Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (10 page)

3. Sgt. Clemmons asked the two doctors if they had attempted to revive the deceased and they answered that no, they had not. They simply stated that “It was too late.”

4. The body had obviously been moved after death. A sheet had been pulled up over her head and the body was lying almost perfectly straight, face down in the pillow, head turned to one side, arms out, in what is known as the “soldier’s position.”

5. The body of the deceased had several fresh bruises.

6. Sgt. Clemmons immediately asked the two doctors present if the body had been moved and they responded that it had not—and appeared quite defensive about the questioning.

7. The corpse was far too neat and tidy for a drug overdose. Involuntary spasms and vomiting in the moments before death inevitably leave a very messy victim in a contorted position. Marilyn was lying perfectly straight in her bed as though she had been positioned there. Sgt. Clemmons later concluded:

“It was the most obviously staged
death scene I had ever seen. The
pill bottles on her bedside table
had been arranged in neat order
and the body was deliberately
positioned. It all looked too tidy.”

8. The bed was made with fresh linen, and it appeared that the sheets had just been changed. Clemmons observed that the whole death scene had obviously been sanitized.

9. Marilyn’s psychiatrist, Dr. Greenson, stated that she was found clutching the telephone, apparently trying to call for help during her last moments. Sgt. Clemmons found that very odd because, if she’d wanted help, she could have just yelled for the housekeeper who was right down the hall, just a few feet away. The fact that her hand was dramatically clutching for the telephone as though she’d wanted to call for help (as stated by her doctors) seemed staged, just like the rest of it.

10. Marilyn’s doctors told Sgt. Clem- mons that she had committed suicide by swallowing all the pills, gesturing to the empty pill container on her night- stand. But, as Clemmons quickly noted, how would she have swallowed all the pills they said she had when there was nothing in the room to swallow them with? There was no water glass or anything sufficient. So, how did she swallow them? When Clemmons pointed this out to her doctors, they were feeble, lost for answers, and helped Clemmons search the room for a drinking glass. None was found. To further confound anyone who had actually been trying to swallow something, their search revealed that the bathroom water had even been turned off for some remodeling work (there was nothing to drink from in the bathroom either).

Sgt. Clemmons, first officer on the scene, was certain that there was no glass or bottle with which Marilyn would have been able to swallow the pills. Later, and just in time for the police photos, an empty glass is present in Marilyn’s bedroom. Sgt. Clemmons was adamant, however, that it was not there initially; as he had searched.

11. When Sgt. Clemmons asked how they first knew that something was wrong, Eunice, the housekeeper answered that it was around midnight when she had gotten up to go the bathroom and she then noticed under Marilyn’s bedroom door that the light was still on and the door was locked.

In their initial story to police, the witnesses (including two doc- tors) placed Marilyn’s time of death at slightly before 12:30 AM (the time they said that they found her). But professionals are able to easily determine a clear time window of death by observing the specific stage of rigor mortis. Rigor (stiffening of the muscles) begins about three to four hours after death and is in full effect at about twelve hours. Mortician Guy Hock ett arrived at Marilyn’s home at 5:40 AM. He inspected the body, and, based on the level of rigor mortis, determined a time window for her death of 9:30 to 11:30 PM. That concurs with what we now know about exactly when her “handlers” were informed. We know that Mari lyn actually was dead prior to 10:00 PM. because shortly after 10:00, her lead publicist, Arthur Jacobs, was urgently interrupted, at a concert, with the message “Come with us right now please, Mr. Jacobs—Marilyn Monroe is dead.”

12. In their initial story (which all three witnesses later changed at the exact same time), the housekeeper and the two doctors stated that Marilyn had locked herself in her bedroom. So, to gain access, Dr. Greenson had gone outside and smashed the window open with a fireplace poker. Sgt. Clemmons noted, however, that If her doctor had only smashed through the window from the outside to get in, the shards of glass would have only fallen inside the room, not outside where he also saw some of the glass shards.

13. The housekeeper was doing the laundry at 4:30 AM while her employer lay dead in the bedroom. Both the washer and dryer were running and the housekeeper was folding clean laundry and nervously fidgeting with it as she did so. Several loads were being done, so he knew she’d been at it for hours:

“She had already washed one complete load and was doing a second. A third load of linens had been folded and put on a counter.”

14. The housekeeper related her story in a very even and precise manner as though her statements had been very rehearsed and prepared.

15. It was very disturbing that witnesses stated the body was found at 12:30 AM, but the police were not called until 4:25 AM. Moreover, the explanations of what transpired during that four-hour gap were feeble and vague. Finally, Sgt. Clemmons asked the doctors directly: “What were you doing for four hours?” “Talking,” they responded. “For four hours? What were you talking about for four hours?” They shook their heads, no verbal response.

As established above, the actual time of death was prior to 10:00 PM, making it actually a gap of at least six and a half hours that she was dead, before the police were finally called.

