The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (4 page)

In Peter Lawford's description of his last call shortly after 7:30
P.M.
, he
describes Marilyn as deeply despondent, slurring her words, and uttering the memorable farewell, “Say good-bye to the president…” However, Murray stated that at approximately 7:30
P.M.
, she called Marilyn to the phone to speak to Joe DiMaggio, Jr. DiMaggio confirmed the time in his interview with the police and indicated that Marilyn sounded quite normal and was in good spirits when they spoke. And in Murray's statement regarding DiMaggio's call, she said, “From the tone of Miss Monroe's voice I believed her to be in very good spirits.” Murray described Marilyn as being “in a very gay mood while she spoke with him…. I heard her laughing.”

When the phone went dead during Marilyn's conversation with Lawford, he said that he thought she may have hung up. Lawford maintained that he redialed several times, but the line was busy each time. A telephone operator checked and told him the phone was off the hook. However, Marilyn had two telephone lines, and certainly Lawford had both numbers. If her private line was busy, and he was so alarmed that he tried it several times and had the operator intervene, logically he would have also tried the house phone. Was that busy as well?

Lawford said that he hadn't rushed over to Marilyn's house because Milt Ebbins had stated, “For God's sake, Peter, you're the president's brother-in-law. You can't go over there!” However, Ebbins's statement has a rationale only given the retrospective knowledge of her death.

Responding to Lawford's concerns, attorney “Mickey” Rudin claimed that he called Murray to see if everything was all right. The “highly intuitive” Mrs. Murray assured him that Marilyn was fine. It wasn't until seven hours later that Murray recovered her Piscean qualities and “seemed to sense that nightmare awaited, not in sleep, but beyond her bedroom door where the telephone cord running under Marilyn's doorway indicated ‘something was terribly wrong.'”

It was then that she called Dr. Greenson for the second time that day. However, before changing the motivation for calling Dr. Greenson from the “light under the door” to the “phone cord under the door,” Murray had already told the press that the last time she'd seen Marilyn alive, “she had turned in the doorway and said, ‘We won't be going for that drive after all, Mrs. Murray' and went into her bedroom, taking the telephone with her.”

There were many implausibilities in the narrative of events by the key witnesses as to what occured in the last twenty-four hours of Marilyn Monroe's life. Evidence would emerge indicating the depth of the decep
tions. Investigative journalists would discover that the alarm concerning Marilyn's death went out as early as 10:45
P.M.
Saturday, and that an ambulance arrived at the house while Marilyn was still alive. Years later Murray would once again change her story and refute the “locked bedroom” scenario.

Clearly, in 1962 the key witnesses conspired to conceal information. The haunting question is why six diverse people—an actor, a housekeeper, a psychiatrist, a press agent, an attorney, and a physician—collaborated to conceal the truth regarding the circumstances of Marilyn Monroe's death. What extenuating circumstances could have been so overwhelming that this disparate group conspired in a deception that has endured for over three decades?

Were they the extenuating circumstances of a suicide—or a murder?

W
hile many businesses remained closed on Sundays, it was usually the busiest day of the week at the Los Angeles County morgue, because so many people seemed to die under questionable circumstances on Saturday night. In 1962, the county coroner's office and morgue were in the basement of the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles. The dank, rat-infested facility suffered from limited funding and had a history of mismanagement and corruption. Investigations have revealed thievery, necrophilia, and the acceptance of bribes in the determination of the cause of death. Coroner Theodore Curphey's underpaid and overworked staff consisted of only three full-time medical examiners, four laboratory technicians, and several coroner's aides.

Dr. Thomas Noguchi, a newly appointed deputy medical examiner, arrived for his duties at six-thirty Sunday morning and “discovered something strange.” Curphey had left a telephone message: “Dr. Curphey wants Dr. Noguchi to do the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe.” Noguchi hadn't heard that Monroe had died and at first didn't realize that the note referred to the movie star. When he learned that it was, indeed,
the
Marilyn Monroe, Noguchi was surprised that he had been the
examiner selected. “A more senior medical examiner normally would have performed the autopsy,” Noguchi stated, “and yet Dr. Curphey had made a unique call early on a Sunday morning assigning me to the job.”

When he didn't find Monroe's name in the necrology of bodies that had arrived at the morgue Saturday night and Sunday morning, he questioned coroner's aide Lionel Grandison, who was responsible for ensuring that anyone who died under questionable circumstances, or without a physician's direct attendance, be directed to the L.A. County Coroner's office. Grandison soon discovered the first of many irregularities that led him to conclude that there had been an attempt to cover up the circumstances of Monroe's death.

“When people die of natural causes in hospitals, the body is generally held there while arrangements are made for transportation to a mortuary,” Grandison recalled, “but when the death involved a suspected suicide or murder, or accident, or the causes were simply unknown, the law said the body had to be shipped to the downtown county morgue in the Los Angeles coroner's office for evaluation.”

