Betty Broderick: Life & Trial

Elizabeth Anne Broderick—November 7, 1947—an American former suburban housewife, was convicted of murdering her ex-husband, Daniel T. Broderick, and his second wife, Linda (Kolkena) Broderick, on November 5, 1989.  She was convicted in a second trial on two counts of second-degree murder and later sentenced to 32-years-to-life in prison.  Receiving extensive media attention and extremely controversial, there were several books written on Broderick case as well as a made-for-TV movie told in two parts.

Early Life

 Elizabeth Anne Bisceglia was born in 1947 where she grew up in a New York City suburb called Eastchester.  She was the third of six children born to devout Roman Catholic parents, Marita (nee Curtin) (1919-2007) and Frank Bisceglia (1915-1998).  Broderick’s father owned a successful plastering business with his relatives.  Broderick’s mother was Irish-American and her father, an Italian-American.  Broderick’s parents were strict and expected a lot from their children.  Betty recalls that she was trained at an early age to act as a housewife from birth, “go to Catholic schools, be careful with dating until you find a Catholic man, support him while he works, be blessed in your later years with beautiful grandchildren.”  Broderick’s Catholic upbringing was bolstered by 1950 economic conditions when parents could rely on a son or son-in-law being able to support their wife and children on their own income.

Broderick graduated in 1965 from Eastchester High School and later from College of Mount Saint Vincent, a small Catholic women’s college in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York, majoring in early childhood education, earning a degree through an accelerated program.  Broderick was also able to earn a minor in English as well.

Broderick (nee Biscelglia) met her future husband, Dan Broderick in 1965 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.  Daniel Broderick, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was the eldest son of a large Catholic family akin to the Biscelglias and his parents were Irish immigrants.  Betty Biscelglia and Dan Broderick were married on April 12, 1969 at the Immaculate Conception Church in Tuckahoe.  After their honeymoon, Broderick learned she was pregnant with their first child, a daughter, Kim (b. 1970).  Broderick had four more children:  a daughter, Lee (b. 1971), two sons, Daniel (b. 1976) and Rhett (b. 1979), and an unnamed boy who died two days after birth.

Marriage Breakdown

Dan Broderick completed his M.D. degree at Cornell University after his daughter, Kim, was born.  Combining his medical expertise with a J.D. degree, he enrolled at Harvard Law School.  This caused Betty to be the main provider for the family, supporting the family while Dan attended law school with the aid of a student loan.  An attractive prospect for many firms with his medicine and law degree, he was quickly hired by a law firm in San Diego, California and the family moved to the community of Coral Reef.  Betty continued working part-time selling Tupperware and Avon while devoting her time to the children.  Dan worked to build his business reputation.  Specializing in medical malpractice cases. This allowed Dan to support the family entirely on his own and allowed Betty to be a stay-at-home mother and focusing for caring for their children and housewife.  Dan hired 21-year-old Linda Kolkena (1961-1989) in the fall of 1982. She was terminated from her job as a stewardess at Delta Airlines where she decided to seek work as a paralegal to be Dan’s legal assistant.  Kolkena was Dutch descent from a large, close-knit family.

In October 1983, Betty suspected that Dan was cheating on her with his legal assistant, Linda.  Dan denied engaging in extramarital relations with Linda, he told Betty she was “crazy.”  The marriage eventually broke down and against Betty’s wishes, Dan moved out in February 1985.  He bought his own home and took custody of their children after Betty dumped them, one by one, on Dan’s doorstep.  Dan later confessed that Betty was right and he had been having an affair with Linda since January 1983, leading to a hostile divorce case.  Broderick vs. Broderick was an infamous divorce, raising legal issues involving women who worked while putting their husbands through graduate and professional schools.

Four years after being finalized, Betty began exhibiting violent and irrational behavior.  Retaining custody of their children, albeit for non-financial reasons, as he was taking care of them for some time.  During this time, Betty was leaving obscene and profanity-laden messages on Dan’s answering machine.  Betty ignored the numerous restraining orders forbidding her from Dan’s property; she vandalized his new home and drove her car into the front door of their home with her children home at the time.

