Betty and Dan Broderick - Part 2 of 3

Betty and Dan Broderick were a golden couple in San Diego, CA. He, a powerful attorney; she, a devoted, fun-loving wife and mother of four. But when Dan turned 40 he became a cliche. He bought a Corvette, fell for his much younger legal assistant, and left Betty after 16 years of marriage. Their bitter six-year divorce became the most contentious in San Diego County history, a battle over money, custody, and control. On November 5, 1989, it ended in shocking violence when Betty walked into the couple’s home and killed Dan and his new wife, Linda, as they slept, turning a local divorce drama into one of the most infamous true crime cases of the century.

Listen to part 3 today on Patreon: https://patreon.com/LoveMarryKill

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Tina and I'm Rich. Welcome to Love Mary Kill.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Just the facts.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, let's get back to Betty. If you haven't listened
to part one, go back and do that. You are
going to give us a brief synopsis. But before we
have you do that, I'm going to give a content warning.
This episode contains harsh language. Today is extra harsh language
and discussion of suicide, so please listen with care.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Betty and Dan Broderick were married in nineteen sixty five.
From the beginning, they both harbored doubts about their marriage,
but coming from strong Catholic families, they were committed for
better or worse. They had struggled through some lean years
as Dan finished first medical school and then law school,
while their family expanded to four children, two girls and

(01:00):
two boys, kim Lee, Dan Junior, and Rhett. Betty had
always dreamed of having a big family and threw herself
into motherhood and lamented that Dan was often busy working
and had little time to spend with the family. After
relocating to the La Joya area of San Diego, Dan
started his own law practice. The Brodericks were thriving financially

(01:22):
and enjoying the spoils of their riches. When we left off,
Betty was nearly certain that Dan had tired of their
marriage and began an affair with his young assistant, Linda Kulkena.
In Part one, we talked about the beginning of the
Brodericks marriage. In episode two, we'll talk about the unraveling
of their marriage.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
In part one, I didn't do a very good job
talking about La Joya. La Joya is an enclave of
San Diego. It's where the wealthy people live. It's the
part that has the ocean views very exclusive.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
At twenty one, Linda Bernadette Kulkena began working as a
receptionist in the same building as Dan Broderick's law office.
Linda was born in June nineteen sixty one, the youngest
of four children of Dutch immigrants, Everardena and A. J. Colkina.
She was raised in the Salt Lake City area in
a close knit but financially modest family. To help pay

(02:17):
tuition for the Catholic school the children attended, AJ took
on part time janitorial work there. When the expense became
too much, the Kolkina children moved to public school. When
Linda was eleven tragedies struck. Her mother died of breast
cancer at just thirty six years old. Only six months later,
her father married a Dutch widow. After graduating high school,

(02:39):
Linda held a string of odd jobs before becoming a
Delta Airlines flight attendant at age twenty. The job lasted
just eight months. She was dismissed for conduct unbecoming of
a Delta employee while an off duty flight headed to
a ski holiday, during which witnesses claimed she sat on
a man's lap, kissed him, and later disappeared with him

(03:01):
into the lavatory.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I'm pretty sure that's a no no if you're a
flight attendant.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
The flight attendant on duty asked Linda her name, and
she supplied a false name, used course language, and then
continued to carry on with the male passenger. When Dan
hired Linda as his legal assistant, she was twenty one
and he was thirty eight. Linda had only brief experience
in a law office and little relevant training. Betty was

(03:27):
shocked to learn her husband's new hire didn't even know
how to type. When she confronted Dan, he dismissed her concerns,
saying typing wasn't part of the job description. Friends of
the couple couldn't help noticing that Linda bore a striking
resemblance to a younger version of Betty. Their voices even
sounded the same. So I've looked at a hundred pictures

(03:51):
of Betty and Linda and Dan, and they definitely have
a very striking resemblance to each other. Yeah, not in
the older at Betty's older years, but yeah, in her
younger years, definitely. And they were both like tall, you know,
striking blonde.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Wid Yeah, so Dan definitely had a type.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah. Betty issued an ultimatum. Dan had one month until
October first to replace the bimbo, as she called Linda,
or she would leave him. The date came and went,
and Linda was still in Dan's employee. He made it
clear that he would hire whomever he wanted. Betty's opinion
be damned, and if anyone who's going to leave his house,

(04:27):
it would be her. Betty had issued ultimatums before, but
Dan ignored them all she held little leverage in the marriage.
Dan continued to gaslight Betty. He insisted there was nothing
going on between him and Linda. I think sometimes people
get confused about the definition of gaslighting. But this is
one of the clearest examples of gaslighting I've ever seen. Yeah, right,

(04:50):
because he's obviously having an affair, and he's telling his wife, No,
there's no affair going on.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Nothing to see here.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
When Betty found out later that Dan had bought Linda
a car acado and paid her orthodontic bill, she said,
I should have divorced him then before all the rest happened,
before I let him convince everybody I was crazy, that
he was justified in what he was doing, because at
that point I still had my reputation and my sanity
and my children. Linda's friends and family came to her defense.

(05:21):
She was no bimbo. She had only been with a
handful of men in her life, and she deeply loved Dan.
She knew the affair was wrong. The guilt nodded her
when he began. She was still dating her boyfriend Steve Kelly. Suspicious,
Kelly confronted Dan directly, asking him if he was involved
with Linda. Dan denied it. Kelly later said he never

(05:43):
liked Dan, he found him cold, aloof and dismissive. Linda
urged Dan to end his marriage, long before he finally
did at one point, even giving him an ultimatum. Dan'syscut
like coming out definitely. Dane had been unhappy with Betty
for years, and by all accounts, he probably would have
divorced her eventually, with or without Linda in the picture. Still,

(06:06):
their relationship wasn't without friction. Linda often grew frustrated with Dan,
especially when she felt that he was too lenient with Betty,
and theirs wasn't a torrid love affair. Linda complained to
friends that Dan rarely wanted to have sex with her.
Linda's friends begged her to leave Dan. One friend said, quote,
Linda was so stressed out she lost weight. She used

(06:28):
to carry maylocks in her purse at twenty six, twenty
seven years old, her nails were bitten to the quick.
She said, Betty was driving them crazy, and she couldn't
do anything to please those kids. The emotional battery in
this case was never against Betty, it was against them.
On November seventh, nineteen eighty three, Betty's thirty seventh birthday,

(06:48):
she made a gourmet dinner and purchased a Baskin Robin's cake,
the kid's favorite. When Dan didn't come home or call
Betty was bereft. Later that night, in a moment of despair,
she tried to take her own life by swallowing pills
and slitting her wrists. I never wanted to dismiss anyone's
attempt of suicide, but in this case, Kim, Betty's daughter,

(07:11):
said in her book that it was a faint hearted attempt.
When Betty awoke the next morning, Dan bandaged her wrist
and told her that she was crazy. There was nothing
going on at the office. Betty went about her day
as she always did, pretending everything was okay. She decided
to see a psychologist, but quit after only a few sessions.