Grandison initiated a search and found the body at the Westwood Village Mortuary. “For that to happen,” Grandison related, “someone had to have called the mortuary and specifically asked them to come and pick up the body.” He was further surprised to find that the mortuary was preparing the body for embalming and was reluctant to release the corpse to the coroner. “They began to squawk. They didn't want to let us have the body. But ultimately there was nothing they could do because they were under my orders and the jurisdiction of the county.” This was an unprecedented situation, and in his subsequent investigation Grandison questioned the Westwood Village Mortuary staff, but he never discovered who had received the call releasing the body from the death scene and directing it to their mortuary.

Shortly after 9
A.M.
, Grandison had the body removed from the mortuary and driven downtown, where it was placed in crypt #33 of the county morgue in the Los Angeles Hall of Justice. Marilyn Monroe became Coroner's Case #81128. At 10:15
A.M.
, Eddy Day, a coroner's assistant, wheeled the corpse to stainless steel table #1 to prepare it for autopsy. The table was equipped with a water hose and drainage system, and a scale for weighing human organs.

Marilyn Monroe would be the first of a number of stars to be included
in Dr. Thomas Noguchi's cadaverous cast of players. Others would include Sharon Tate, Janis Joplin, William Holden, Natalie Wood, and John Belushi. In 1968 he performed the autopsy on Robert Kennedy. Noguchi went on to publish a book concerning his affinity for the famous and gained the unfortunate title “Coroner to the Stars.” After the publication of his book in 1984, he was demoted by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors and put on probation for allegedly mismanaging his office and sensationalizing his position as medical examiner.

Shortly before the autopsy began, Noguchi was joined by John Miner, a deputy district attorney specializing in medical and psychiatric law. Miner was an associate clinical professor at the University of Southern California Medical School and, along with Dr. Ralph Greenson, a lecturer at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute.

Also attending the autopsy was the Los Angeles County coroner, Dr. Theodore Curphey. Though the coroner's office has never revealed Curphey's presence at the autopsy, Grandison recently stated, “I do recall the day of that autopsy. And I do know for a fact that Dr. Curphey was there at the autopsy…. I know that he personally supervised everything that happened.” Grandison's revelation perhaps explains why a newly appointed deputy medical examiner had been assigned to Case #81128. “For Coroner Curphey to attend an autopsy was unprecedented,” according to Grandison. “He supervised the entire procedure and orchestrated the final report. It would have been difficult for Curphey to do that with the chief medical examiner, who normally would have received the assignment.”

Commenting on Coroner Curphey's handling of the autopsy, Noguchi stated, “As a junior member of the staff, I didn't feel I could challenge the department head on procedures.”

At 10:30
A.M.
the autopsy began. Miner recalls being profoundly moved when they first viewed the body. “I had looked at thousands of bodies, but Tom and I were both very touched. We had a sense of real sadness, and the feeling that this young, young woman could stand up and get off the table at any moment.”

Noguchi and Miner had studied the police reports indicating that Monroe had died in a locked room, and that her doctors believed she died of an ingestion of an overdose. They also had studied the pill bottles gathered by Guy Hockett. Dr. Engelberg had told the police he had given Monroe a refill prescription for fifty capsules of Nembutal on Friday, Au
gust 3. Records at the San Vicente Pharmacy indicate that the prescription was filled the day before she died.
^*

Though no hypodermic needles had been found in the locked room, Noguchi stated that the autopsy began with an external examination for puncture marks indicating that drugs were administered by injection. Miner stated, “We both examined the body very carefully with a magnifying glass for needle marks. There was no indication that the drugs had been administered by way of a hypodermic needle. If there had been marks, they would have been apparent on such a very careful examination of the body.”

The autopsy diagram clearly has the notation “No needle marks.” However, there are serious questions concerning the findings. It is a matter of record, according to the bill submitted to the Monroe estate, that Engelberg gave her an injection on August 3. The injection was at approximately 4
P.M.
on Friday, and according to Guy Hockett she died at approximately 10
P.M.
the following day—an elapsed time of thirty hours.

Miner, who was not a physician or a medical examiner, has been the primary defender of the “very careful search for needle marks.” However, in his book
Coroner
, Noguchi poses the question, “Were the drugs that killed her injected into her body by someone else?” He states how difficult recent needle marks are to detect, citing the John Belushi case. On examining Belushi's body, the police first ruled out drugs as the cause of death because the coroner's staff at the death scene had been unable to discover needle marks. Also, the chief of the Forensic Medicine Division, Dr. Ronald Kornblum, was not able to discover any needle marks, and neither was Noguchi. But acting on his suspicions, after traces of cocaine powder were discovered at the death scene, Noguchi writes, “I gripped Belushi's upper right arm with both of my hands, then squeezed…. Suddenly a tiny drop of blood appeared at the inner elbow, but the very fact that the fresh punctures had been so difficult to discover worried me…. A medically clean needle had been used and only drops of blood revealed it.”

