Until the Twelfth of Never - Should Betty Broderick ever be free?

by Bella Stumbo

  Meanwhile, the divorce trial was delayed again, from July to December 28, for reasons that were not clear. Dan filed no OSCs that month.

  Chapter 22

  Muhammad Ali and the Housewife

  Sooner or later, the San Diego media was bound to get wind of the steamy, sordid Broderick divorce story. It was the San Diego Reader, a small weekly newspaper devoted mostly to features on community personalities, arts, and culture, that first heard of the Broderick case and assigned reporters Paul Krueger and Jeannette De Wyze to look into it. They called Betty one day in May, 1988, to see if she would like to discuss her divorce.

  Oh, yikes. She paused for maybe three seconds before her fears of Dan Broderick dissolved beneath the exhilarating realization that, at long last, here was a potentially powerful ally—the press.

  She invited Krueger and DeWyze to her house as soon as they could get there—whereupon she told them her whole angry, bitter story in an outpouring of wit, intelligence, and passion that left them fascinated and confused, wondering if it could possibly be as bad, as unfair, as she said.

  She cast Dan in the worst possible light, starting virtually from the day they were married. Then, just as the reporters were shaking their heads in pained disbelief, she suddenly turned into a stand-up comedienne, making them laugh with her self-mocking rendition of her original suspicion that he was only going through a midlife crisis:

  "I mean, he walked out literally three months after his fortieth birthday party. With a red Corvette and a nineteen-year-old. Da-da da-da! Are we the American joke, or what? If you weren't my husband, I'd think you're real funny. He's revving up his Corvette to go pick up his girlfriend, he's got a new leather jacket, he's wearing those Risky Business sunglasses ... I said, 'You're on the cover of Midlife Crisis Magazine. I love it. Cool, man, cool.'" She told it all her way—leaving out, of course, her part in any of it.

  Krueger and De Wyze, good reporters both, called Dan Broderick.

  At first Dan didn't want to talk to them. When he finally did agree to an interview, it was because he believed that once he had spoken with the two reporters in a quiet, reasonable fashion, they would see that this tawdry domestic dispute was not a story worth their time.

  His voice on their tape was pleasant, soft and easy, with a winning, gee-whiz tone to it. But he was still the premiere attorney. Like a man giving a deposition, he stipulated that he would truthfully answer all their questions. "You can take that to the bank." He would say nothing that couldn't be corroborated, he told them. He then turned on his own tape, as they taped him.

  They first quizzed him about Betty's claim that she couldn't find first-rate legal representation in town, because of his influence.

  He denied it. The real reason his ex-wife hadn't been able to find an attorney, Dan speculated, was that "She's an uncontrollable person, who most lawyers are afraid they can't work with."

  Like Betty, Dan told the story all his way.

  He told Krueger and De Wyze how this "perfect mother" had used their children as a weapon against him. "She just dropped them there at Coral Reef. 'Here. They're yours. You want to be apart from me—well, see what it's like raising a family by yourself.' There was not a stick of furniture in the house … And whenever she wanted to, she started on her rampages, throwing stuff through the windows, and breaking mirrors, spray-painting the walls. I mean, unbelievable things! And she would always say that I provoked her, that she was upset with me because I did something or other. One time, I had taken the kids to get haircuts and she was expecting them at a soccer game. I didn't know they were supposed to be at a soccer game. I mean, I'm not that kind of a person, that I'd just take them to get a haircut, just to spite her. I came back, and there was hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars in damage. I mean, windows broken and chandeliers cracked, and our stereo was smashed. I mean, it was unbelievable stuff …

  "So I filed for divorce. I got a court order … basically a stayaway order … And, mind you, by now she's living in a $650,000 home in La Jolla that I bought for her … just for her … because I had the four kids. And even with the court order, she kept coming in and spraying stuff, and I remember a Boston cream pie that my girlfriend made for me … She came and just took it and smeared it all over the bedroom, with my clothes ... I mean … absolutely crazy stuff. My little kids would watch this, and they'd be crying when I'd come home—they couldn't control it, I couldn't control it …

  "So I called her and I said, 'I'm going to list the Coral Reef house. You're living in your house over there in La Jolla. I don't want to live here anymore. It's got bad memories associated with it … I've got to get to someplace where you don't feel like you've got the perfect right to come in and do this.' I really didn't want to bring a court order and get her thrown in jail, for my kids' sake … although I felt like I probably could have. I mean, it was going on like every other week … every time I'd walk into the house, I'd wonder what I was going to find. It was that bad ..."