(07:31):
Her girlfriends gave her better advice than the therapist. She
was adamant that Dan needed help, not her. Weeks later,
on Dan's birthday, Betty got dressed up and stopped by
his office, which she rarely did. She had roses and
a bottle of dom Parignon in her hand. Finding balloons,
the remnants of a birthday cake, and both Dan and

(07:52):
Linda gone for the day, Betty was overcome with sadness. Enraged,
she poked her head into Linda's office and saw a
picture of her and Dan together. She was also shocked
at the posh furnishings of Linda's office. It was lavishly decorated,
and considering her role as Dan's assistant, it was a
little over the top. Well, and she had a picture

(08:13):
of you know, it was Linda and Dan, just to
make it clear. That's pretty bold.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
And I said that Betty poked her head into the office.
In all likelihood, Betty probably rummaged through everything in the office,
yet looking for proof and details, later, Betty said it
was the worst pain I've ever felt. I didn't want
to believe it, but I believed it. Once home, she
tore every piece of Dan's prized wardrobe from the closet,

(08:41):
hurled it into the backyard, soaked it with gasoline, and
set it ablaze. If you remember from part one, Dan's
image and his clothing was all very fancy. He'd loved
to dress, and even before they had money, he bought
designer labels and had custom suits and dressed the very best.
So this was, you know, a really good way of

(09:03):
showing him how she felt.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
When the fire had burned down to embers, Betty poured
paint over the charred remains. Her only regret was that
the children had witnessed it. They cried and begged her
to stop. To add to Betty's humiliation, a fire truck
pulled up to the house after a neighbor had called
seeing the rising dark smoke. In the years that followed,
this particular act would be remembered as one of Betty's

(09:27):
tamer displays of vengeance.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
Oh boy.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Dan was still denying the affair to Betty and would
for two more agonizing years, but he and Linda were
openly a couple among Dan's circle of friends and colleagues.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Why do you think he denied it for so long
when it seems like it was so obvious, and you know,
it seems like he was pretty committed to his new relationship.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
That's a really good question. And I don't have an
answer for you other than I think that he didn't
want to get divorced then or maybe remember like they
were accumulating a lot of well and he might have
been like setting things up for a divorce.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Okay, so maybe just trying to take his time, lay
the groundwork.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
And yeah, but maybe early on he didn't think he
wanted a divorce, Yeah, but later on he did.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
It would be really tough being married to a lawyer
and having a bad marriage or having it go south,
because absolutely, just in such a bad position, like you
just know the lawyer is going to be able to,
you know, do whatever they want and take you for
a ride if they want well.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
And that is one of the key factors in this case.
And if your husband is Dan Broderick, who was known
as just an excellent lawyer, it made it even harder.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, Dan Broderick was indeed a legal mastermind. No one
can dispute that he had been planning the exit from
his marriage for years, and unfortunately his plan was to
leave Betty with as few resources as possible. California, even
in nineteen eighty five, was a community property state, but
there would be no equal division of assets in the

(10:58):
Broaderick marriage. Dan would make sure of that. When their
family home had a cracked foundation, they were forced to
move out for several months. During the repair, they rented
a house on the beach, but later Dan moved back
into their house on Coral reef Avenue. As if to
stake his claim, he sold Betty's Jaguar and leased her
another car. This left Betty with no equity despite his

(11:22):
affair with Linda. Betty remained hopeful that Dan would come
to his senses and feel compelled to keep their family intact.
Betty was sure that Dan would tire of his mistress.
She was pretty, but boring, and nowhere near as smart
as Betty. Dan needed a partner who could challenge him,
go toe to toe with him. Linda didn't have a
college degree and couldn't even type.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
I read a lot of different articles with quotes from
Betty at a lot of times she said she couldn't
even type, so I wanted to save that A few
times in.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Ce script gotcha. Betty did everything she could to keep
her family together and her husband interested expensive hair salon
treatments and even visiting the plastic surgeon for several procedures.
She read books on midlife crises found even more creative
ways to spend time with her kids. Every waking moment

(12:13):
of Betty's day was filled with thoughts of self improvement
and saving her marriage. But Dan continued to gaslight her,
insinuate she was crazy and insists he wasn't having an
affair as he continued to withdraw from Betty and their family.
In a last ditch effort. Betty went to see a
doctor about reversing her tubul ligation to have another child.

(12:36):
Dan seemed excited at the idea of expanding their family.
Betty wishfully thought that maybe Dan wasn't really having an affair.
Dan later said that he continued to lie to Betty
because she was mentally unstable and he was afraid of her.
Here's Betty talking to Oprah.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Did you ask him if he was having an affair?

Speaker 4 (12:56):
Yes, And he totally denied it and said, I was
a man things, and I was crazy, and that Linda
was a sweet, innocent young girl and there was absolutely
nothing going on.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Never was.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
And oh and by the way, your fat, old, boring,
ugly and stupid just started coming on the scene. Then
he was unhappy with everything in his life.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
He told you that you were fat and old and
boring and stupid. He said this word.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
And he didn't like our home, and he didn't like
our children. And it was to me, it was an
absolute classic midlife crisis. And I devoured every book on
the subject, to the.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
Point of even he got the red corvette. Is that true?

Speaker 4 (13:33):
Got the red corvette, the risky business sunglasses, the scarf
around his neck the leather jacket. I told him he
was the American joke.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Thanks to our special correspondent, Oprah Winfrey for that interview.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Forgot that Oprah was on our payroll.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
We've gotten better about using clips, and I hope that
this doesn't get tagged because it's like a thirty year
old interview, so it'll probably be okay. Yeah, I know
we haven't talked about exactly was going to happen yet,
but I think everyone can see the writing on the wall.
Even in this brief clip, you can tell that Betty
is not willing to take any accountability for what happened

(14:10):
in their marriage.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah, she definitely seems.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Like and she's angry, very angry.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
How long after whatever happened happened did this interview take place?

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Was it year? With than just one year? Okay? But
if you asked Betty the same questions today, she would
respond in the exact same way, I believe.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah. Kim Broderick, in her book Betty Broderick The Mother
the Murderer, wrote that during this time her mother was
quote difficult and course and even though in years past
she could be loads of fun, that mom was gone
and had been gone for some time. Overcome with her
own life and circumstances, she lashed out at every opportunity,

(14:52):
and we, being the only ones around, ended up being
the unintended recipients of her fury. In November nineteen eighty four,
Betty planned and an elaborate five day fortieth birthday party
for Dan. She flew in family members and booked them
all hotels. Upon arrival in San Diego, everyone was handed
a printed and demanding schedule. Each moment of the next

(15:14):
five days meticulously planned, they went to SeaWorld Tijuana and
a usc Notre Dame game. The weekend culminated in a
lively party with all of Dan's friends and family, where
laughter and celebration filled the night. Betty had a true
flare for the birthdays and holidays. She knew exactly how
to make every gathering sparkle. We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
A few months later, on February twenty eighth, Dan came
home and abruptly told Betty he was leaving her, not
necessarily permanently, but he needed time apart to think things through.
He moved back to their Coral Reef home that was
under construction, which may have been a defensive move on
his part from preventing Betty from getting the house. But
on Saint Patrick's Day, after a day of drinking, Dan

(16:06):
showed up at Betty's. He must have been feeling sentimental
as an Irish Catholic, it was his favorite holiday. He
and Betty had sex, and for a brief moment she
again thought that she might win him back for good,
but that hope evaporated quickly when the rental home became
infested with rats. Betty called Dan for help, only to

(16:26):
be told to deal with it herself. Now she was
seething with red hot anger. How dared Dan walk away,
leaving her with four children in an army of rats
chewing through her designer gowns without ever once checking in
on them. So this scene described in Betty's book was
pretty harrowing. Like there were rats like running around, and

(16:48):
like the kids were scared, And.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
That sounds awful.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
It does sound awful. Betty's close friend Candy Westbrook later said,
you literally couldn't ask Betty about the weather without her
finding a way to bring the conversation back to Dan
and Linda. It was all she would talk about. She
just didn't want it to be. Betty was planning a
trip to New York for her father's seventy fifth birthday.