Another matter for concern in external examinations is the question of lividity, or livor mortis. Lividity is caused when blood pools in the lowest level of the body in the hours after death, producing purplish blotches. In the external report the examiner mentions two such areas: first, the
face, neck, arms, chest and abdomen; second, “a faint lividity which disappears upon pressure is noted in the back and posterior aspect of the arms and legs.” The forensic significance is that when a body is moved during the livor mortis process, which usually extends for the first four hours after death, these “dual lividity” areas are known to occur. For instance, if a body lies on its stomach during a three-hour interval after death, and then is placed on its back by mortuary attendants, a secondary lividity could take place on the posterior during the next hour, or final phase of the process. Noguchi and Miner could have considered this when confronted by the dual lividity, which is mentioned in the autopsy report but not explained. However, it is now known that Marilyn Monroe died at approximately 10:30
P.M.
Saturday. Her body was rolled over and placed on the gurney by Guy and Don Hockett eight hours after the time of death, or four hours after the livor mortis process was completed. Therefore, the faint lividity noted on her posterior must have occurred immediately after death, when Monroe's body was on its back for a period of time before being placed facedown on the bed, where it remained until the end of livor mortis.

Without explanation, Noguchi's External Examination Report points out two fresh bruises on Marilyn's body: “a slight ecchymotic area is noted in the left hip and left side of the lower back.” However, according to Grandison, more bruises were found on Monroe's body than the official documents reveal. Grandison explained, “When a body is brought into the morgue, it is immediately inspected by a medical assistant. At this time all scars, bruises, cuts, or other trauma are indicated on a special initial examination form. This form becomes part of the official file and is completed before the beginning of the autopsy.” Grandison saw this form on the morning of August 5, and he said it included the hip bruises indicated in the autopsy report but also revealed additional bruises on Monroe's arms and the back of her legs. According to Grandison, “This initial examination form was part of a file that disappeared as the case began to expand.”

Miner later commented that all of the bruises were small, except for the large bruised area on the left hip. “We saw bruised areas on the body,” he recalls, “but nothing that could have contributed to death in any way.” However, bruised areas are an indication of violence, and the fact that obvious bruises weren't questioned, and that minor ones weren't even noted, is a disturbing omission.

Noguchi later questioned his own conclusion about the bruises and
admitted during an interview in 1982 that the prominent bruise on her left hip should have been looked into. “That bruise,” Dr. Noguchi said, “has never been fully explained.” When reporters asked what may have caused the bruise, Noguchi replied, “There is no explanation for that bruise. It is a sign of violence.”

After completing the external examination, Noguchi proceeded with the internal examination. “The body was opened up,” Miner recalls, “the rib cage removed. Then all of the chest organs were examined, weighed, and samples of each dropped in a jar of formalin to preserve them for examination.” Noguchi then opened the stomach, and he and Miner examined the contents for signs of the Nembutal tablets. But to their surprise the stomach was completely empty. “There was a small quantity of liquid in the stomach,” Miner recalled, “but we did not detect any sign that would indicate it contained any heavy drugs or sedatives.”

The examiner's report states, “A smear made from the gastric contents and examined under the polarized microscope shows no refractile crystals.” According to Dr. Sidney S. Weinberg, former Chief Medical Examiner of Suffolk County, New York, “It is inconsistent with the mode of death by ingestion of a large amount of barbiturates not to have found refractile crystals in the digestive tract. Under a polarized microscope the smear should have disclosed the exact character of the death-producing drug, as each medication has its own individual crystalline shape.” Furthermore, Weinberg and several other prominent medical examiners have pointed out that Nembutal's street name “yellow jackets” derives from the distinctive yellow in the gelatin capsules. If Monroe had swallowed as many as forty or more capsules of Nembutal, as has been estimated, evidence of yellow dye should have been found in the digestive tract—especially in an empty stomach. Noguchi found no trace of yellow dye.

Next, Noguchi and Miner looked at the duodenum, the first digestive tract after the stomach. When pills have been in the stomach for a period of time, sometimes the remains and residue will move on into the duodenum; however, they found nothing. Noguchi said, “I found absolutely no visual evidence of pills in the stomach or the small intestine. No residue. No refractile crystals. And yet the evidence of the pill bottles showed that Monroe had swallowed forty to fifty Nembutals and a large number of chloral hydrate pills.”

Noguchi's and Miner's examination is most significant for what they did
not
find.

Marilyn Monroe had attempted suicide on at least four previous occa
sions; this, of course, made the suicide scenario all the more plausible. And at least twice before, she had ingested a number of barbiturate capsules, and one of those times it was Nembutal.

During Christmas 1950, when she was staying at the apartment of her drama coach, Natasha Lytess, Marilyn became despondent over the death of her mentor, Johnny Hyde. Lytess returned home and discovered a note on her pillow that read, “I leave my car and fur stole to Natasha.” She recalled, “I ran to Marilyn's door, which was unlocked, and burst in to find that the room looked like hell on earth. Marilyn was on the bed, her cheeks were swollen, and she was unconscious. There was an ooze of purplish paste in the lip corners…. I jammed her mouth open and reached in and took out a handful of wet, purplish stuff she hadn't yet swallowed. On the night table was an empty bottle that contained sleeping pills.” Even though she'd used a glass of water, Marilyn had gagged on the pills she tried to consume. Her stomach was pumped, and she revived at the hospital.