  But she told him, "It's my house. I don't want it sold," said Dan. He had tried to reason with her. "Well, how much money would we have to be offered before you agree to sell it? … Neither of us are living in this house. It's empty now." But: "She said a million dollars wouldn't do it."

  And so, he said, sounding exasperated, he called his attorney and got the house sold without her consent. When De Wyze pressed Dan to discuss details of the divorce settlement itself, he digressed instead into a lengthy defense of his own integrity. He assured the reporters that he had submitted to Tricia Smith all requested documents supporting every detail of his finances—"every tax return, every check, every credit card receipt." He continued to defend his honesty by recounting what he had said to Smith:

  "Look, if I'm lying, I'm committing perjury, and I lose my license to practice law; maybe I'll go to jail if I've defrauded the Internal Revenue Service because I haven't … reported all my income, and if you catch me, I deserve what I get. I mean, it may be kind of a stupid Gary Hart challenge, but I know that in my case it's not going to come back to haunt me, because I have been absolutely honest about it … I've paid all my income tax. I mean, I report all my income. [Betty] has accused me of hiding money in Switzerland ... I have not hidden a dime anywhere."

  The reporters next asked him about the unusual arrangement of the father winning sole custody, with no visitation for the mother.

  Even on tape, it's easy to see Dan Broderick's face sadden, darken. His voice changes from jolly to grave. This, he said, was a matter he was very reluctant to discuss, in the interests of protecting his children.

  At the same time, he didn't hesitate to show the two reporters a transcript of Betty's most outrageous taped conversation with Danny. He was having it both ways. He wanted to be dignified, above it all, yet he was determined to show them just what a foul creature Betty had become. What followed was a schizoid Dan:

  "I showed you the transcript of one telephone conversation that my ex-wife had with my son Danny … That is like the very tip of an iceberg. It's unbelievable. And the psychologists who're taking care of these kids and seeing them—I mean, they've just been horrified. They've never seen anything like this, ever. I mean, it's like a magnified case of ‘Mommie Dearest’, from the Joan Crawford show …

  "I mean, it's just extreme mental cruelty, I guess would be the best way to put it, or psychic abuse … She gets at me through them, is my sort of armchair, amateur psychologist's view of what's going on, but it's terrible."

  "Why do you let them go over there then?" asked De Wyze bluntly.

  For the next few minutes, it was Dan Broderick at his most appealing. He sounded both bewildered and pained as he tried explaining to these two strangers that, basically, he didn't know what the hell he was doing anymore, he had no idea of how to help these young children survive the Broderick divorce nightmare.

  "As for my boys, that's a good question," he told De Wyze and Krueger. "The psychologists have told me that I'm being irresponsible ... for lett
ing them go over there [to Betty's house] … [But] they want to be with their mother. Honest to God … And they always ask me, can they go see their mom, can they spend time with her, can they be with her … and 'She'll be good, she won't do this, she won't be mean, she won't bring us home.'

  "And I feel like maybe it's better for them to see some of her, and have at least some kind of relationship, than none at all, but I'm very ambivalent about it. I mean, it's a real good question. Why do I? A lot of people ask me that. And I ask myself that. I'm trying to do the right thing. I do not believe it would be in their best interests to live with her, and I—honestly, I don't think it's in their best interests to spend any time with her. But I can't separate them from her altogether ... So I'm doing the best I can …"

  Why, Krueger pressed, did the kids want to be around their mom, then, if things were so bad?