(17:12):
Before leaving, she dropped the children off at Dan's house
without telling him. When he came home to find them
sitting alone in the dark, he was shocked and furious.
But Kim, the oldest Broadery sibling, remembers the incident differently.
It was easter. I asked her to drive my friend home,
and she lost it. She said, pack your bags. When

(17:33):
Betty dropped Kim off at dance, no one was home,
and she waited hours on the doorstep for Dan to return.
A few days later, Danny arrived the same way, followed
by Rhett and Lee a month and a half later.
So one by one she sent the kids to Dan's
house and she was just she couldn't deal with them. Yeah,
Kim recalled. The boys were hysterical, holding on to her,

(17:55):
crying and screaming, crying hard. Don't leave us here. It
was awful, she said, I'm leaving. Your dad's not going
to get away with this. Other than the murders she'd
later commit. This decision would haunt Betty for the next
three years and beyond. Later, in a session with the therapist,
Betty fumed, you know what that fucker did, He just

(18:15):
kept them. Betty convinced herself that once Dan had the
children full time, he would finally realize how much he
needed her, that after experiencing firsthand the work she put in,
he would beg her to return. But Dan was not
the kind of man to admit such things. With the
money to hire an army of people to care for
the children, he didn't need, Betty. The real tragedy was

(18:37):
that caught in the middle of all this bitterness, the
children were left feeling as though neither parent truly wanted them.
Betty was able to see and talk to kim Lee, Danny,
and Redd, but she never regained full custody of them.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
And it's really sad. I can see how they would
feel that way, Like, yeah, mom drops us off because
she doesn't want us, and then dad just hires a
bunch of help and he doesn't really want to spend
time with us either.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, it was very hard on the children. Betty accused
Linda of sending her a photo of she and Dan
together before he filed for divorce. The typed posted attached
to the photo said it must kill you to see
these two happy people together. Eat your heart out, bitch.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
While in caps seem unnecessary.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Soon after, ads for weight loss products and wrinkle cream followed.
Linda's friends adamantly denied that she would torment Betty in
this way. It simply wasn't her style. I don't think
Linda sent these things to Betty either.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
You think Betty made this up.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
I think that she did it to herself. She had proof.
But remember Linda can't type, and it was typed on
a post it note and adhered to the picture.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Even someone who can't type could type, you know, a
few words out of post it hope, but.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Oh sure, Always defending Linda, no no. After losing full
custody of the children, Betty began a slow descent into
erratic and self distres behavior. In the months of Betty's
absence from Coral reef Avenue, Dan had redecorated their family home,
repainting and adding new furniture and flooring. When Betty walked
in and saw the changes, she was furious. She called

(20:14):
her response the beginning of her fits. She went to
the store, purchased black spray paint, and did her own redecorating.
Friend's voice concerns for her mental health, but Betty insisted
she wasn't crazy. She was angry and she had every
right to be. So she took this black spray paint
and she like spray. She graffitied all over the wall

(20:37):
the house. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
When the lease of the rat infested rental house was up,
Betty put one hundred and forty thousand dollars down on
a large, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars home in
the Hooya with ocean views. Dan gave her the money.
They'd been looking for a house with no success for years.
The house needed major renovations, but Betty was hoping that

(21:00):
she and Dan could do it together and have a
fresh start. When Dan gave her the money, she took
this as a green light. During this time, he limited
Betty's access to their children as much as possible, but
one afternoon, while visiting them at his house, Betty spotted
a cake on the counter or a Boston cream pie,
Dan's favorite. She had baked that cake for him more

(21:22):
times than she could count. What a shitty little pie,
she thought out loud when it hit her that Linda
had made it. Something in her snapped. She stormed upstairs
and began hurling pieces of the cake through Dan's bedroom, bathroom,
and closet, smearing custard and chocolate over his beloved clothes
he had neatly arranged in rainbow order. In response, Dan

(21:44):
filed a restraining order against Betty. In her book, Betty
admitted only that she smeared some cake on the bedspread.
How much damage can you do with one crabby little cake?
Even if you were really really angry, and I was,
Betty had waved a minute, wishing any of her trespasses
as minor transgressions.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
I have to say I'm a little bit relieved, because
where I thought you were going with that was that
she was going to put something in the cake. Oh,
and then I was going to be worried that you
would put something in the cake that you had made
for me.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
But that's the only thing I put in that cake.
Rich was love. Two days later, she returned to the
house despite the restraining order, and opened the refrigerator. She
found a bottle of champagne, grabbed it by the neck,
and heaved it through one of the windows, shattering the window. Instantly,
Dan knew that the best weapon in his arsenal, the

(22:35):
one that he knew best was the legal system. This
infuriated Betty. Every small request resulted in a letter sent
to her in legal ease, and he insisted she put
every request to him in writing as well. Whenever Betty
stepped out of line, even in small ways, Dan marched
into court and filed what's called an order to show

(22:56):
cause or an osc. Each os required Betty to stand
before a judge and explain herself to attempt to defend
her behavior again and again. Over time, her file grew thicker,
a public record of her unhidd behavior and the death
of a marriage. Dan also devised a system of finding Betty,

(23:18):
but we'll get to that in a minute later. During
their divorce trial, Dan recited these incidents in a cold,
meticulous inventory. You pounded a nail in the wall with
a hammer. You smashed the answering machine. You shattered the
sliding glass doors. You spray painted the wallpaper even over
the fireplace. You broke the television, You cracked the plexiglass

(23:39):
cover of the stereo. You hurled a toaster through the
front window of the house. Some were pretty petty, almost trivial,
but others were serious. And costly, but this inventory painted
a picture of a woman unraveling and of a man
determined to document an exact revenge for every missteps. These

(24:00):
curtailed Betty's destructive era to an extent, but she still
had a lot to say and a lot of hurt
to work out. The media was captivated by the Broadericks,
and their bitter, high profile divorce came to be likened
to the War of the Roses. Historically, the War of
the Roses was a series of English civil wars fought
between fourteen fifty five and fourteen eighty seven for control

(24:23):
of the throne. The conflict was between two rival branches
of the Royal House of Plantagenet, the House of Lancaster
symbolized by the Red Rose, and the House of York,
symbolized by the White Rose. It ended when Lancasterian Henry
Tudor defeated Yorkist King Richard the Third at the Battle
of Bosworth, and he became Henry the Seventh, founding the

