The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (9 page)

Scrambling for facts to feed a voracious press, the LAPD asked Hamilton's successor, Captain Daryl Gates, to formulate an in-house report to
fend off the call for an official inquiry. Faced with composing an investigative report on Marilyn Monroe, Captain Gates joined the paper chase.

Gates claimed he wasn't able to find anything in the official police files—not even Monroe's death report. However, he followed up on the rumor that Thad Brown had kept his own copy of the Monroe file. Accompanied by Thad's brother, Finis, Gates discovered the unauthorized file Thad Brown had secreted in his garage, where they had moldered for over thirteen years.

The voluminous material comprised over 700 pages of documents, interviews, depositions, photographs, and reports. Gates elected to use only 19 pages of the original files, saying that certain information was withheld as “not part of the public record.”

Among the discoveries in Thad Brown's garage were copies of Marilyn Monroe's phone records, which Hamilton had removed from the General Telephone Company on the night of her death—records Chief Parker had denied obtaining. It would be yet another seven years before the LAPD would finally admit having them in its possession.

In 1975, when he was director of operations, Daryl Gates decided to interview Peter Lawford and add his statement to the selected items to be included in his report. While Peter Lawford's recitation of the events had always supported the official version, Lawford had never been officially interviewed by the police. Several days after Marilyn Monroe's death, Sergeant Byron had tried to interview Peter Lawford but was told by his secretary that “Lawford had flown out of the city” and would not be available for several weeks. Six hundred and eighty weeks later, the police interview took place—on October 16, 1975.

Time and circumstances had collected their toll: Jack and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated; Peter and Pat Lawford had been divorced; Lawford's career had plummeted, and he had become a hopeless drunk and drug addict. Having lost his wealth, he moved from the former Louis B. Mayer beach mansion to a small apartment in West Hollywood on the wrong side of the Strip. Everything had changed—except Lawford's story about the night Marilyn Monroe died.

Gates's “in-house” investigation continued until the public outcry for a grand jury investigation had subsided. The final report, issued on October 22, 1975, found “insufficient evidence to warrant an official investigation. Some of the evidence is as thin as Depression food-line soup.”

The 165-page report consisted of forty-five pages photocopied from Slatzer's book; a copy of the Lawford interview; a Xerox copy of Monroe's last will and testament; a list of debtors' claims to her estate; a compendium of crank letters sent to the Police Department; a Xerox copy of the autopsy report; and a scrapbook of Monroe's newspaper clippings.

This “exhaustive” report, which undoubtedly required going to the Xerox room on numerous occasions during the year it took to prepare, contained no interviews with the key witnesses—other than Peter Lawford. One of the key witnesses Gates failed to interview was Dr. Ralph Greenson. Photographs of Greenson taken in his later years reveal an extraordinary physical and emotional decline. When he returned to Los Angeles after a lengthy period of analysis with Dr. Max Schur, he shared offices with his friend and associate Dr. Hyman Engelberg at 465 North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills. Taking on fewer patients, he immersed himself in teaching and writing.

In his later years Greenson suffered from depression, coronary illness, and an episode of aphasia. “That was very hard for someone who had so many words for everything.” recalled his patient Janice Rule. “He became enraged when he found he couldn't express himself.” Ralph Greenson died under the care of Dr. Engelberg on November 24, 1979, at the age of sixty-eight.

The death of Ralph Greenson silenced forever the voice of one of the most important of the key witnesses to the circumstances of Marilyn Monroe's death. Whatever he revealed to John Miner was secreted within the hallows of professional confidentiality. However, disturbed by allegations in Donald Spoto's 1993 book,
Marilyn Monroe: The Biography
, that Dr. Greenson was responsible for the actress's death, John Miner obtained permission from Greenson's widow to reveal some of the things he had heard on the tapes Greenson played for him in 1962.

Miner revealed that Greenson told him Marilyn Monroe had recorded the tapes at her home in the days before her death. They were an extension of her free-association sessions with Greenson. Because she had difficulty sleeping, Marilyn suggested she record the tapes at night. She would then give the recordings to Greenson at the following session.