Dan and Linda were married on April 22, 1989, despite Linda being concerned about Betty’s irrational behavior.  She even suggested Dan wear a bulletproof vest to their nuptials.  Betty did not appear at her ex-husband’s second wedding to Linda and the wedding proceeded without incident.  However, after the wedding, Betty claimed that Linda taunted her by sending facial cream and slimming treatment adverts by mail.

The Murders

Eight months later, Betty bought a Smith & Wesson revolver—seven months after Dan and Linda married—Broderick drove to Dan’s house at 1041 Cypress Avenue in the Marston Hills neighborhood near Balboa Park in San Diego.  Using a key Betty had stolen from her daughter Lee, Broderick entered the house while Dan and Linda slept, and shot them execution-style at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, November 5, 1989, two days before Betty’s 42^nd birthday.  Two bullets hit Linda in the head and chest, killing her instantly.  One bullet hit Dan in the chest as he apparently reached for the phone.  One bullet hit the wall and one, the nightstand.  Dan was 44, just 17 days shy of his 45^th birthday, and Linda was 28.

Evidence worked against Betty at her trial as facts showed she removed a phone/answering machine, preventing Dan from seek medical help.  Medical evidence showed Dan didn’t die right away, where Betty admitted he had spoken to her after she shot him.  His last words to her, “Okay you shot me.  I’m dead.”

Broderick turned herself into police after contacting her daughter, Lee and her boyfriend.  She never denied pulling the trigger five times.  Broderick explained at both her trials that she never planned on killing Dan and Linda and that the crime was not pre-meditated.  Broderick’s account of the murders at her second trial was that she was startled by Linda’s screams, “Call the police!” where she immediately fired the gun.

Linda and Dan are listed as buried together at Greenwood Memorial Park in San Diego.

Trials

Betty Broderick was represented by Jack Early and prosecuted by Kery Wells for the State of California.  Early’s defense was that Broderick was a battered wife, claiming that she was driven over the edge by years of psychological, physical, and mental abuse by her ex-husband.  Wells portrayed Broderick as a murderer who planned and schemed to kill her ex-husband, arguing that Broderick was not a battered woman.  Broderick was getting $16,000 a month in alimony in addition to the salary she earned working at an art gallery.  She also lived in a $650,000 La Jolla beach-front property which Dan bought for her, two cars, and living with her boyfriend at the time of the murders, as well as two of her children living with her.

Dr. Park Dietz, testifying for the prosecution, used Dr. Melvin Goldzband’s analysis, who previously worked on the case for prosecution, that Broderick had histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders.

Broderick’s first trial ended with a hung jury when two jurors wanted manslaughter, citing lack of intent.  Judge Thomas J. Whelan declared a mistrial and Broderick was retried a year later with the same defense attorney and prosecutor.  The second trial essentially a replay of the first, Wells as successful the second time when the jury came back with two counts of second-degree murder.  Broderick was sentenced to two consecutive 15-years-to-life plus two years for illegal use of a firearm—the maximum under the law.  She is currently incarcerated since the day she committed the murders

Broderick is serving her sentence at the California Institution for Women (CIW) in Chino, California.  Her first parole hearing in January 2010 was denied by the Board of Parole Hearings because she didn’t show remorse or acknowledge wrongdoing, in November 2011, and January 2017.  Broderick is not eligible for parole until January 2032.

In Popular Culture

An article about Broderick written by Amy Wallace in the LA Times Magazine, led to the 2-part television film “A Woman Scorned:  The Betty Broderick Story” and “Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, The Last Chapter” (1992).  Meredith Baxter Birney portrayed Betty and Stephen Collins portrayed Dan.  Baxter received an Emmy Award nomination for the portrayal of Broderick.

The murders were also aired in season 4 episode of Deadly Women, “Til Death Do Us Part.”

Broderick’s story was dramatized across the United States before and after the trials.  Broderick was granted numerous television and magazine interviews and even appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show twice, Hard Copy, 20/20, and Headliners and Legends.

Four books were written about Broderick’s story:  Until the Twelfth of Never:  The Deadly Divorce of Dan and Betty Broderick (1993) by Bella Stumbo; Until the Twelfth of Never:  Should Betty Broderick Ever Be Free? (2013), also by Bella Stumbo; Forsaking All Others:  The Real Betty Broderick Story (1993) by Loretta Schwartz-Nobel; Hell Hath No Fury (1992) by Bryna Taubman.  Broderick was also interviewed by Ladies Home Journal and many other magazines.