(24:44):
Tudor dynasty. The Battle of Tauton in fourteen sixty one
is one of the bloodiest ever fought on English soil,
with an estimated twenty eight thousand casualties here.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
I thought that The War of the Roses was just
a movie with Michael Douglas and oh, Danny DeVito was
in that movie. Now Michael Douglas and Kathleen.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Speaking of roses. Dan sent Betty a bouquet for her
thirty eighth birthday. Whether it was meant as a gesture
of goodwill or a snarky reminder of their own private
War of the Roses is anybody's guess. The card read,
Dear Bets. I know the circumstances will make it impossible
for you to have a happy birthday this year, but
I wanted you to know that the kids and I
are thinking and hoping that you start to feel better soon.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Dan, Wow, that's like it feels like twisting the night.
You think so, But yeah, it feels that way.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
I like to think that it's a sincere gesture, but
you think it was snarky.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Maybe it was sincere, but it certainly could have been
taken by Betty as being kind of snarky.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
I guess I hope you're feeling better soon. No, that
was that was kind of snarky.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
The OSCs piled up each month for years. Many of
them were for phone messages she'd leave for Dan or
the children. But we'll get to that soon. It would
be impossible for us to list all of the offenses,
but there were a lot, a lot, a lot. In
May nineteen eighty seven, an exhausted judge sentence Betty to
twenty five days in jail for five charges of contempt

(26:11):
of court. She spent six days in jail before she
apologized to the court. If she had directly apologized to
the judge, she'd likely have been spared jail time. Here's
the best apology she could muster, Judge Joseph, as per
your request, I promise to change my ways. I will
never again call my children as long as they are
living with their amoral, alcoholic, abusive father. This whole thing

(26:35):
has been excruciatingly painful for the children and for me.
They come to me as they should, with all their
heartbreak and troubles. I thought it was my duty, and
I know it is my right as their mother to
be there for them always. But I will let the
self important Harvard lawyer president of the Bar beat us all.
He obviously loves beating women and children. I will do

(26:58):
anything to escape this escalating man. The letter went on.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
So this was supposed to be an apology to the
judge for contempt of court charges.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, not the best attempt at an apology I've ever heard.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Also, Betty accuses Dan of beating women and children, and
that is not true.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, it wasn't much of an apology, but the judge
set her free. Upon her release, she wrote a lengthy
letter rescinding her apology and calling the judge biased. There
were several more OSCs waiting for her when she returned home.
When friends sympathized with her experience in jail, Betty said,
it wasn't so bad. I made some new friends.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
A lot of times in this case, Like you said
it earlier, How could Betty have been treated fairly? When
Dan was president of the San Diego Bar Association and
he knew all the judges, and you know, he was
really good at what he did. But then you look
at this case and it does sound like the judge
was somewhat tolerant of her bad behavior. Sometimes.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, she definitely did do herself any favors.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
No.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
By the fall of nineteen eighty seven, the judge, so
exhausted by the Brodericks, refused to hear any more OSCs.
One of the most surprising parts of Betty's story is
that she started dating in the summer of nineteen eighty five.
His name was Brad Wright, a handsome, rugged fellow six
years Betty's junior who owned a fencing company.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
He was pretty hunky, was he Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
They had an adventurous relationship, traveling and sailing together. Betty
was coy about their relationship. She seemed embarrassed by his
blue collar job, although he was successful and had a
degree from usc He was a very nice man, but
Betty was used to the constant sparring with Dan, and
she missed that. She denied any intimacy with him, citing

(28:47):
her conservative values and the fact that it would have
been unseemly because she was still technically married. She even
told some people that Brad was her gay companion. Quote.
I felt so stupid and failed old. Here I was
getting fat in my ugly matron's dress with this young hunk,
this sweet guy. But he was a nobody, and I

(29:08):
didn't want to be the other half of a midlife
crisis joke. I felt like a fool, and everybody acted
as if we didn't even exist. I went overnight from
front row tables to the back of the room.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
I think this is kind of an important quote here,
because you can tell that part of the reason that
she didn't want to be divorced is she like the
status of being with Dan Broderick.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
He was very smart, very successful, and they had a
lot of status to Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, in the fact that she refers to this guy
as a nobody, I mean that goes to that same
thing that she really didn't want to be with somebody
she considered like lower.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, it seemed like he was a very sweet guy
who really did support her a lot.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
She saw other men too occasionally, but Brad was smitten
with Betty and was there for her, even for the
hard parts that were yet to come. Dan filed for
divorce soon after. In September nineteen eighty five, he sat
Betty down and told her what he should have told
her three years earlier. He admitted that he had been
having an affair with Linda since nineteen eighty three. He

(30:13):
was in love with her and wanted to marry her.
He had no plans to reunite their family. It was
also cruel to Betty, she said, quote, that was my job,
and I was fired without cause. I hadn't done anything wrong.
It wasn't fair. Betty sobbed NonStop for days before she
tried to piece herself back together. Her first step was

(30:34):
to hire an attorney. Betty remembered back to the promise
Dan had made in nineteen seventy six when they attended
a marriage retreat. He wrote her a touching letter that
she had hung her hopes on for years. Quote, I
have always thought about next summer, next year, after I
make partner, after I am earning enough money to be
able to afford trips, boats, et cetera. Even now, I

(30:56):
believe that our lives together will be much happier when
money ceases being a problem. It will enable us to
do a lot of things, like travel to Europe that
will be shared experiences we will, I hope, enjoy and
never forget. I want to be able to take you
and the kids to South Bend every fall for a
game without thinking twice about it, To buy a piano
if Kim wants one, to buy you a ring, a motorbike,

(31:20):
a microwave, a camera, whatever you want, when you want it.
I honestly believe that having this ability will make me
happy and secure. And will make me a more loving
and more lovable person.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Things don't make you happy, Dan, No.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
It really seems like they are like or he is,
at least in this note putting a lot of stock
in material possessions being the key to happiness. Yeah, he
was now breaking the promise he had made to her
and the children, and it shattered her. Unable to express
her pain directly, Betty's hurt instead erupted as rage and
acts of violence. Dan had shipped all four children off

(31:57):
to summer camps, and Betty had freedom, and she did
her best to enjoy that. In between missing the kids.
She still had access to Dan's credit cards and used
them with reckless abandon spending as much as possible. It
was the only thing that made her feel better. Her
house was filled with shopping bags from high end retailers
that were never opened. They sat in corners for years.

(32:21):
At the end of the summer, Dan told her enough
and put her on a budget of nine thousand, thirty
six dollars a month twenty seven thousand dollars today, or
three hundred and twenty four thousand dollars for a year.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
I would take that budget, Yeah, it would take on.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
It same, although she seldom received the full amount. Dan
had devised a system of finding Betty without court approval,
deducting money to punish her for what he deemed bad behavior.
One hundred dollars for every curse word, two hundred and
fifty dollars each time she stepped on to his property uninvited,
five hundred dollars if she entered his house, and one

(32:57):
thousand dollars whenever she took the children without his consent.
One month, the deductions were so hefty that Betty ended
up owing Dan thirteen hundred dollars. I don't know for sure.
What I'm just guessing was a lot of this because
of her language. Like she she liked to swear a lot,
didn't she?

Speaker 1 (33:14):
She really did.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Betty was fined one thousand dollars for using offensive language
ten times, fifteen hundred dollars for trespassing outside Dan's house
six times, and twenty five hundred dollars for trespassing inside
his house five times. When Betty showed up at his
house demanding an explanation as to why she owed him money,
he told her to leave. When she refused, he had

(33:38):
her arrested for violating the restraining order, Betty asked the
court to reconsider her alimony, requesting thirty thousand dollars a month,
about a third of what she believed Dan earned each month.
He countered with seventy three hundred dollars, down from nine
thousand dollars, but a judge sided with Betty sort of
and increased her alimony to twelve five hundred dollars a month.

