by David Wayne
Peter Lawford originally states that during a phone call with Marilyn “nothing seemed unusual, only that Marilyn said she was tired and would not be coming over, wishing instead to go to bed early that night. She said she was feeling sleepy and was going to bed. She did sound sleepy, but I’ve talked to her a hundred times before, and she sounded no different.”96
Lawford then changed his story, stating that he received a phone call from Marilyn around 8:00 PM and that she had slurred speech and was at times inaudible. According to Lawford, Marilyn’s voice “drifted off” and he says he tried calling back several times, but the line was busy. He said that he considered going over to Marilyn’s home, only ten minutes away, but that instead he called his manager, Ebbins, and Ebbins instructed him that it would look bad: “For God’s sakes, Peter, you’re the President’s brother-in-law. You can’t go over there. Your wife is out of town, the press will have a field day.” Ebbins then phones Marilyn’s attorney, Mickey Rudin, to call Marilyn to see if she’s okay.97
Lawford’s original version appears much more credible due to the fact that his sense of panic regarding Marilyn actually occurs much later in the evening, at around 11:00 PM (and he never attempted to call Marilyn on her other phone line).
8:00 - 8:30 PM
Henry Rosenfield, a close friend of Marilyn’s, telephones Marilyn and later states that they discussed the upcoming trip to New York and taking in some theater while there, i.e., enjoying some Broadway plays together while in New York City. He states that Marilyn seemed normal; she sounded a bit groggy, but was not at all unusual and he was not concerned.98
8:25 PM
Mickey Rudin’s exchange (circa 1962, before the age of voicemail, many people, especially in Hollywood, had an answering service to take their messages on phone calls that they missed and they often referred to that service as their “exchange”) receives a call from Milt Ebbins (Lawford’s manager).99
8:30 PM
Rudin’s exchange relays the message to Mickey Rudin that he should call Milt Ebbins.100
8:30 PM
Ralph Roberts’ (Marilyn’s good friend) answering service receives a call for him. The caller is a “fuzzy-voiced woman” who asks for Ralph but leaves no message. Roberts had only given this phone number to four people, one of whom was Marilyn. He checked with the other three and they confirmed the fact that they had not called him, so he is sure that it was Marilyn.101
8:40 PM
Marilyn telephones famous hairdresser and good friend, Sidney Guilaroff, to talk and to arrange an appointment to have her hair done the following day. Guilaroff says she was upset when they had talked earlier during the afternoon but had calmed down and now is much “more composed” during this second conversation. They chat a bit and agree that they’ll talk more about things in the morning at her hair appointment. Sidney says “I never imagined we would never speak again.”102
8:30- 9:00 PM
Marilyn’s attorney, Mickey Rudin stated that he called Marilyn’s house and asked housekeeper Eunice to check on Marilyn and see if she’s okay. (Eunice later tells police that Rudin called her at about 9:00 pm). Eunice came back to the phone in a minute and told Rudin that she checked and Marilyn is fine. Rudin calls back Ebbins (Lawford’s handler) and tells him Marilyn is fine. Ebbins then tells Lawford that things are fine, but Lawford later states that he was still worried about her condition. Rudin’s official statement to investigators is: “Believing Miss Monroe was suffering from one of her despondent moments, Mr. Rudin dismissed the possibility of anything further being wrong.”103
9:00 - 9:15 PM
Marilyn calls an old friend, Jeanne Carmen—who states that she didn’t look at the clock but knew that it was somewhere between 9 and 9:30 (on another occasion she states that it was 9:00, so apparently it was closer to 9:00 than to 9:30). Marilyn asks her if she has a couple of sleeping pills she could bring over to her house because she doesn’t have any and can’t get to sleep. Carmen basically responds that she’s sorry, Marilyn, but she’s “hammered” (drunk), already going to bed herself and not in any condition to go over to anybody’s house. Other than that, Carmen reports that Marilyn sounded fine—she was used to hearing Marilyn when she was drunk or sedated (the two, according to Carmen, had been pin-up girls, models, together and then next-door neighbors at a previous residence of Marilyn’s), and she didn’t sound anything like that during the call—she simply sounded like an old friend who couldn’t get to sleep.