In 1991, the drama, Law & Order aired the episode “The Wages of Love” that was inspired by the murder and trial that followed.  Guest star Shirley Knight was nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

Karen Kilgariff covered the Broderick case in the episode 103 of My Favorite Murder, which was recorded live in San Diego.

Court Cases

In addition to the homicides of Dan and Linda Broderick, Betty Broderick was involved in numerous other court cases:

·         Property damage case filed by Dan and Betty Broderick on October 1, 1975

·         Personal injury (auto) case filed against Betty Broderick on April 20, 1989

·         Double homicide case filed March 23, 1990

·         Civil complaint filed by Betty Broderick on June 28, 1990

·         Wrongful death suit against Betty Broderick filed on November 2, 1990

·         Second wrongful death suit against Betty Broderick filed on November 2, 1990

·         Personal injury case against Betty Broderick filed on September 18, 1991

·         Betty Broderick sues County of San Diego on September 21, 1992

Salem Witch Trials: Medical Theories About the Reported Afflictions

Causes of the symptoms of those who claimed affliction continues to be a subject of interest.  There have been various medical and psychological explanations by researchers exploring psychological hysteria in response to Indian attacks, convulsive ergotism caused by eating rye bread made from grain infected by the fungus Claviceps purpurea (a natural substance from which LSD is derived), an epidemic of bird-borne encephalitis lethargica, and sleep paralysis that explains the nocturnal attacks alleged by some of the accusers.  There are some historians who are less inclined to focus on biological explanations, preferring to explore motivations based on jealousy, spite, and a need for attention to explain the behavior.

Salem Witch Trials: Literature, Media and Popular Culture

Stories of witchcraft accusations, trials and executions have captured writers’ and artists’ imaginations in the centuries since the events took place.  Many interpretations have taken liberties with the facts of the historical episode in the name of literary and/or artistic license.  As the trials took place between the gradually disappearing medieval past and the emerging enlightenment, some interpretations draw attention to the boundaries between medieval and post-medieval as cultural constructions.

Salem Witch Trials: Aftermath and Closure

Although the last trial was held May 1693, public response to the events still continued.  For many decades after, survivors and family members (and their supporters) sought to establish the innocence of the individuals convicted and gain compensation.  The descendants of those unjustly accused and condemned sought to honor their memories.  Events in Salem and Danvers in 1992 used to commemorate the trials.  In November 2001, years after the celebration of the 300^th anniversary of the trials, the Massachusetts legislature passed an act exonerating all who had been convicted and naming each of the innocent.  The trials are a part of American culture and explored in numerous works of art, literature, and film.

Reversals of Attainder and Compensation to the Survivors and Their Families

The first indication that public calls for justice were not over occurred in 1695 when Thomas Maule, a noted Quaker, publicly criticized the handling of the trials by Puritan leaders in Chapter 29 of his book “Truth Held Forth and Maintained”, expanding on Increase Mather’s idea, by stating:  “it were better that one hundred Witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a witch, which is not a Witch”.  Maule was imprisoned for twelve months for publication of his book before being tried and found not guilty.

The General Court ruled on December 17, 1696, that there would a fast day on January 17, 1697, “referring to the late Tragedy, raised among us by Satan and his Instruments.”  On that day, Samuel Sewall asked Rev. Samuel Willard to read aloud the apology to the congregation of Boston’s South Church, “to take the Blame & Shame” of the “late Commission of Oyer & Terminer at Salem”.  Thomas Fiske and elven other trial jurors also asked forgiveness.

From 1693-97, Robert Calef, a “weaver” and a cloth merchant in Boston, collected correspondence, court records and petitions, and other accounts of the trials, and placed them, for contrast, alongside portions of Cotton Mather’s “Wonders of the Invisible World”, under the title “More Wonders of the Invisible World”.