(34:03):
This pushed Betty into a higher tax bracket, so the
taxes on the new payment meant she actually received less
than the previous nine thousand dollars. Upon the court's request,
Betty submitted an itemized list of her nineteen eighty six expenses,
which totaled over two hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Can you remember multiply that times three.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Right, and asked for her alimony payment to be set
to at least twenty three thousand, six hundred dollars a month.
The judge decided on sixteen thousand, one hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Imagine the judge like, that's so much money. Obviously, her
alimonia payments are more than the judges making, and probably
most lawyers in the room. So I just must have
seen somewhat absurd, Yeah, to the judge and a lot
of other people.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Right. When Betty tried to hire a divorce attorney in
San Diego, she couldn't find anyone who was willing to
do battle with Dan Broderick. So she went to Los
Angeles and hired Daniel Jabs, who was also a very
good attorney. So confident after their first meeting, she treated
herself to a new fifteen thousand dollars Maroon Jaguar, although

(35:10):
Jaffy's soon tired of Betty's shenanigans. Here's an excerpt from
a letter he sent to her. If you can live
within the guidelines, I will continue to represent you, but
I want to spend my time on finding out what
happened to the Broaderick moneies and getting you some of them,
rather than spending my time keeping you out of jail.
He closed by suggesting she seeks psychiatric treatment. Their relationship

(35:34):
was short lived. Betty went through five attorneys in the
coming years, eventually representing herself.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Can you believe that eventually she's going to be defending herself?

Speaker 2 (35:44):
I can. She seems like the kind of person who
would want to defend herself, So yes, I can.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Very bad idea, but this Joffee guy actually sounded like
a pretty nice guy. Years later, when he heard that
she was defending herself, he contacted the judge and told
them that was unfair and outrageous that Betty was in
a very difficult situation. She was finding against Stan in
a San Diego courtroom. So he was one of the people.
It was just like, this woman is not going to

(36:11):
get justice because you know, of all the extenuating circumstances.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, that is very nice of him when he didn't
have to do that. Always cash strapped, Betty once resorted
to giving an attorney the ten thousand dollars necklace from
around her neck as a retainer. Betty finally agreed to
see a psychiatrist after the prodding of everyone remaining in
her life. The doctor called her the angriest client she

(36:35):
had ever met. She called Dan to caution him to
be careful with Betty because she believed she could be homicidal.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
This might sound like a violation of doctor patient confidentiality,
but it's called a terrasof warning. It's when a therapist
determines a client possesses a serious threat of danger to
an identifyble individual, they must take reasonable steps to warn
the potential victim, law enforcement, or both.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
The doctor contacted Dan after her second meeting with Betty too,
so the doctor contacted Dan again like a second time
after the second meeting.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
I think it had to be done each time.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Oh okay wow. But their relationship was short lived. Betty
didn't return after the third session. Quote, I'm not coming
back because you're too good. You make me forget how
much I hate him. We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
If there was one thing that truly drove Betty over
the edge, it was the custody of her and Dan's
four children. She had practically been a single parent, present
for every milestone, an important moment in their lives. She'd volunteered,
organized school events and poured herself into their upbringing, only
to have Dan arrange for her to be banned from
their schools. From the day that she dropped the children

(37:57):
off at Coral Reef Avenue, Dan had rested her visitation
get even with the children. Betty sometimes felt conflicted, once
telling the psychiatrist why I'm not going to be the
single parent of four kids. He'll die first the less
I see of them. The better, no kids, no bother
you'll see. Oh that's really harsh, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
I guess I'm not sure exactly what she's saying here.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
I think she's saying that she really doesn't want to
be a single parent of four kids. Okay, like if
she and Dan can't do it together, she doesn't want.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
To fe Okay, Yeah, that's pretty harsh.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Well.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Dan liked to communicate with Betty via carefully worded letters.
For the official record, Betty preferred to pick up the phone.
She took to leaving blistering messages on Dan's answering machine,
sometimes just nasty, other times so wildly obscene. They bored
it on creative. Those calls didn't just fuel their feud,
they landed her in serious trouble. In nineteen eighty seven,

(38:55):
Betty spent six days in jail on a contempt of
court charge, punished for what came out of her mouth.
Here's an example of just one day's messages. Warning, these
messages are very explicit. Okay, I don't mind swearing, but
there is one word in here that I am uncomfortable saying,
but I'm going to say it. It's to see you

(39:16):
next Tuesday. Work so I know Australia, are friends in Australia,
don't mind, and are friends in Great Britain. But here
it's it's a pretty bad one kind of taboo. But
I'm gonna let it rip because Betty did, okay. I'm
here for authenticitya This is a message to fuckhead and
the kunt. You have one hell of a nerve. Dumping
the kids here on the sidewalk and zooming away without

(39:38):
making any attempt to communicate me about my plans for
the weekend. Make me sick, both of you. I have
a good mind to dump the kids back on you
and drive away. Call me. We have a lot to
talk about, asshole, and come pick up your ford children
that you're working so hard to have custody of. Congratulations,
you can have them. A few minutes later, fuckhead, come

(39:59):
get the kid I want to get rid of them,
but I don't like driving to your shitty neighborhood. Hurry
up and come get the asshole. An hour later, fuckhead
on the cunt, come get the kids and her. Last
call of the day. I actually love this machine because
then I can really just see anything I want. Tell
the kids that you don't think it's wrong, that you're
skewing the cunt in the hall that has her legs

(40:21):
wide open for anybody who comes by, and you paid
for it. God, you got a sense of humor. I
love it. You're all fucked. So Betty's favorite word or
name for Linda was see you next Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
I gathered that. Yeah, thank you got that? Yep.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
There was also a teenline at Dan's house with another
answering machine. Dan frequently turned off the ringer, letting the
calls go straight to the answering machine, where Linda's voice Herkiley,
gave the greeting. In response, Betty left dozens of propane messages,
often highlighting her favorite word, see you next Tuesday. Quote, kunt,

(40:58):
what is your voice doing on this machine? If it's
the Broaderg's residence? That assumes you're a broaderick and you're
nothing but a cunt. Anyway, where are my darling children?
Here's a clip of one of the calls.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
What's if Wing can't come to the phone.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
You're not supposed to come to the phone at the house.
You're supposed not the house the phone.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
So those bleeps were swords and other things.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, exactly, So Betty was so infuriated by Linda's voice
on the machine, a judge told Dan get the girlfriend
off the machine. In general, I don't think that Linda
purposely tormented Betty, but on this occasion, why would she
have left the message on the kid's answering machine? It
didn't like it was taunting Betty. They shouldn't be surprising

(41:46):
that Dan saved the tapes and had them transcribed and
use them against Betty in court. And she did threaten
to kill him more than once on these tapes. Here's
another message, bucket, who do you think you're kidding? Look
in the me and tell me who do you think
you're kidding? Jesus Christ, you're like a slug with the
fancy tie on, too load a kick and too wet

(42:07):
to step on. Just that ring a bell love to
the cunt.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
Well.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
I think some of these messages are very funny. This
was the answering machine, that the kid's answering machine, and
they were subjected to hearing this messages on a daily basis.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
That so funny.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Dan brought the messages to a judge and Betty's visitation
privileges were temporarily paused, but even that didn't stop her.
Betty said, I was entitled to explode. And the truth
is I loved leaving those messages. All I ever had
was my tongue, and I did it for the shock value.
And every time I used that language on his machine,
I felt a little bit better. For a while. I

(42:45):
couldn't stop from doing it.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Just picturing what Betty would be like if she lived
in an era of social media.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, she would be tough to deal with. So this
next part is heart wrenching. Dan even went so far
to record Betty's phone calls with the children. One of
these tapes, later known in court as the Danny Tape,
captured a heartbreaking thirty minute conversation between Betty and her
ten year old son. Here's a short clip comb Danny.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
He's absolutely some.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
He is seated and lied and there's nothing do you
think being mad?

