Marilyn Monroe’s August 5, 1962 death was listed as an "acute barbiturate poisoning" by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office and ruled as a "probable suicide.” Sgt. Jack Clemmons, the first Los Angeles Police Department officer at the death scene and many detectives believe she was murdered. The problem with the death certificate is that too many forensic facts conflict it. There was evidence that she was given a barbiturate enema. This and other information caused crime solving experts to reject the suicide theory as inconsistent with facts. She was in good spirits before her mysterious death. There were whispers that she was going to remarry Joe DiMaggio.

Events before Marilyn Monroe’s Death
According to Anthony Summers October 2006, article, “Bombshell: Documents Throw New Light on Marilyn Monroe’s Death,” www.rd.com/family/marilyn-monroe/?obref=obinsite,recently released government documents raised new questions about what happened onthe night Monroe died. An FBI’s document, made available in 2006, was written ten days before her death.

July 26,2006: An official in the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division made an implicit note, in its Washington, DC headquarters, based on intelligence reports from agents in Mexico City. Informants’ names were deleted. Monroe was referred to as MM. She was having lunch in Peter Lawford’s house with President John F. Kennedy, JFK. Lawford was secretly called the Kennedy family pimp. Informants claimed her attitude was leftist.

This document was filed in MM Security Matter C, meaning Communist, and was kept secret by the US government. In February, MM was drinking champagne with Frederick Vanderbilt Field in a Mexican City hotel suite. She wanted to buy paintings and furniture for her Mexican-styled house and Field, who lived in Mexico for years, was helping her. He was a communist supporter and was under continuous surveillance by US agents.

The FBI already knew that Monroe was having an affair with JFK. Three weeks before her death, she attended a dinner party in Los Angeles. It was either known or soon to be discovered that she had an affair with JFK’s brother, US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, RFK.

It was a potentially explosive situation. Monroe was involved with two US politicians and was imbibing too much alcohol, abusing prescription drugs and seeing a psychiatrist nearly daily. Her association with Field and her relationship with the Kennedy brothers made her a security risk.

Marilyn Monroe’s Death: Secret Files
Anthony Summers’ book, Goddess: The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, Warner Books, 1985, is, in my opinion, the best one written about her life and mysterious death. His writing is painstakingly accurate. If there’s dubious information, he states that he found no evidence to support it.

In 1985, when Summers’ biography of Monroe was published, he suspected that authorities didn’t reveal the total truth about her last months. In 1982, the office of the Los Angeles County District Attorney conducted a review of Monroe’s death, an investigation prompted by public controversy and a coroner’s aide claiming he was forced to sign her death certificate. The FBI told the DA’s investigators there was data they couldn’t see – information about Monroe Mexican visit.

Summers filed a suit against the FBI to release its secret file and received two documents that were nearly entirely blacked out. FBI attorneys claimed releasing uncensored files violated the request of another agency and compromised sources. Finally, the FBI gave Summers over a hundred pages, with less censorship. He received about five hundred pages from the DAs 1982 case review.

Marilyn Monroe’s Death: Inconsistencies
Shortly before she died, Monroe discussed suicide with friend Jeanne Carmen. If she would kill herself, she’d wear a white nightdress, overdose on pills, have her hair and makeup done, then go to bed. She’d tell a friend about her suicide to ensure that, after her death, she was carefully positioned and the bedroom was tidy. When her body was found, it appeared she was dead for a while. Monroe was naked, in a semi-fetal position, face without makeup, hair a mess and in a disorganized room. There were pill bottles on the bedside table. Some people believed that her death was a tragic accident; others thought the overdose was administered by a killer.

Monroe’s internist, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, told investigators that he had prescribed only one of the medications that killed her. Records are contradictory about how the police and coroner’s staff handled the drugs found in her house. A coroner’s document indicates nothing was removed from the scene. The table was still littered with pill bottles the next day. Monroe’s business manager, Inez Melson, the first person allowed egress after the police left, told Summers she threw them away.