16. Why were the witnesses behaving so strangely, either nervously avoiding Sgt. Clemmons questions, or, in the case of one of her doctors, almost challenging him to doubt their story? Contrary to typical experience with physicians, who were readily informative and didn’t need to be probed, these two seemed to be holding back, reluctant to provide information; one doctor seemed despondent and uncommunicative; the other seemed very strange, defensive, and almost cocky, “almost challenging me to accuse him of something. I kept thinking to myself, ‘What the hell’s wrong with this fellow?’ Because it just didn’t fit the situation.”

17. An official police investigative unit arrived at the house at about 5:30 AM and re-interviewed the witnesses; it was led by Sgt. Robert Byron and overseen by Lieutenant Grover Armstrong, Chief of Detectives, West Los Angeles, LAPD. The unit leader agreed with Sgt. Clemmons’ suspicions.

Regarding the housekeeper, Sgt. Byron concluded:

“My feeling was that she had been told what to say. It had all been rehearsed beforehand. She had her story and that was it.”

Regarding the doctors, Sgt. Byron’s conclusion was:

“I didn’t feel they were telling the correct time or situation.”

18. Sgt. Clemmons kept investigating the case on his own for the rest of his life. He concluded:

“I knew at the time that the doc tors and Mrs. Murray were lying to me. Now I know that they must have moved the body and invented the locked room story. The District Attorney wouldn’t listen to me. I kept telling them that the death scene was arranged, and they said I was hallucinating.”

Sgt. Clemmons always maintained the belief that Marilyn’s death was a Homicide and that a cover-up hid the true facts of her murder.

SIGN OF FORCED ENTRY

An often overlooked fact is that the window of Marilyn’s bedroom (the one that did not have “anti-burglar” bars on it) was forcibly broken. A basic fact of crime scene investigation is that a broken window is
always
classified as inconsistent with suicide. That’s because a broken window—especially in the room where the decedent is found—is a clear and precise indication of a possible forced entry. That may very well be why the broken window became part of the cover story during the many long hours prior to the time When police were finally called—the fact that there was a broken window had to be accounted for. So, Dr. Greenson made up a story (or was told to), which we now know to be false.

He told police that the door to Marilyn’s bedroom was locked. We now know that is not true because the housekeeper finally admitted that Marilyn almost never locked her bedroom door and that, indeed, she had not locked it on her final night. Even so, by saying that it was locked made it feasible for Dr. Greenson to have broken the window in order to get in and try to help Marilyn. We know that the window was not broken during the day or evening hours because Mrs. Murray, the housekeeper and support worker caring for Marilyn, made no effort to address a broken window. She certainly would not have let the world’s most famous movie star go to bed with an unprotected window—she was charged with Marilyn’s care by her psychiatrist and was very attentive and industrious in that regard (and did, in fact, immediately address the issue of the broken window at the moment that she knew of it, even in the very difficult early morning hours, by calling her son- in-law to come over and repair it). Therefore,
the window was apparently broken close to the time of Marilyn’s death.

The locked filing cabinet in which Marilyn kept her most important personal papers, which was located in her guest cottage, was also forcibly
broken into
on the night that she died.

SIGNS OF A STRUGGLE:
Many fresh bruises were noted on the victim’s body, especially a very large bruise on the lower left side of her back. The medical examiner later stated that the large bruise was clearly a “sign of violence” that should have been investigated as such. Also noted were bruises on her arms and on the backs of both legs. Autopsy report reads “The colon shows marked congestion and purplish discoloration;” which the head of the medical/ legal section at the District Attorney’s office considered the “smoking gun,” indicating homicide.

VICTIM DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO DRUGS THAT KILLED HER:
Marilyn was being successfully “weaned” off of Nem- butal by her two doctors—who were working together, gradually reducing both her reliance upon and her access to the drug; so she was taking much less of a dosage. The prescriptions filled during the last five weeks of Marilyn’s life are almost completely accounted for. The only Nembutal that Marilyn had even possible access to was a prescription on August 3, 1962 for twenty-five capsules. Yet, the autopsy revealed a
massive overdose,
many times more than the amount to which she had access.

Her clear lack of access is further evidenced by the fact that, on her final day, her psychiatrist— after a two hour Saturday afternoon session at Marilyn’s home— telephoned Marilyn’s doctor to ask if he could come over and give her something to help her sleep because she had had a tough day (her doctor was unable to comply). Upon leaving Marilyn’s home that evening, Marilyn’s psychiatrist was professionally confident that Marilyn had calmed down and would be fine and, as a failsafe, even asked the housekeeper (who watched over Marilyn and reported directly to her psychiatrist) to spend the night at Marilyn’s home, just to keep an eye on her.

The lack of access is further evidenced by the fact that Marilyn called Dr. Greenson later in the evening to relay some good news, and she used that occasion to ask him if he had taken her Nembutal prescription. Dr. Greenson answered that no, he had not—but he was therefore cognizant of the fact, and relieved, that Marilyn had no access to any Nembutal. It is further confirmed via the testimony from a friend who stated that Marilyn telephoned her between 9:00 and 9:30 PM, told her she was having trouble getting to sleep and asked her if she had any sleeping pills that she might be able to bring over to Marilyn (the friend was unable to comply). Minutes later, Marilyn was dead.