  "It's just the obvious thing," said Dan. "They miss their mother ... I guess that's the way people are with their parents. They are the people they love. It's like a moth attracted to a flame. They can't help it. I mean, that's kind of a superficial analysis, but that's kind of the impression I get."

  Why has this whole divorce dragged on so long? asked De Wyze.

  Dan said he didn't really know, but suggested that it had something to do with recent changes in court procedures.

  But don't you want to get it over with, asked Krueger?

  Whereupon Dan Broderick delivered what would ultimately become the most widely quoted paragraph of this interview with the Reader:

  "It's never going to be over for me. I know that. I mean, I'm resigned. It's not going to end until one of us is gone. I mean, it's just not going to. I mean, the ultimate trial is going to resolve some community property issues. But it's not going to end this thing. And so it's going to be a very unpleasant experience, and it's one that I am not looking forward to, going down there [to trial] and having this ... I mean, I would much rather she had a lawyer."

  De Wyze wanted to know what he meant: "It's not going to be over until one of you is gone, because she will probably be asking for support for life?" Was that what he meant? "That's not only what I meant," said Dan. "I mean that, too, but I mean, it's going to be … she can't let go of it. She cannot let go of it …"

  "Why does she do this?" asked Krueger.

  "Well, she's filled with hatred," said Dan. "I left her, and she's mad about it." Whereupon Dan proceeded to tell the two reporters that, actually, Betty had always been hell to live with.

  It is one of the saddest aspects of most bitter divorces that even the lovely memories of better days usually go up in the flames of later, jaded emotions; differences and spats that were once upon a time no big deal suddenly become ammunition for older, wearier spouses bent upon self-justification and escape. Like arsonists, they go about the repositories of their pasts, flinging gasoline into the mind's most precious, irreplaceable stores, and tossing matches in after.

  And Dan Broderick was no exception, any more than Betty was. The "private man" described by friends had vanished entirely. In the end, neither of these two left themselves a single tender memory.

  "We had a tumultuous marriage ... I mean, just a real compatibility problem," Dan told Krueger and De Wyze. "A lot of things that are exaggerated now have been evident from the very beginning ... all our married life." But he "just thought that was the way she was … something that I could try to accommodate … traits of her personality."

  "In hindsight," Krueger asked, "do you believe, then, that she was, then or now, diagnostically something other than completely sane?"

  "Yes, I do," Dan promptly replied. "I've got no question ... I don't know what label to put on it … there's something there, though, I'll tell you that … driving a truck into the front of my house. And, I mean, these outbursts and this web of deception that she weaves … And I think she would pass a lie detector test … Reality is eluding this woman in so many ways ... I cannot put a label on it, and I won't try. But there's something, I'll bet you anything. But we're never going to find out."

  However, he also allowed that he himself had to bear some of the blame. "I was far from the kind of good loving husband I could have been ... I mean, there were problems in our marriage. Some were her fault, some were my fault ..."

  De Wyze wanted to know why he had filed so many contempts against Betty.

  "Yes, I understand you want to talk about that," said Dan. The reason for them, he said, was because Betty was committing "incredible violations of court orders … not just once, or twice. Not just one warning or two warnings. I mean, repeated warnings: 'Stop this. You can't do this. Leave the guy alone.' And she would come back and do it again. And pretty soon the judge had to say, 'Well, ma'am, this is a law-abiding society. You cannot act like this. Stop it.' And he put her in jail."

  Krueger asked Dan if Judge Joseph hadn't chastised him at a recent hearing for reversing his request that Betty be jailed, due to Lee's recent problems. "It seems to me that I could make the argument that you manipulated the proceedings to get your peace of mind," said Krueger.

  Dan disagreed, sounding only faintly annoyed. "I certainly think it's a fair use of the court process," he said, "to go in and say, 'Judge, please try to control her behavior. But if you want to hear what I have to say about it, don't throw her in jail for it. Do something else to get her under control, because jail would not work, because one of my children' ... I mean, I don't see anything wrong with that. That seems to me to be a perfectly legitimate request for someone in my position to make."