When Dr. Noguchi asked the head toxicologist to test tissue samples, he was told they were “destroyed.”

Allegedly, Eunice Murray, Monroe’s housekeeper, was the only other person present in the house when the star died. Murray said she called Monroe’s psychiatrist Ralph Greenson after she woke in the night and saw a telephone cord under Monroe’s bedroom door. Usually, the actress left phones outside of her bedroom at night, muffled by pillows, so she wouldn’t be disturbed.

Greenson claimed he broke a window to enter Monroe’s room and found her unresponsive. He called her internist, Dr. Engelberg, who rushed to the house and discovered she was dead. He called the police. The 1982 DAs report didn’t question the credibility of the witnesses or mention the destruction of forensic specimens.

The DA’s office interviewed Clemmons who said the death scene didn’t look right and Murray’s version of events was questionable. The investigators didn’t interview homicide detective Sgt. Robert Byron, the officer who replaced Clemmons. He filed the only three police reports about Monroe’s death that survived. He also had doubts about Murray’s honesty. Byron and a colleague felt strongly enough to include their suspicions in a report filed on August 8th when they wrote Murray was vague and, probably, evasive in answering questions about Monroe.

The housekeeper and doctors claimed that Monroe was found dead at around 3:30 AM. In 1985, Summers interviewed Natalie Jacobs, widow of Monroe’s press spokesman. Word that the actress was dead reached the Jacobses while they were at a Henry Mancini concert that ended by 11 PM. After Summer’s book was published, Juliet Roswell, a former Jacobs employee, corroborated Natalie’s statement. She said Jacobs told her that he went to Monroe's home at 11 PM.

Summers interviewed Murray six times while doing research for his book. During a 1985 interview for a BBC television documentary, as camera crews were packing equipment, 83-year-old Murray put her head in her hands and sobbed that, at her age, did she still have to cover things up? It was problematic that Bobby Kennedy’s protectors had to interfere to guard him.

Photojournalist William Woodfield, who worked on the story for the New York Herald Tribune, in 1962, had evidence of protection. He talked to Greenson on the phone months after Monroe’s death. He recorded the conversation; the tape survives today. Greenson ended the call by saying that there were thing he didn’t want to disclose and to talk to RFK.

There are many witnesses to Monroe’s and RFK’s affair, as well as police records evidencing his presence in Los Angeles in 1962.

Marilyn Monroe Death: Reprise
William Langley’s article, “The Circumstances of Marilyn Monroe’s Death Half a Century ago Remain Shrouded in Mystery,”www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/9434570/Marilyn-Monroe-50-years-on-The-mystery-of-Marilyns-last-days.html, reveals more information about Monroe’s final days.

According to Langley, Monroe, Lawford and wife Pat, Kennedy sister, went to Lake Tahoe in Frank Sinatra’s private jet on July 28th. Monroe and Sinatra had an affair in 1961. Accounts of her condition differ. What wasn’t disputed is that by evening, Monroe was furious, confused and under the influence of substances. Witnesses said Sinatra feared she might die at his Cal Neva casino and ordered her to be removed.

On August 1, Fox Studios rescinded her being fired from Something’s Got to Give, agreed to replace director George Cukor who found her impossible to work with and offered her a contract for two more films worth $1 million.

Accounts of August 4th are contradictory. Many people either claimed or were alleged to have visited her home including RFK, mob kingpin Sam Giancana and FBI men who were investigating her relationships with the Kennedys and organized crime. Conspiracy theories implicating the Kennedys, Lawford, the Mafia, studio big wigs, Sinatra’s Rat Pack gang and the FBI.

Summers wrote that before he died, Lawford told his fourth wife, Patricia Seaton, that Monroe died from her last enema shortly before he died in 1984.

It appears that Monroe was murdered. What do you think?