Betty Broderick

Betty Broderick
Born	Elisabeth Anne Bisceglia November 7, 1947 (1947-11-07) (age 64) Eastchester, New York, U.S.
Charge(s)	second-degree murder x2
Penalty	32-years-to-life in prison
Status	Incarcerated in California Institute for Women(CIW)
Spouse	Daniel Broderick (1969 - 1986)

Elisabeth Anne "Betty" Broderick (born November 7, 1947) is a former American socialite convicted of the November 5, 1989 murder^[1] of her former husband Dan Broderick and his second wife, Linda Kolkena. After a second trial, she was convicted on December 11, 1991 of two counts of second-degree murder, and later sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.

Early life

Betty was the third of six children born to devout Roman Catholic parents, Marita and Frank Bisceglia. Her mother was Irish-American and her father was Italian; he founded a plastering firm with his brothers. She was raised in an "aspirational" family, one not born to affluence but trying hard to achieve upper-middle-class status via business success, education, and assiduous attention to proper manners and behavior.

Betty attended and later graduated from the College of Mount Saint Vincent, a small Catholic women's college in Riverdale, New York.

Engagement and marriage

Betty met her future husband, Dan Broderick, eldest son in another large Catholic family, at a football game between the University of Southern California and the University of Notre Dame, where Dan was an undergraduate. They dated for some time and became engaged. Dan's family was initially charmed by Betty's beauty, graciousness, and sophistication.

When the couple became engaged, Dan was attending the Cornell University Medical School (located in New York City rather than Ithaca, New York). The couple were married on April 12, 1969, at the Immaculate Conception Church in Eastchester in a lavish ceremony planned by Betty's mother. They honeymooned on a Caribbean cruise and later stayed with friends in St. Thomas.

She returned from her honeymoon pregnant with her first child, daughter Kim, and continued to work until the day before she gave birth. Afterward, she quit her job and devoted herself to home and motherhood, which, she stated, had always been her only ambitions. She gave birth to four more children: a daughter called Lee, two sons named Daniel and Grant, and an unnamed boy who died two days after birth.

Marriage breakdown

After Kim's birth, and after completing his medical degree, Dan announced that he didn't want to proceed with his medical training and that he intended to combine it with a law degree. He enrolled at Harvard Law School while Betty held down a variety of jobs to support his studies. Later, the family moved to the La Jolla area of San Diego, where Dan became a success as a medical malpractice attorney. The couple was well known within San Diego social circles and enjoyed a life of increasing affluence. At the same time, the already-problematic marriage was further deteriorating. Eventually, after Dan hired Linda Kolkena, a former airline attendant who had become a receptionist, as his assistant, he began an affair with her.

Betty long suspected the affair although Dan denied it for some time. He finally moved out of the family home, bought a house of his own, and eventually, to Betty's surprise, willingly took custody of the children when Betty demanded that he do so. There followed a lengthy and complex divorce settlement in which Betty felt that she was unfairly treated owing to Dan's extensive legal connections and influence.

Betty became obsessed with her anger towards her ex-husband. Among other behaviors that later worked against her in court, she repeatedly left obscene messages on his answering machine and frequently abused him and Linda Kolkena in recorded telephone conversations with her children, of whom she made demands regarding their behavior and attitude towards their father and Kolkena. One particularly notorious incident involved her driving her vehicle through the front door of Dan Broderick's house.

Murder

Five years after the divorce, and one month before Dan was to marry Linda, Betty bought a Smith & Wesson revolver, began practicing with it and making threats. Eight months after buying the gun and 7 months after Dan and Linda were married, Betty shot and killed the couple while they slept. This followed a letter from Dan's lawyer to Betty's lawyer that contained legal threats. Betty had gained entry to her ex-husband's home in Marston Hills with a key that she had stolen from the purse of her elder daughter, Kim Broderick. Allegedly, Dan's last words were, "Okay, you shot me. I'm dead." At her trials, she was harmed by the fact that she had removed from the bedroom a telephone that the apparently still-living Dan Broderick could have used to call for help.

Linda and Dan Broderick are listed as buried together at Greenwood Memorial Park in San Diego. But according to Greenwood personnel, Dan Broderick's grave is alone and Linda is buried elsewhere, though named on the memorial marker.

At her trials, Betty denied that she had any intention of murdering the couple when she broke into the house. When asked why she had brought a handgun into the home that night, she replied "because I wanted him to listen to me." She claimed that she had shot her ex-husband in the heat of passion while they were arguing.

Trials

Betty's first trial ended in a hung jury when two of the jurors held out for Manslaughter, citing lack of intent. Prosecutor Kerry Wells was more successful in the second trial, when the jury returned a verdict of two counts of Second-Degree Murder. She was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 15 years to life, plus two years for illegal use of a firearm.

Betty Broderick is serving out her sentence at the California Institution for Women (CIW), Chino, California. In January 2010, her first request for parole was denied by the Board of Parole Hearings because she did not show remorse and did not acknowledge wrongdoing. Broderick is due to be released in 2021 and can apply for parole in 2013.

In popular culture

Broderick's story was turned into a television film (later re-aired on Lifetime; its original broadcast was on network television), called (Part 1) "A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story," and (Part 2) "Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, The Last Chapter (1992)". Meredith Baxter received an Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of Broderick. The murder was also dramatized in the season 4 episode of Deadly Women "Till Death Do us Part"

Court cases

Betty Broderick was involved in numerous court cases, including the homicides of Dan Broderick and his wife:

• 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
• No parole for 'Angry Betty' Broderick

Further reading

• Ludwig, Robi; Matt Kirkbeck, Nancy Grace, Larry King (February 2007). Till Death Do Us Part: Love, Marriage, and the Mind of the Killer Spouse. Atria. pp. 23–35. ISBN 0743275098. 
• Taubman, Bryna (November 2004). Hell Hath No Fury: A True Story of Wealth and Passion, Love and Envy, and a Woman Driven to the Ultimate Revenge. St. Martin's True Crime. ISBN 0312929382. 
• Stumbo, Bella (1993). Until the Twelfth of Never: The Deadly Divorce of Dan and Betty Broderick. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671726668. 

References

1. ^ Lee, Cynthia (2003-06). Murder and the reasonable man: passion and fear in the criminal courtroom. NYU Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780814751152. http://books.google.com/books?id=se0xg_yvRSMC&pg=PA48. Retrieved 10 April 2011. 

External links

• Crime Library
• In 2010 Betty's Request for Parole Was Denied
• Dan Broderick Memorial at Find A Grave
• Linda Broderick Memorial at Find A Grave

Persondata
Name	Broderick, Betty
Alternative names	Bisceglia, Elisabeth Anne
Short description	Convicted murderer
Date of birth	November 7, 1947
Place of birth	Eastchester, New York, USA
Date of death
Place of death