  But, he agreed that "the judge was upset with me, and I was surprised by it, but I still feel that it was an appropriate thing for me to do." The courts exist, he pointed out to Krueger, to heal "these shattered families"—rich or poor. In a word, Dan Broderick was blameless. He did not see himself as one of the "dueling rich" clogging the court system.

  Asked about his fining system, he pointed out that no court-ordered support payment was in effect at the time he imposed those "sanctions." Moreover, he said, "I've spent a whole bunch of money [on Betty] out of the goodness of my heart."

  He finished the interview with another comment on his perception of Betty's motives. "I don't think there's a lawyer in America who's going to be able to satisfy her, because nobody can get what the law won't allow—and that is everything I have. That's what she wants," he said. "She'd like me to be destroyed, she wants me out of business, she wants me to be held up as an object of ridicule … She's on a mission from God. Just go check out what she told you."

  And so, Krueger and De Wyze did. They checked it all out—and, contrary to Dan Broderick's expectations, they decided the story was worth printing. That's when their honeymoon with Dan came to an end. He promptly threatened to sue the Reader if the paper proceeded. His threat was enough to kill the story. "We couldn't afford to take on a big fish like Dan Broderick," said De Wyze. "So we gave up." In August, the editor of the Reader wrote Betty a short note, informing her that the story was dead "because we thought we would be subject to charges of invasion of privacy."

  Dan had won again. Not until he was dead would De Wyze and Krueger be free to write a full-length account of the Broderick divorce case.

  * * *

  Power. He had it, she had none. He won every time. First he sealed the courtrooms, and now he was imposing his own personal gag order on her outside the courtroom too. She was as frustrated as she had ever been.

  She went home and drew up a three-page, twenty-point leaflet that she entitled "HOUSEWIFE'S REVOLT." Under that, in even larger letters, were the words "I PROTEST." She then listed all that she protested, item by item. Most of it was the same litany that her remaining friends could now recite by heart:

  "Dan Broderick legally kidnapping my children and holding them hostage for four years. The day he claimed sole custody NO VISITATION I could find no attorney because of his being President of the San Diego County Bar Association. There was not one word of testimony given by anyone as to my bei
ng less than a perfect mother always."

  She itemized all that had happened to her, from the four-hour notice sale of her house to her twenty-eight-day jail sentence for calling him names on a machine with his "live-in office girl's" voice on it.

  She concluded by saying, "At this point (forty), I have lost, without contest, my home, my children, my possessions, my social standing, my life savings, and my only source of income. I have a jail record and am over $300,000 in debt. I am not a lawyer, but I don't think this is what the California divorce laws are all about." She signed it "Betty A. Broderick."

  It was a leaflet designed to humiliate Dan Broderick completely in the eyes of anyone who read it. Friends of Dan and Linda later insisted that Betty had distributed her flyer throughout La Jolla and even downtown, outside Dobson's and other bars, stuffing it under the windshield wipers of parked cars. "I never saw one," Helen Pickard said later, "but some people said they saw them attached to telephone poles in La Jolla."

  "That's a fucking lie," said Betty later, scandalized, as she sat in jail for two murders. "Do I look like a crazy person? I gave one leaflet to Dan Broderick and to a few other people, so I can see how he might have thought that—but then he told everybody I was passing them out. It's not true. It would take a wacko to do something like that."

  Chapter 23

  Linda Wins

  June 26, 1988, was Linda's birthday. She was twenty-seven. And, just as he had done nearly twenty years earlier when he gave Betty a portrait of himself on her birthday, Dan Broderick now gave his new love the best gift he could think of. Himself. At long last he proposed.

  It was not a quiet proposal at home, or over a candlelit dinner on the bay. Instead, Dan offered his hand to Linda at Dobson's, the most raucous, collegial public place he could find, in the heart of his downtown legal kingdom with all his Irish American drinking buddies looking on. He gave her a pretty emerald and diamond ring, while she blushed and spilled tears of joy, and their friends all laughed and cheered and ordered fresh rounds for the house. Not incidentally, Dan and Linda also announced that they were planning "a new family." Five children at least.