Speaker 1 (43:22):
For two years and enough of them were so happy,
so happy.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
I know the Lord you love her happier if you
just stop saying God words. Well, you try a clime, doll,
Say what I mean, bim you're saying right now? You
don stop?

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Oh that is heartbreaking to hear. It breaks my heart literally, Yeah,
it's it's really sad, and I have to say, like,
Danny is kind of wise beyond his yours, saying like,
isn't two years in? Absolutely, it's probably time to, you know,
try to think about moving on.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
And Bella Stumbo's book Until the twelfth of never, the
entire transcript of the call is revealed. The feud between
Danny's parents clearly took a heavy toll on him. It
must have devastated all the children, robbing them of the
safety instability every child deserves. Danny comes across as wise
beyond his years, forced to grow up far too quickly.

(44:27):
Betty spoke to him as if he were an adult,
like a confidant. Well, he repeatedly begged her to stop
using foul language so he could come to live with her.
That's really what both of the boys wanted. They wanted
to live with her, but she couldn't, you know, put
her behavior and the language beside, you know, long enough
to put their best interest first. Betty did this with

(44:50):
all of the children. She shared far too many adult
details with them and pitted them against Dan and Linda.
The tape ended with Danny saying, so do you want
to be mad for another two years? And after that
four years and then maybe another six years. Like you said,
Danny is so bright and perceptive. Betty has often claimed

(45:11):
that she lived for her children and was the best mother,
but Kim recalls it differently. She remembers a childhood mark
by neglect, with parents too observed in their own battles
to provide supervision, discipline, or emotional support to her. Betty
may have been physically present, but she had checked out
mentally and emotionally when her children needed her the most.

(45:33):
In her book, Kim talked about the younger years of
her childhood, and she said they were very good, and
Betty was great then, which was the soccer coach, and
you know they took great family vacations. But you know,
once the affair happened, something just changed.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, it seems like she was fixated on that. In
nineteen eighty seven, as Christmas approached, Betty was going to
take the kids skiing. She asked Dan for an extra
five thousand dollars for the trip. He countered with two
thousand dollars. Betty refused to go unless he gave her
five thousand. When Dan denied the money to Betty, she
decided to go to Pasadena instead to spend the holidays

(46:12):
with Brad Wright's family. Dan and Linda took the kids skiing.
Annoyed at the thought of paying someone to tend after
the family's two small shitsus that she'd been stuck with,
she tied red bows around Topsy and muffins necks and
entered Dan's house illegally once again, and left the dogs
there for the week unattended.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Oh boy, right, I mean, I don't know if there
was a doggy door, but still, yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Not going to be good that Christmas. Betty mailed out
cards to friends and family, but instead of a cheerful
holiday update, she included a long, bitter letter cataloging her
grievances against Dan over the past three years and the
unraveling of her marriage. The woman who had once been
so polished and image conscious was gone. Betty no longer

(46:59):
cared about appearing or about what people thought of her.
What mattered now was bringing Dan down with her. She
wanted to expose into the world as a narcissistic adulterer,
an alcoholic, and an abuser. Betty left for a week
to Tahiti after the New Year. She couldn't afford the trip,
but needed a change of scenery. When she returned home,

(47:20):
she found her home trashed. Someone had discharged a fire
extinguisher in the living room, ruining her floors and furniture.
Lee sixteen, the second oldest Broderick child, the child that
Betty said was most like her, was going through a
hard time. Her coping mechanism was to party with a
new group of unsavory friends. She ran away and remained

(47:42):
missing for six months, checking in with her mother only occasionally.
She was living on the beach, refusing to come home
and making choices that terrified Betty. Meanwhile, Dan disowned her
and formally wrote her out of his will. At the time,
Lee thought he was bluffing, but a few short years
years later she would learn that Dan was a man

(48:02):
of his word. When Lee finally resurfaced, Betty took her
to a rehab facility, but she checked herself out after
just three days. Her rebellion continued. Lee racked up so
many speeding tickets that her license was eventually suspended, not
surprising at all that someone of her age would act
out this way after what she'd been through.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Yeah, Unfortunately, the kids were collateral damage.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Dan proposed to Linda on bended knee on June twenty sixth,
nineteen eighty eight, her twenty seventh birthday, with an impressive
diamond and emerald ring.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
This may have also been a dig at Betty. I
think the last Christmas that the Broadderks were together as
a family, Betty had made many hints to Dan that
she wanted like this emerald ring, big emerald ring. And
when she didn't get the emerald ring, Kim and her
book said that she'd never seen Betty angrier, and she

(48:56):
made a huge fit and ruined Christmas over it. So
when I saw that Dan bought Linda, you know, yeah,
and emerald ring, I was like, oh, that's that sort
of things like that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
The story made the San Diego Union newspaper quote the
earnest looking fellow down on one knee on the floor
at Dobson's. The other night was attorney Dan Broderick asking
his paralegal Linda Culkeena to marry him, much too public
a proposal to turn down. They will marry in April.
The onlookers at the restaurant smiled and cheered after the proposal.

(49:30):
Linda and Dan told friends they wanted at least five children, together.
When Dan and Linda married at their mansion in the
spring of nineteen eighty nine, he hired two security guards
to watch over the festivities. Linda wanted him to wear
a bulletproof vest, but Dan didn't think Betty would kill
him because he was the golden goose. Linda begged him

(49:52):
to install a security system or at least get a
guard dog, but Dan balked he knew that no matter
what precautions he took, Betty would find a way to
circumvent them. Here's Dan toasting his new bride.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Prettiest is amos or not her best quality.