Not able to publish it in Boston, Calef took it to London and published in 1700.  Scholars of the trials—Hutchinson, Upham, Burr, and even Poole—relied on Calef’s compilation of documents.  John Hale, a minister in Beverly was present at many of the proceedings, completed his book, “A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft in 1697”, was not published until 1702, after his death, and perhaps in response to Calef’s book.    Expressing regret over the actions taken, Hale admitted, “Such was the darkness of that day, the tortures and lamentations of the afflicted, and the power of former presidents, that we walked in the clouds, and could not see our way.”

Various petitions were filed between 1700 and 1703 with the Massachusetts government, demanding that the convictions be formally reversed.  Those tried and found guilty were considered dead in the eyes of the law, and with convictions still on the books, those not executed were vulnerable to further accusations.  The General Court initially reversed the attainder only for those who had filed petitions, only three people who had been convicted but not executed:  Abigail Faulkner, Sr., Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Wardwell.  In 1703, another petition was filed, requesting a more equitable settlement for those wrongly accused, but it was not until 1709, when the General Court received further request, that it took action on this proposal.  In May 1709, twenty-two people who had been convicted of witchcraft, or whose relatives had been convicted of witchcraft, presented the government with a petition in which they demanded both a reversal of attainder and compensation for financial losses.

Repentance was evident within the Salem Village Church.  Rev. Joseph Green and members of the church voted on February 14, 1703, after nearly two months of consideration, to reverse the excommunication of Martha Corey.  On August 25, 1706, when Ann Putnam, Jr., one of the most active accusers, joined the Salem Village Church, publicly asked forgiveness.  She claimed that while she had not acted out of malice, but had been deluded by Satan into denouncing innocent people, mentioning Rebecca Nurse, in particular, and was accepted for full membership.

October 17, 1711, the General Court passed a bill reversing the judgment against the twenty-two people listed in the 1709 petition (there were seven additional people who had been convicted but had not signed the petition, but there was no reversal of attainder for them).  Two months later, on December 17, 1711, Governor Joseph Dudley authorized monetary compensation to the twenty-two people in the 1709 petition.  The amount of £578 12s was authorized to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those accused, and most of the accounts were settled within a year, but Philip English’s extensive claims were not settled until 1718.  Finally, on March 6, 1712, Rev. Nicholas Noyes and members of the Salem church reversed Noyes’ earlier excommunications of Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey.

Memorials

Rebecca Nurse’s descendants erected an obelisk-shaped granite memorial in her memory in 1885 on the grounds of the Nurse Homestead in Danvers, with an inscription from John Greenleaf Whittier.  In 1892, an additional monument was erected in honor of forty neighbors who signed a petition in support of Nurse.

Not every condemned was exonerated in early 18^th century.  In 1957, descendants of the six people who had been wrongly convicted and executed but not included in the bill for reversal of attainder in 1711, or added to it in 1712, demanded the General Court formally clear the names and their ancestral family members.  An act was passed pronouncing the innocence of those accused, although it only listed Ann Pudeator by name, the others were listed only as “certain other persons”, phrasing which failed specifically to name:  Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd and Margaret Scott.

The 300^th anniversary of the trials was marked in 1992 in Salem and Danvers by a variety of events.  A memorial park was dedicated in Salem which included stone slab benches inserted in the stone wall of the park for each of those executed in 1692.  Speakers at the ceremony in August included playwright Arthur Miller and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.  Danvers erected its own new memorial, an reinterred bones unearthed in the 1950s, assumed to be those of George Jacobs, Sr., in a new resting place at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead.

In 1992, the Danvers Tercentennial Committee persuaded the Massachusetts House of Representatives to issue a resolution honoring those who had died.  After extensive efforts by Paula Keene, a Salem schoolteacher, state representatives J. Michael Ruane and Paul Tirone, along with others, issued a bill where the names of all those not previously listed were to be added to this resolution.  When it was finally signed on October 31, 2001, by Governor Jane Swift, more than 300 years later, all were finally proclaimed innocent.

In January 2016, the University of Virginia announced its project tea had determined the execution site on Gallows Hill in Salem, where nineteen “witches” had been hanged in public.  Members of the Gallows Hill Project worked with the city of Salem using old maps and documentation, as well as sophisticated GIS and ground-penetrating radar technology, to survey the area of what became known as Proctor’s Ledge.  The city owns the property and plans to install a memorial there to the innocent victims.  A documentary, Gallows Hill – Nineteen, is in production about the events.