Report rules out murder theory

Press, 30 December 1982, Page 9

Report rules out murder theory

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles Marilyn Monroe either killed herself or accidentally took an overdose of barbiturates, a district attorney has said after a renewed review of the actress’s death in 1962. The review had been ordered after a Los Angeles private detective argued she was murdered by “a dissident faction of the C.1.A.” or similar group. “Based on the evidence available to us, it appears that her death could have been a suicide or come as a result of an accidental drug overdose,” John Van De Kamp said in a statement. "It is possible that while her ingestion of a lethal quantity of barbiturates was voluntary, she may have been in such a state of emotional confusion that she, herself, lacked a clearly

formed purpose." Mr Van De Kamp said - no further criminal investigation into Miss Monroe’s death was planned. The District Attorney’s Office decided to review the circumstances of the actress’s death because no district attorney’s investigation was done at the time, and because ‘of recent reports contending Miss Monroe had been murdered, allegedly because she knew of a C.I.A. plot against the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro. Mr Van De Kamp’s statement accompanied a 29-page report on his office’s 3%month review.

The report said that Miss Monroe's murder “would have required a massive, inplace conspiracy covering all the principals at the death scene ... (including) the ac-

tual killer or killers, the chief medical examinercoroner, the autopsy surgeon to whom the case was fortuitously assigned, and most of all the police officers assigned to the case as well as their superiors in the L.A.P.D. (the Los Angeles Police Department) “Our inquiries and document examination uncovered no credible evidence supporting a murder theory,” the report said.

Miss Monroe’s body was found sprawled on the bed of her Los Angeles home on August 5, 1962. The county coroner ruled her death a suicide by drug overdose. The flurry of speculation that she was murdered coincided with the twentieth anniversary of Miss Monroe’s death.