Carmen adds that her telephone rang again a bit later and, figuring it was Marilyn again, she didn’t answer.104
9:30 pm
Former boyfriend Jose Bolanos telephones Monroe and later states that Marilyn sounded normal during their conversation. However, in mid-conversation, Marilyn hears some kind of disturbance and goes to check on it, laying down the phone without hanging it up. She never returns to the phone, and Bolanos never hears back from her.105
9:30- 10:00 PM
We now know that, during this time period, Eunice had to have discovered that Marilyn was near death and placed an urgent call to Dr. Greenson who rushes right over (Dr. Greenson soon places a call from Marilyn’s home, so he’s obviously there). Eunice admits, later in her life when the heat from these tragic events has subsided, that Marilyn was still alive when Dr. Greenson came to the house, and that an ambulance was called and arrived before she died. One thing she later states very clearly is that “the doctor” was with Marilyn when she died, while Eunice waited in the living room.106
10:00 PM
Marilyn’s housekeeper, Eunice, later states that, at 10:00, she got up and walked past Marilyn’s bedroom door and saw a light on under the door, but decided not to disturb her. Note that this is almost definitely in reference to the same call from attorney Mickey Rudin that came earlier. Eunice keeps changing the times of these events over the ensuing years, but the call certainly seems to have come much earlier because there is a clear record of Ebbins’ call to Rudin’s answering service at 8:25, prompting Rudin’s call to Eunice. Eunice later stated that the call came at about 8:30 which would fit with the forwarded message to Rudin and with the manner in which events transpired. Eunice’s exact words regarding the call from Mickey Rudin are “He asked if Marilyn was alright. I said as far as I know she is. The light was on in her room and the telephone (cord) was under the door and these were indications that she was still awake.” Therefore, we can ascertain that there was no concern noted as of 8:30, but that a sense of emergency then surfaces about 10:00; that is also in accordance with the estimated time of death via the rate of rigor mortis.107
Around 10:00 PM
Norman Jeffries, the caretaker, states that he was working at Marilyn’s home all day on August 4. Jeffries states that he saw Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and two other men arrive and park their car around 10:00 pm. They enter Marilyn’s home and tell Jeffries and Eunice to leave them alone there. Jeffries and Eunice wait at a neighbor’s until the three men leave at approximately 10:30 PM.108
(Uncorroborated by neighbors)
10:00- 10:30 PM
From Marilyn’s home, Dr. Greenson telephones attorney Mickey Rudin and tells him that Marilyn is dead. Rudin says he’ll drive right over and he proceeds to do so. Mickey Rudin then calls Arthur Jacobs (Marilyn’s lead publicist), and Milt Ebbins (Lawford’s manager), and Ebbins then calls Peter Lawford.109
10:30 PM
This is the moment we can say it is a certainty that Marilyn is dead. Marilyn’s agent Arthur Jacobs (Pat Newcomb’s boss), receives an urgent message at a concert he is attending at the Hollywood Bowl. He returns to his guests, informs his future wife that something horrible has happened—Marilyn is dead—and they leave hurriedly. The call is from Marilyn’s lawyer, Mickey Rudin. Jacobs quickly drops off his fiancee and then goes straight to Marilyn’s house.110
Approximately 10:30 PM
Joe Naar and his wife Dolores leave Peter Lawford’s house. They state that everything seems fine at the ti
me they left. Peter Lawford was pretty drunk by the end of the night but, in any event, he certainly never let on that anything unusual was going on, and everything seemed perfectly normal. Dolores said “There wasn’t a word about Marilyn.” Her impression and later conclusion was “Peter probably called Jack or Bobby and was told to take care of things—do whatever he had to do. And do it yourself—don’t involve anybody else under any circumstances. 111
10:30- 11:00 PM
Peter Lawford calls the White House immediately after getting the news from Rudin. Some writers have pointed out that President Kennedy was in Hyannis Port, not in Washington; however, the White House operator was capable of patching calls through to the President almost anywhere in the world and did so for Lawford’s calls, which were given high priority. This call was confirmed by Dr. Robert Litman, a member of LAPD’s “Marilyn Monroe suicide investigation team.”112