Speaker 4 (50:08):
She has the most wonderful, pleasant, sweet disposition of any
woman I've ever known.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
I really knew that I put the cart before the
horse there a little bit, But by this point Dan
and Betty were divorced, so he was not.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
He wasn't a bigamiss then, okay, gotcha. Betty tried to
move on after she began dating Brad the younger man.
She went to a plastic surgeon for several more procedures,
a forehead lift, eyelid surgery, and a tummy tuck. Later,
she admitted it only made her feel better for about
an hour. Nothing seemed to bring lasting happiness anymore. Betty

(50:46):
sank into a deep depression from nineteen eighty five to
nineteen eighty nine, and nothing could pull her out of it.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
According to Betty, the sale of their family home on
Coral Reef Avenue was the ultimate betrayal. Dan had told
her that he planned to sell it, but only after
he'd already purchased a grand, five bed, six bath Georgian
style mansion near a Bilboa Park for four hundred thousand dollars.
It was priced so low because the house was oddly

(51:13):
placed in a modest neighborhood. The first two offers on
the Coral Reef house fell through when Betty rejected them
without much thought or explanation, but when the third offer
came in, Dan didn't breathe a word of it to her. Instead,
she says that he used his legal knowhow to push
the sale through without her consent. Betty was in the

(51:35):
middle of making a delightful roast bee for her visiting
parents and sons when her newest attorney called her to
tell her that her former family home had been under contract.
She snapped. She cheerfully told her parents that she had
an errand to take care of and that she'd be
right back. Fueled by rage, she climbed into her Chevy
suburban and drove straight to Dan's new home. He refused

(51:59):
to talk to her, and he slammed the door in
her face. She drove to the coral wreath house, found
a can of gasoline in the garage and began pouring
it through the house, but quickly came to her senses
and returned to Dan's house. She didn't park on the street. Instead,
she floored the accelerator drove through the gate, with her
tires ripping across the manicured lawn. She pressed the brake

(52:22):
after she crashed into the front door. Two of her
children were inside the house when Dan came rushing out. Furious,
he yanked open the surburban's door, pulled her out, and
punched her in the chest. Stunned, Betty fell to the ground,
shocked that Dan had hit her. It was the first
and only time that he'd ever hit her. There were

(52:43):
also rumors that there was a knife in her suburban.
I don't think she threatened him with it, but later
she said, oh, I'd just been out shopping that day
and bought a knife. Okay, here's a clip of Betty
talking about the incident to Oprah.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Now, did drive try to drive the car through the door,
did you not?

Speaker 4 (53:01):
I did purposely, And you know, I did bang my
car into his door.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
I didn't try to drive it through anything. I banged
my car into his door.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
The day that he sold the family home, the only
home we've ever owned that had my name on it
and his name on it. He sold it in court
without notifying me in any way, shape or form.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
And I went to his house and said, how did
you do that?

Speaker 4 (53:23):
You can't do that, and he told me I had
ten seconds to get off his property.

Speaker 3 (53:27):
So then you got in the car, and.

Speaker 4 (53:29):
I looked at that house as the only asset it was, indeed,
the only asset that had my name on it. Nothing
else did.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Ever. Once again, it seems like she is not willing
to take any accountability for her own action. Not that
Dan is perfect and not a great guy.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Either, but definitely antagonized her.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Yeah, but she just seems like she can't take own up.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
To her own that's thermal response.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Right, Yeah, Well of course I did that because of
this and this, and yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Like I stopped at the door, right, yeah, but the
door was damaged. For what it's worth. The confrontation ended
before anyone was hurt, but Betty's fury was palpable. When
the police arrived, they put Betty into a straight jacket.
Within hours, she was admitted to a mental hospital, where
she spent the next three days, another explosive chapter in

(54:18):
a divorce that was already spiraling out of control, But
she insisted to the psychiatrist that it was Dan who
was crazy, not her. Betty's parents caught the next flight
available home after they found out that she'd been institutionalized.
Embarrassed and horrified by her actions, they never visited her
at her home again. Betty told the La Times quote,

(54:42):
their darling daughter got the big D word and they
couldn't handle it. All my life, I tried so hard
to be a good daughter, a good wife, a good neighbor.
My husband on zips's fly and screws the bimbo, and
I lose all that. My mother is a peach. If
you called home at midnight and you had a flat tire,
she'd lie in bed and have people bring her tea
and crumpets while she worried about you, and you'd still

(55:05):
be out on the freeway. What she doesn't understand is
she only had one choice, his funeral or mine. I
hate to tell you she would have preferred mine. My
daughter killed herself as more acceptable than my daughter stood
up for herself. During her stay at the mental hospital,
Betty received a diagnosis borderline personality, histrionic and narcissistic. Dan

(55:29):
paid Betty one hundred twenty seven thousand, seven hundred eighty
four dollars from the sale of the Coral Reef House
and ponied up an additional forty thousand dollars towards remodeling
her new home. He must have been feeling guilty over
his recent actions. Upon Betty's release from the hospital, he
offered to pay for a week long ski trip for

(55:50):
her and the kids. She begrudgingly accepted. Betty's reputation around
town was in tatters. People whispered behind her back, calling
her crazy Betty. She did her best to hold her
head up high, using her quick wit to brush off
the gossip and lead with the smile. No matter how
awkward the encounter. She felt no shame for her behavior

(56:11):
and her mind. All the blame belonged to Dan and
Linda never to herself. Betty still tried to keep up appearances,
meeting friends, volunteering, even working briefly at an art gallery,
but her circle was shrinking. She wanted to move forward,
yet wasn't sure what she was qualified to do anymore.

(56:31):
And for those who stuck around, conversations with Betty inevitably
circled back to the same theme how Dan had wronged her.
Many grew weary of her bitterness, and one by one
they drifted away and chose Dan's side over hers. But
Betty still had a close circle of friends, and they
were deeply worried. To them, she no longer seemed capable

(56:54):
of rational thought. They urged her to get help, but
she refused to hear it. Once admired for her excellent parenting,
Betty was so consumed by her war with Dan and
Linda that her kids took a back seat. Her appearance suffered,
She gained weight and was unable to wear her designer clothes.
Bills went unpaid, and the house she'd bought remained half

(57:15):
renovated and largely unfurnished and infested with rats. Betty didn't
have energy for any of it. She wasn't fun to
be around, anymore. Friends described her as bitter, mean, vindictive,
and angry, and whenever someone suggested she needed help, Betty
only dug her heels in deeper and her mind her
rage was justified. She was the one who'd been wronged.

(57:37):
She began to write a book she titled What's a
Nice Girl to Do? A story of white collared domestic
violence in America. That book was never published, but she
did go on to write another book that I read,
called Telling on Myself. So Betty joined a group called
Halt Help Abolish Legal Tyranny. They are a subversive group

(58:00):
who charged that lawyers intentionally make the legal system more
complicated than it needs to be, which limits access to
the average American. They believe that all Americans should be
able to handle their legal affairs simply, affordably, and equitably.
Sounds like a pretty good idea.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Really, anyone who's ever read a contract can say that, yeah,
this is more complicated than it needs to be.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Betty found new supporters within this group who guided her
decision making. Dan tried to settle the divorce out of
court back in nineteen eighty five. He offered joint custody,
likely to avoid paying child support. Along with nine thousand
dollars a month in alimony and a share of the
legal settlements he'd earned during their marriage. But his formula

(58:43):
was complicated. For example, from a six hundred thousand dollars
settlement win, Betty's share after expenses and deducting the support
she had already received, which shrinked to about sixty five
thousand dollars. Betty admitted, I didn't know what the hell
is meant, but I did know it sounded like I
was getting royally screwed. Still, this was the best deal

(59:06):
that Dan would ever put on the table, and Betty
turned it down. She would continue to turn down every
offer he made four years, and they declined in value.
She was sure he was being dishonest about his earnings
and holdings. I think there is evidence that he did
have money hiding in different places, not surprising. Does that
sound like a bad deal to you? Like, out of

(59:28):
a six hundred thousand dollars settlement, she would get about
ten percent of that.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Yeah, I mean it seems like it would be pretty good.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Frustrated by the lack of settlement, Dan moved for a
bifurcated divorce. We've had at least one other case that
did this. Do you remember, No, I don't so. A
bifurcated divorce means that you split the legal process into
two parts, dissolving the marriage first and dividing the assets later.
So that's what Dan had done. So that's when he married.

