The Backstory: Marilyn Monroe’s Autopsy . . Suicide or Murder

Marilyn Monroe . . Dead at 36 . . Allegedly by Suicide. But Was That Really the Case? Coroner to the Stars, Thomas Noguchi Did Her Autopsy . . And He Says It Left Him With More Questions Than Answers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, she was and is arguably the biggest Hollywood sex
symbol of all time. Chris, we're talking about Marilyn Monroe.
Her life was short and tragic, but her fame stratospheric,
and there have always been questions about what exactly happened
the night she died, as well as rumors of her
love affairs with both President Kennedy and his brother Robert.

(00:22):
Now there's some fascinating info about her autopsy from Hollywood's
most well known corner they Calumn Corner to the Stars,
Thomas Negucci. I'm Patty Steele. Did Marilyn Monroe really commit suicide?
And if so, why did the medical evidence disappear? That's
next on the back story. The back story is back.

(00:46):
Marilyn Monroe was born in nineteen twenty six, real name
Norma Jean Mortensen. She grew up mainly in Foster homes,
and by the time she was twenty she had been
married and divorced. She became a fairly successful pin up
model and had a few minor roles in movies. By
twenty four she had signed a contract with Fox, and
then her career began to take off. In nineteen fifty three,

(01:10):
she was the first cover model for the brand new
Playboy magazine. She was in some of the hottest movies
of the nineteen fifties, always as a sex symbol, but
also as a comedic actress as well as a serious one.
So her entire career lasted just a little more than
a decade, and then she was gone. In nineteen fifty four,

(01:31):
at the height of her fame, she married recently retired
baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio. The marriage only lasted nine months,
allegedly because Joe was jealous of her stardom and public
sex appeal. There were numerous screaming battles and even reports
of him beating her up. In nineteen fifty six, she
married the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Arthur Miller. After four

(01:54):
and a half years, that marriage ended as well, but
it's what went on in between and after each marriage
that he has made Marylyn the subject of so many conspiracy theories.
Word is she met John F. Kennedy at a party
in Los Angeles in nineteen fifty five when he was
a senator, but they're apparent affair didn't actually happen until

(02:16):
early nineteen sixty two, when he was President. Then, on
May nineteenth of that year, there was the infamous appearance
at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where Marilyn
sang a very sexy rendition of Happy Birthday, mister President
to him while wearing an almost see through, skin tight
sparkly dress she'd been sewn into. Now insiders say he

(02:40):
was humiliated by the public display, and she was told
afterwards he wanted no more contact with her. JFK had
had enough of Marilyn and he sort of passed her
on to his younger brother, Robert Kennedy, who also was
attracted to her, no kidding. As fragile as she was emotionally,
this put her over the edge. The well known nineteen

(03:01):
fifties private eye Fred Otash claimed to have bugged Marilyn's
house and said the night before she died, she had
a screamfest with RFK and told him she felt like
she was being passed around between the brothers like a
piece of meat. Twenty four hours later, she was dead.
And that's where Thomas Negucci comes in. We know him

(03:22):
as the coroner to the stars. Some of the celebrities
he autopsied include John Belushi, Janis Joplin, Sharon Tate, Natalie Wood,
and Robert F. Kennedy. He was just thirty seven years
old and a new deputy Corner in Los Angeles. It
was his job to examine Maryland's body. While the official
cause of death was labeled a suicide, Negucci says there's

(03:46):
more to the story in a new biography called La Corner.
He says key evidence in the case was destroyed before
he could thoroughly examine it. Her nude body had been
found in her bed, with her hands strung reach stored
her telephone. There were tons of empty pill bottles lined
up on her night table, as well as a recently

(04:07):
filled prescription for nemutoh, a powerful injectable sedative that's usually
used in hospitals. The public was told she had taken
her own life with an overdose. But here's the thing,
Naguchi says. The first thing he did, knowing what drugs
were available, was check her body for signs of an injection.
He looked everywhere her inner elbows, thighs, the webbing between

(04:30):
her fingers and toes, even her scalp, no needle marks.
He then opened her up and inspected her stomach and
small intestine, no residue of pills. He was shocked. He
didn't know what to make of it. So he took
samples of her blood, urine, liver, kidneys, and digestive tract
for toxicology, anxious to test them to see if the

(04:53):
official version of her cause of death was true. But
the main toxicologist just went ahead and wrote any report
affirming the official story. He abruptly decided not to run
any more tests on her stomach or other organs. Negucci
was stunned, and he says that Marilynd's insides were then
quickly disposed of before he could effectively examine them any further.

(05:16):
Says Neguci, it left too many questions unanswered, and ultimately,
as the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, I would be
held responsible. But he says without being able to do
those further tests, it was impossible to really know how
she'd died. He said, if she'd been injected, it would
have kicked off a major investigation, but he says, I

(05:39):
was young, new on the job, and I couldn't question
the chief coroner or the head toxicologist, and so Marylynd's
death at the age of thirty six remains a bit
of a mystery and probably always will be. In the aftermath.
Joe DiMaggio helped handle her funeral and allowed no public
figures to attend, including any of the Kennedys. Thomas Negucci,

(06:02):
now almost ninety nine years old, still has doubts about
what really happened to her, He said all those questions
have haunted him for the last sixty three years. I
hope you like The Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
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(06:22):
also feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
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The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Durant Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

(06:45):
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Fatty Steele, the pieces of history
you didn't know you needed to know.