10:30- 11:00 PM
Peter Levathes, Chief Production Executive at 20th Century Fox receives a “panicked call” from Fox publicist Frank Nell that Fox security guards be rushed over to Marilyn’s home—and they quickly are.113
10:45- 11:15 PM
Los Angeles Chief of Police Bill Parker is awakened by an urgent phone call that has been routed through the main LAPD switchboard. Chief Parker then notifies members of the LAPD Intelligence Squad of a special meeting at 7 a.m. the next morning.114
Very close to 11:00 PM
Joe Naar arrives at their home with his wife and after going in and putting on his pajamas, gets a phone call from Peter Lawford. Lawford asks Naar, who lives very close to Marilyn’s house, if he can run over and check on her. Naar agrees to go over and check on her, but just as he is leaving, receives a phone call from attorney Rudin informing him that now he needn’t bother because Dr. Greenson has simply given her a sedative and everything is okay.115
11:00 PM
Arthur Jacobs arrives at Marilyn’s house. Confirmation that Marilyn was now dead comes via Jacobs’ later statements that he had seen her when “I went out there at eleven o’clock.” By the time that Jacobs arrives, there are already many “others present.”116
10:30 PM & After
According to Norman Jeffries, he and the housekeeper return to the house and find Marilyn, apparently dead, in the guest house, face down in the bed there. Eunice calls an ambulance and then calls Dr. Greenson. Greenson tells Eunice to call Dr. Engleberg also. Jeffries states that he was waiting at the front gate for the ambulance and then saw Peter Lawford and Pat Newcomb (Marilyn’s press agent) arrive at the house. New- comb became hysterical, screaming at Eunice who was very distraught. Jeffries takes Eunice into the house as he hears the ambulance, and then Dr. Greenson arrives at the house. Jeffries states that “After that, all hell broke loose—it was horrible”; that Dr. Engelberg arrived around midnight and they moved Marilyn’s body from the guest cottage into her bedroom in the main house; that the “locked room suicide scenario was formulated by some plainclothes officials” ; that police cars were arriving, fire trucks, a police helicopter landing at the golf course, and another ambulance. He stated that the place was swarming with about a dozen plainclothes officers (he had no idea who they were) and then they disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived.117 (As noted, Jeffries testimony is suspect)
Jeffries testimony is corroborated, however, by ambulance driver James Hall, who states that he and his partner arrived at Marilyn’s home a few minutes after receiving a “Code-3” call. Hall confirmed the presence of Peter Lawford, Dr. Greenson, and identified the hysterical woman as Pat Newcomb. Hall states they found Marilyn in a comatose state on the bed in the guest cottage, placed her upon the floor and attempted to resuscitate her. Dr. Greenson then directed them to remove the resuscitator and attempt manual CPR, which they did, as Greenson attached a heart needle to a syringe and attempted to inject adrenaline directly into her heart. But the needle hit a rib, Dr. Greenson leaned into the injection anyway, according to Hall, and Marilyn “succumbed” to death a few moments later.118
(Note that no evidence of needle marks was found at autopsy even though they specifically examined for same.) Investigator Anthony Summers located two employees of an ambulance company who echoed the same story; one stating that he was one of two attendants who were summoned to Marilyn’s home but that “She was dead and they wouldn’t let us take her.” (Apparently California law technically prohibited transport of a corpse in an ambulance.) An executive at the ambulance company also told a District Attorney investigator that Marilyn was in a coma from an overdose when their ambulance arrived at her home, and that she died at Santa Monica Hospital; Summers concluded that the body was then returned to the home as part of the cover-up. There are, however, credible sightings of an ambulance by neighbors, as additional evidence that one was summoned. Yet Marilyn was on the bed in the bedroom of the house when police arrived, not in the cottage.119