(59:56):
Linda had been divorced for I think at least a year.
Betty struggled to find an attorney she trusted and refused
to appear in court without representation. On July sixteenth, nineteen
eighty six, Dan stood before a judge alone and was
granted both the divorce and full custody of the children.
And that's when Betty's rage escalated. Her messages on the

(01:00:19):
answering machine grew more vicious by the day. In response,
Dan came up with a new punishment for every offensive
word she left on the machine. He find her we
already talked about this part. By late nineteen eighty seven,
negotiations had stalled again until Betty came back with her
own proposal. She requested one million dollars in cash, plus

(01:00:41):
twenty five thousand dollars a month for the next ten years,
whether she remarried or not. She wanted the title to
her house and car, a one million dollar life insurance policy,
with herself as the beneficiary to the life insurance policy
for Dan, much of the furniture they owned together, and ford,
and to cover her legal fees. Altogether, this would have

(01:01:03):
added up to about four million dollars. Was surprised many
people was that she didn't ask for custody of the children.
She only wanted visitation. She admitted she had no interest
in being a single parent and felt too emotionally unstable
to take on four children full time. Dan flatly refused
her offer. By the end of nineteen eighty seven, Betty's

(01:01:26):
financial situation was dire. She had over two hundred thousand
dollars in credit card debt. Betty said, the only time
I felt halfway normal was when I was either eating
or signing charges. Those things I could do alone, and
they made me feel like everything would still be okay.
On December twenty seventh, nineteen eighty eight, their eight day

(01:01:48):
divorce trial began. Betty represented herself. At times she held
her own but at other times she couldn't keep up.
The final divorce judgment between Betty and Dan Broderick was
both complicated and devastating. After years of bitter court battles,
the millions of dollars in community property the couple had
built between nineteen sixty nine and nineteen eighty nine were

(01:02:10):
reduced to just over twenty eight thousand dollars for Betty.
This figure came after Dan undervalued their community property and
his law firm and applied more than one million dollars
in Epstein credits, which reimbursed him for community debts he
claimed to have paid with his own money after their separation,
effectively wiping out much of Betty's share of their marital estate.

(01:02:34):
On top of that, she was ordered to cover five
thousand dollars in legal fees and even half of Dan's
Harvard loans presented in court as their educational expenses. On paper,
Betty would still receive monthly spousal support of sixteen thousand dollars,
but to Betty it felt hollow compared to the fortune

(01:02:55):
Dad had amassed during their marriage and the life of
luxury that she had won known. The settlement left her
responsible for a heavy share of the community debts while
granting her almost nothing from the assets that she'd helped create.
To her, the judgment underscored how the courts, and Dan's
legal maneuvering had minimized her sacrifices, leading her with little

(01:03:18):
financial independence and a sharp sense of betrayal.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
That sound like a pretty brutal settlement.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Absolutely, I mean she should have walked away with at
least a million dollars in cash. I feel like I
just want to talk about Epstein credits for a second
because it's really confusing. But Epstein credits are a California
divorce rule that comes from a nineteen seventy nine case
called in Remarriage of Epstein. In simple terms, they allow
one spouse to be reimbursed for certain payments they make

(01:03:47):
after the couple separates, but before the divorce is finalized. If,
for example, one spouse uses their post separation income to
pay community debts like the mortgage, property taxes, or car payments,
they can ask the court to credit them back for
those amounts when the assets are divided. The reasoning is

(01:04:07):
that those payments benefit both spouses, so the paying spouse
shouldn't be stuck covering the other person's share. But there
are exceptions if the payments were intended as spousal support,
or if the paying spouse was the only one using
the property, the court might deny the credit, and Betty
Broderick's case, Dan used Epstein credits to shrink her settlement,

(01:04:29):
claiming reimbursement for expenses he said he covered after their separation.
It was one of the several ways that he chipped
away at the final amount that she would receive. And
he really did screw Betty over royally with this settlement.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
So since nineteen eighty three, you know, all of those years,
every single time that he paid for something, you know,
he took that. He gave her money for her house prepairers. Yeah,
and you know he chipped that away in every vacation
that the you know that he gave her money for,
he took that out of the settlement. But all just
made the final settlement smaller.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Well that's what we're going to end for today.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Still no crime, well, a few crimes on.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Betty's crimes on both of their parts, really true. I
have some questions for you. Was it possible for Betty
to receive a fair settlement in the San Diego court
system where Dan was a skilled and accomplished attorney.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
I mean, that's hard to say. It would have been
very difficult for her, I would think, But at the
same time, she just the way she approached the whole
thing really didn't do herself any favors. She could have
gotten a much better settlement if she had I think,
you know, tried harder to do what she should have.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Had an attorney with her during a divorce trial, for sure,
I think up to that point she was treated pretty fairly.
What effect do you think the answering machine messages had
on the children?

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Not a good one, I'm you know, it's just terrible
to put your kids through that. Like just having your
kids even hearing you, you know, fight bitterly and say
nasty things to each other. That's not a good thing.
But when you call and leave a message on their
machine that you know they're going to hear.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
I want to say it was an episode of Oprah.
I could be wrong. I used to watch Oprah all
the time when I was like a kid. She said once,
when you fight in front of your children, it changes
who they are. And I've always remembered that we're not perfect.
But we don't really fight in front of our kids.
I don't think we ever. We have a couple of
times for one time, we don't fight often. I believe

(01:06:40):
we fought in front of maybe our son when he
was really little, and he might have said, are you
guys getting divorced?

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Oh no, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Just to fight. It's okay to fight. But when you
never fight and you do fight and your kids hear it,
you know that can be bad. Yeah, but the kids
in this case were definitely used to their parents, really
bad for them. Was Betty's anchor justified or did it
cross the line into obsession?

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Yes, and yes I think it was just I mean,
she was certainly justified in her anger, but at a
certain point you got to move on.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
When you're destroying who you are, the fabric of your being,
you definitely need help.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Yeah, it just seemed like she was obsesseding, couldn't couldn't
let it go, and couldn't focus on anything else.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
What could Dan have done differently, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
He could have not gaslighted her for years, absolutely and
acted like he wasn't having an affair. He could have
definitely been more upfront about it and you know, just
made a clean break earlier when he realized that he
wanted to be with someone else.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Do you get the sense that part of the reason
he was gaslighting her because he was moving money around
and you know, doing seedy things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Maybe like maybe he was trying to prepare for, you know,
the divorce at some point, but it's hard to say.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
Do you think that Betty should have gotten fifty percent
of all of his assets?

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
I mean kind of yeah. I think in a situation
like that, that seems sort of fair.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
And it seems like Dan almost had unlimited potential, like financially,
and he could have remade that money. I think that's
what a lot of people point to in this case,
is like, you know, he could have given her that
money easily. Yeah, still would have had plenty of money, yeah,
I think, and left her with some dignity.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
Right, I think he Yeah, he probably should have been
a little more generous. And just if I was him,
I'd be like, I just want to get this done
with that. I want to move on, and the easiest
way to do that is going to be by giving
more money.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
And so yeah, thank you so much for listening to
this episode of Love Mary Keil.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
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or send us an email at Love Mary Kill at
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Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
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