its axis” when Dan won custody of their children and she “allowed the voices in [her] head to completely take over,” per NBC News.
Her children also spoke out, but were divided on whether their mother should be released. While Lee wanted her mother to come live with her, Danny said his mother was “hung up on justifying what she did” and releasing her could be a “dangerous mistake.”
Board of Prison Terms Commissioner Robert Doyle issued the parole denial, saying, “Your heart is still bitter, and you are still angry. You show no significant progress in evolving. You are still back 20 years ago in that same mode. You've got to move on.”
Betty attempted another bid for parole in 2017 but was once again denied. San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Richard Sachs said Betty was “defiant” and smirked “throughout the hearing," noting that she was "in complete denial that she murdered two innocent people."
Meanwhile, Betty said that she had met all criteria for parole, and her release date should have been in 2010.
Betty was next up for parole in 2032, but she died on May 8 while serving a life sentence in California.
Three weeks before her death, she was moved from the California Institute for Women to an outside medical center "for a higher level of care," the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.
The details of her health condition are unclear and a medical doctor determined that her initial cause of death was natural. However, the San Bernardino County Coroner will officially rule on her cause of death at a later time, per the CDCR.
Her son Daniel, however, told TMZ that Betty suffered a number of septic infections before her death, and had a serious fall approximately three weeks before her death.
Read the full article here