Mr. & Mrs. Abe Landau, who lived next door, reported that when they returned home late on Saturday night (at about 1:00 a.m.), they saw an ambulance and a police car parked in the cul-de-sac in front of Marilyn’s home. Other neighbors reported hearing a helicopter immediately overhead around midnight. Mr. Landau stated that “the place was like Grand Central Station. The cars were all the way up the alley ... Some limousine was here ... And, of course, police cars and the ambulance.”120
Housekeeper Eunice finally admitted the truth much later. In an interview for the 1985 documentary Say Goodbye to the President, she at first stuck to the original cover story. When the cameras stopped rolling (but the microphone was still on), she said, “Why, at my age, do I still have to cover up this thing?” They asked her what she meant, and she revealed that she had seen Bobby Kennedy at Mari-lyn’s house that afternoon and that had obviously been the reason that Marilyn was so upset. She confirmed the two were definitely having a romantic affair. She also stated that when she called for help, Marilyn was still alive when “the doctor and an ambulance arrived” and also confirmed the coverup, explaining: “It became so sticky that the protectors of Robert Kennedy, you know, had to step in and protect him.” 121
It was also confirmed by investigator Billy Woodfield and several former LAPD officers that the leader of the plainclothes officers at Marilyn’s home late that night was Captain James Hamilton, head of the LAPD Intelligence Division and an ardent Kennedy ally. LAPD Chief Bill Parker was another staunch Kennedy ally and was rumored to be the Kennedy’s choice to soon replace Hoover as Director of the FBI.122
Two former LAPD Chiefs of Police, Daryl Gates and Tom Reddin, stated that informant sightings placing Robert Kennedy at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on August 4, 1962 had been reported to them. It was also confirmed that the two individuals at times accompanying Robert Kennedy during his visit were two detectives who had been assigned to him.123
The important thing to take away from all this information is that an ambulance was definitely called, and Marilyn was apparently still alive when help first arrived. There were plainclothes police officers at Marilyn’s home. They can deny it for a million years (and probably will), obfuscating the facts with disappearing documents and an obvious stonewall cover-up—but that’s what actually happened.
12:10 am
Beverly Hills police officer Lynn Franklin testified that he pulled over a dark sedan traveling east on Olympic Boulevard at a speed of approximately 75 miles per hour. Officer Franklin cautiously approached the vehicle and, shining his flashlight into the car, immediately recognized the driver as being Peter Law- ford and one of the two other occupants as being Attorney General Robert Ken-nedy; a third man he later confirmed as Dr. Ralph Greenson. Lawford informed Officer Franklin that he was driving the Attorney General to the Beverly Hilton Hotel on an urgent matter. Officer Franklin reminded Lawford that he was in a 35 m.p.h. zone and waved him on.124
Lynn Franklin is the most highly decorated officer in Beverly Hills Police history.125 He recalled the above event with certainty.
Around
midnight
A helicopter lands at Peter Lawford’s Santa Monica beach house. Investigator Billy Woodfield gained access to the flight logs of the helicopter company that Peter Lawford usually used, and the logs revealed a notation that a flight had been dispatched to Lawford’s Santa Monica home for a trip to the LA airport at “around midnight.” The flight records at Culver Field in Santa Monica showed a pickup of one passenger at the Lawford house and a trip taking that passenger to LA airport.126
12:00 AM or just after midnight
Housekeeper Murray states to police (initially), that at this time she noticed the light under the door again and knocks but gets no reply. She tells police she immediately telephoned Dr Ralph Greenson, Monroe’s psychiatrist.127
12:30 AM
Dr. Greenson states to police (initially), that at this time he arrives and tries to break open the locked bedroom door but fails. He states to police later that, he looks through the French windows outside and sees Monroe lying on the bed holding the telephone, apparently dead, so he breaks the glass to open the locked door and checks her. He calls Dr. Hyman Engelberg.128