On the tapes played by Greenson during the 1962 interview, Miner stated that Marilyn discussed her relationship with both Jack and Robert Kennedy. “She was very explicit about the sexual relationship,” Miner disclosed. Though she had once been in love with Jack Kennedy and couldn't understand why she was suddenly rejected and treated so badly
by both Kennedy brothers, she was determined to put the Kennedys behind her and go on with her life.

According to Miner, “The tapes reveal an intelligent woman with a good sense of humor. She had important future plans, and the last thing one could conclude from hearing these tapes was that she was contemplating killing herself.

“Dr. Greenson was of the opinion that she definitely had not committed suicide,” Miner continues, “and I don't see how it could have been accidental, with the volume of barbituates that caused death. I don't think she could have swallowed anything like a lethal dose…. If there had been an inquest, and I think there should have been, I think there would have been clearer evidence that it was not a suicide.”

On the basis of the tapes, Greenson's disclosure, and the toxicology report, Miner believes that the case should be reopened. There is no statute of limitations on a homicide. In June 1997 Miner wrote a formal letter to the Los Angeles district attorney, Gil Garcetti, requesting a new formal investigation into Marilyn Monroe's death. He has recommended that the body be exhumed for reexamination and is prepared to testify about the Marilyn Monroe tapes and what Greenson told him during the interview for Coroner Curphey on August 12, 1962.

Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti has yet to respond to Miner's request.

I
n 1982, former coroner's aide Lionel Grandison announced to the press that he had been coerced into signing Marilyn Monroe's death certificate, and he revealed that her diary had been stolen from the coroner's safe.

Grandison's disclosures, along with Robert Slatzer's renewed initiatives, culminated in a second recommendation by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors for a grand jury investigation. However, District Attorney John Van de Kamp hastily called a news conference on August 11, 1982, and announced that he had an investigation already under way. Though there's no record that an investigation had been initiated before Van de Kamp's announcement, it successfully staved off the Board of Supervisors' action. By preempting the grand jury, Van de Kamp, with his informal “threshold investigation,” reduced it to a paperwork shuffle—a rephrasing of material previously dispensed to the public. No one was required to testify under oath, and, predictably, the surviving key witnesses Hyman Engelberg, Pat Newcomb, Peter Lawford, Eunice Murray, and Mickey Rudin chose not to talk to investigators.

In an effort to refute suspicions that the overdose of barbiturates had been injected into her bloodstream via a hypodermic needle, Van de Kamp's 1982 report states:

But contrary to the report's statement, Noguchi said that Monroe had such a massive amount of pentobarbital and chloral hydrate in her blood that he ruled out the possibility of an “accidental” suicide. Computerized comparables of forensic medicine indicate that the high blood levels are totally consistent with a “hot shot” leading to rapid death.

Furthermore, the evidence contradicts the report's claim of an “extended metabolic process which allows time for the liver to absorb the toxic substance.” Though 13.0 mg percent of pentobarbital was found in her liver, there was no chloral hydrate—clearly indicating that death occurred before the chloral hydrate could be absorbed in the metabolic process. Therefore the pentobarbital in the liver was absorbed earlier from her daily prescription dosage, and from the injection Engelberg gave her the previous day.

Further evidence that Monroe received a “hot shot” is the fact that her body exhibited signs of cyanosis—the classic indication of rapid death. In cyanosis the body takes on a bluish cast due to the rapid depletion of oxygen and reduced levels of hemoglobin. The blue cast of the skin is accompanied by a darkening of the fingernails.

One of the witnesses to the cyanosis was Leigh Wiener, who had taken pictures of the body in the morgue. An interview with Wiener appeared in the September 7, 1982, edition of the
Los Angeles Times
in which he discussed the morgue photographs. Wiener stated, “I had photographed the star five times. The last time was on a refrigerated slab…. On this occasion, the body of Marilyn Monroe had a distinctive bluish cast to it.” Wiener also noted that the fingernails had darkened.

Just as district attorney investigators Ronald Carroll and Alan Tomich
were completing their report, the November 23, 1982, edition of the
Globe
ran a sensational account of ambulance driver James Hall's Code 3 call to the Monroe residence on the evening of August 4, 1962. Hall claimed he was a former ambulance driver for the Schaefer Ambulance Service, and that he and his partner, Murray Liebowitz, were returning to the UCLA Medical Center when they received an emergency call to 12305 Fifth Helena Drive. Hall recalled, “We were real close, practically right around the corner. We were at her house within two minutes.”

When they arrived a hysterical woman led them to a small guest cottage, separate from the main house, where they found Marilyn Monroe lying nude, faceup on the bed. Her respiration and heartbeat were slight; her pulse was weak and rapid.

Because CPR requires strong back support, Hall and Liebowitz moved Monroe from the bed to the floor of an adjoining foyer and, placing an airway tube to facilitate breathing, they began resuscitation.

Hall recalled, “The hysterical woman was giving us trouble. She was trying to climb over us to get to Miss Monroe while I was working on her. She was screaming ‘She's dead! She's dead!' over and over again…. She was hampering what we were doing, but I don't think even a slap in the face would have calmed her down—she was that crazy.”

“Soon I was getting a perfect exchange of air from Miss Monroe,” he went on. “Her color was starting to come back. I felt she was doing well enough that we could safely take her to the hospital. I said to Murray, ‘Get the gurney.' However, at that moment a man carrying a doctor's bag entered the guest cottage and said, ‘I'm her doctor. Give her positive pressure.'”

Hall was surprised by the doctor's decision, because the resuscitator was doing its job. “But you never argue with a doctor at the scene of an emergency—never. You'd lose your job,” Hall said. “So I took the resuscitator off and began to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while the doctor gave her CPR.” Familiar with the “odor of pear” factor in victims of chloral hydrate ingestion, Hall said he did not detect it, nor was there indication of vomitus.

As her vital signs deteriorated, the doctor opened his bag and pulled out a syringe with a heart needle affixed to it. He filled the syringe from a pharmaceutical bottle of adrenaline. The doctor then attempted to inject the stimulant into her heart in an attempt to revive her. “He did it at an incorrect angle,” according to Hall, “and the needle hit a rib. Instead
of backing it out, he just leaned on it.” Hall stated that he believed Marilyn Monroe expired at that moment.
^*

Placing the stethoscope on her chest, the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat, and according to Hall, he said, “You can leave. I'm going to pronounce her dead.”

While James Hall was writing his report, a man in a jumpsuit was trying to calm the hysterical woman, who was repeatedly sobbing, “She's dead! She's dead!” Hall noticed that a police officer arrived and briefly spoke to the man in the jumpsuit. The officer then went into the main house before returning to sign Hall's EPA call slip.

Hall later identified the hysterical woman as Pat Newcomb, the man in the jumpsuit as Peter Lawford, the doctor as Ralph Greenson, and the police officer as Sergeant Marvin Iannone.

Hall's revelation was a fascinating but improbable account of events surrounding the circumstances of Marilyn Monroe's death. If his story was to be believed it would explain the neighbor's sighting of the ambulance and police car late Saturday night.
^†

The story was suspect because it first appeared as tabloid journalism and contradicted the statements of key witnesses. When the press confronted Walter Schaefer regarding the tabloid article, Schaefer vehemently denied Hall's story and stated that James Hall had never worked for him, and Murray Liebowitz denied having assisted James Hall on the night of the actress's death.

The ambulance chase came to a screeching halt.

The story, however, alerted the press and the public to the fact that neighbors had seen an ambulance at the death scene. For the first time, Abe Landau and his wife, who still reside next to the former Monroe residence, publicly confirmed that they had seen the ambulance and police car in front of the Monroe driveway late Saturday night, August 4, 1962. At this juncture the ambulance chase resumed and took some hairpin turns.

Compelled by Hall's revelations and the Landaus' statements, the district attorney was forced to address the ambulance story in the 1982 report. Investigator Alan Tomich reviewed the ambulance question with Walter Schaefer, who finally admitted that one of his ambulances had been called to the Monroe residence.

The ambulance story was an inexorable problem for the district attorney. If Hall's statements were correct, and Marilyn Monroe had died in the presence of a doctor in different circumstances and a different location than the coroner had stated, there would be no alternative but to call for an official full-scale inquiry. The solution to the problem was an artful study in the dissemination of disinformation.

While refusing to interview James Hall, the district attorney's office found its solution in interviewing a Mr. Ken Hunter, who said it was he, not James Hall, who had responded to the Schaefer Code 3 call to the Monroe residence. “Chapter 2” of the district attorney's report states:

Ken Hunter's story was accepted, and James Hall's story was dismissed without investigation. The report states, “Mr. James Hall's declarations concerning his conduct and observations at the scene of death are not credible.” However, there were intrinsic problems with Ken Hunter's story.
Hunter had said that “police officers were at the scene at the time he and his partner left.” But according to the official version of events, Sergeant Jack Clemmons was the first officer on the scene, arriving at 4:40
A.M.
Clemmons confirmed in 1993, “There was no ambulance or attendants at the house when I arrived, or at any time while I was there.” Neither Sergeant Robert Byron, James Bacon, Joe Hyams, nor Billy Woodfield recalls seeing an ambulance in the early hours of Sunday morning after Clemmons's departure.

But there was a bigger problem with Hunter's story: Ken Hunter didn't work for Schaefer in 1962. Carl Bellonzi, vice president of the Schaefer Ambulance Service, who has worked for the company for over forty years, stated in 1993 that Ken Hunter wasn't employed by Schaefer until the mid-1970s, and that Hunter never worked the West Los Angeles area. He was an employee in the 1970s and 1980s in the Orange County office.

 

Robert Slatzer returned to the offices of Walter Schaefer in 1985 and again questioned him about the ambulance call, and in a recorded interview Schaefer changed his story for the third time. “I guess I can tell it,” Schaefer began. “I came in the next morning [Sunday, August 5, 1962] and found on the log sheet we had transported Marilyn Monroe. I understood that she had overdosed. She was under the influence of barbiturates. They took her on a Code Three, an emergency, into Santa Monica Hospital, where she terminated.” Again he named Hunter as the driver and Liebowitz as the attendant. When asked why the body was returned to her bedroom, Schaefer replied, “Anything can happen in Hollywood.”

Ken Hunter disappeared after his statement to the district attorney's office, but Anthony Summers located him in 1984. He proved to be evasive and refused further contact after an initial call. Murray Liebowitz, who had changed his name and moved, was found in 1985. He told Summers, “I don't want to be involved in this…. I wasn't on duty that night…. I heard about it when I came to work the next morning…. I'm not worried about anything…. Don't bother to call me anymore.”

In the gridlock of the ambulance chase, one thing becomes clear: an ambulance was called on the night Marilyn Monroe died. However, there have been four ambulance stories: 1) Schaefer's initial story that no ambulance was called; 2) Hall's story of Marilyn dying in the guest cottage;
3) Hunter's story that Marilyn was dead in her bedroom; and 4) Schaefer's second story that Marilyn died at the hospital and was brought back to her house.

Story number one can be eliminated by Schaefer's admission. Stories three and four can be eliminated, not only because of their improbability, but because of their impossibility—Ken Hunter was not employed by Schaefer in 1962. That leaves story number two, James Hall's improbable tabloid account of Marilyn Monroe dying in the guest cottage.

Hall's social security records and Schaefer's payroll deductions indicate that Schaefer wrongfully denied that Hall was his employee. A photo in the
Santa Monica Evening Outlook
shows James Hall transporting a crime victim for Schaefer Ambulance Service in September 1962. Interviews with Hall's father, his former wife, his sister, and his longtime friend Mike Carlson confirm that Hall told them his story shortly after Marilyn's death.

Hall recently recalled, “The
Globe
flew me to Florida and gave me six separate polygraph examinations, and I passed them all with flying colors.” Polygraph expert John Harrison stated, “As skeptical as I was when I first heard about Hall's story, I can say, unequivocally, there was no deception on his part during the tests. He was absolutely truthful.”

Hall was then put under hypnosis by Henry Koder, a professional forensic hypnotist with more than twenty years of crime investigation experience. “Hall was a good subject,” Koder stated. “I was able to take him back to the night of Marilyn Monroe's death under hypnosis and listen to his step-by-step description of his involvement. He was able to vividly recall that night and point out details that he hadn't remembered in earlier questioning.” Hall later described the interior of the guest cottage, including the location of the bed, nightstand, and telephone, as well as a partition between the bed and foyer. Few people had seen the cottage's interior during Monroe's lifetime, and when the Monroe estate sold the home to a Dr. Nunez, he had removed the partition that Hall described.