Betty Broderick

• 1. Introduction

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  Betty Broderick entered a house at 1041 Cypress Avenue in San Diego at 5:30 on the morning of the 5th of November 1989. It was two days before her 42nd birthday. Inside, her former husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, and his new wife, Linda, were asleep. Both were shot to death, and the woman who fired the gun never denied it. The case drew extensive media attention, and it has been retold for decades. How does a marriage between two people from devout Catholic families end like this? Why did one jury fail to reach a verdict while a second convicted her of murder? And what made so many writers, producers and talk show hosts return to this story again and again?

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• 2. Raised to Be a Wife

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  Betty Broderick was born Elisabeth Anne Bisceglia on the 7th of November 1947 and grew up in Bronxville, New York. She was the third of six children. Her mother, Marita, was Irish American, and her father, Frank, was Italian American. Together with relatives, Frank ran a successful plastering business.

  Betty later described the life that had been mapped out for her since the day she was born. In her words: "Go to Catholic schools, be careful with dating until you find a Catholic man, support him while he works, be blessed in your later years with beautiful grandchildren." Her parents were strict and expected a great deal of every child. Her school friends were raised under similar rules, which left her little chance to rebel.

  Betty attended Maria Regina High School in Hartsdale, New York. She graduated from Eastchester High School in Eastchester in 1965. She then went to the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, where an accelerated program earned her a degree in early childhood education. Her credits also added a minor in English.

  In that same year, 1965, Betty met Dan Broderick at a dance at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Dan was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eldest son of a very large Irish Catholic family. His parents shared the outlook of the Bisceglias. He was a 21-year-old senior, about to graduate and head to Cornell Medical School. Betty was 17.

  She remembered his pursuit this way: "Dan never once wavered from his goal of making me his wife." She added: "Nobody ever used the terms 'obsessive-compulsive' or 'stalker' back then, but that is what he was."

  The couple married on the 12th of April 1969 at the Immaculate Conception Church in Tuckahoe, New York. Betty returned from the honeymoon pregnant. Their daughter Kim was born in 1970, followed by another daughter, Lee, in 1971. Two sons came next, Daniel in 1976 and Rhett in 1979. The record also notes one more child, a boy who died four days after birth and is listed without a name.

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• 3. Law School and La Jolla

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  Dan Broderick completed his M.D. at Cornell in 1970, after Kim's birth. Rather than settle into medicine, he announced a plan to add a J.D. and enrolled at Harvard Law School. Betty became the main provider for the family while Dan studied. He relied on a student loan.

  In 1973, Dan graduated and was quickly hired by the largest law firm in San Diego, California. That firm had a substantial defense litigation practice. He moved his family to the San Diego community of La Jolla.

  Betty kept working part-time there, often selling Tupperware or Avon products, while she raised the children.

  In 1978, Dan left the large firm, where he was well regarded after five years of defense work and training as an associate. He founded his own small boutique firm, which handled medical malpractice cases on behalf of plaintiffs. Dan was both a physician and a trial attorney, and that combination helped the firm succeed quickly. His reputation in San Diego was about to grow far larger than the firm itself.

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• 4. A Divorce War

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  In the fall of 1982, Dan hired 21-year-old Linda Kolkena as a legal assistant at his firm. By October 1983, Betty suspected that the two were having an affair. Dan denied it. In February 1985, against Betty's wishes, he moved out. Betty then left the children on his doorstep one by one, and Dan ended up with custody. Betty claimed that he eventually confessed to the affair with Linda. A long and hostile divorce followed.

  By then Dan was president of the San Diego Bar Association. Betty claimed that he made it extremely difficult for her to find a lawyer willing to take her case, which left her at a distinct disadvantage. She also believed he used his legal influence to win sole custody of the children and to sell the family house against her wishes. In her view he cheated her out of her rightful share of his income. The divorce was finalized in 1989, four years after Dan filed the petition.

  Betty's behavior meanwhile grew increasingly erratic. Hundreds of profane messages from her piled up on Dan's answering machine. She ignored numerous restraining orders that barred her from setting foot on his property. She vandalized his new home. She even drove her car into his front door while the children were inside.

  Dan and Linda married on the 22nd of April 1989. Linda was worried about Betty and urged Dan to wear a bulletproof vest at the ceremony. Dan refused, although plain-clothes security was arranged. Betty did not attend, and the wedding passed without incident. Afterward, Betty claimed that Linda taunted her by mailing ads for facial cream and slimming treatments. The newlyweds had only seven months together.

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• 5. The Morning of the Murders

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  One month before the wedding, Betty had bought a Smith & Wesson revolver. On the morning of the murders, she took a key to Dan's house from her daughter Kim. The house stood in the Marston Hills neighborhood, near Balboa Park. Betty let herself in while the couple were asleep and shot them both.

  Two bullets struck Linda, one in the head and one in the chest, and she died instantly. She was 28 years old. One bullet hit Dan in the chest, apparently as he reached for the phone. Another bullet hit the wall, and one more hit a nightstand. Dan's 45th birthday was only 17 days away.

  Evidence at trial indicated that Betty had removed a phone and answering machine from Dan's bedroom so that he could not call for help. Medical evidence showed that Dan did not die immediately. Betty claimed that she spoke to him after shooting him.

  Betty then contacted her daughter Lee and Lee's boyfriend. After that she turned herself in to police. She never denied that she had pulled the trigger.

  Dan and Linda are listed as buried together at Greenwood Memorial Park in San Diego.

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• 6. Two Trials

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  Criminal defense attorney Jack Early represented Betty at trial, and Kerry Wells prosecuted for the State of California. The defense argued that Betty was a battered wife driven over the edge by years of psychological, physical and mental abuse from her ex-husband. Wells argued the opposite. In her telling, Betty planned and schemed to kill, and she was not a battered woman.

  Betty maintained at both trials that she never planned to kill anyone and that the crime was not premeditated. At her second trial she said Linda's scream of "Call the police!" startled her, and she fired at once.

  Psychiatric experts divided the courtroom into expert camps. Forensic psychiatrist and criminologist Dr. Park Dietz testified for the prosecution. He drew on analysis by Dr. Melvin Goldzband, who had worked on the case earlier for the prosecution. Dietz said Betty had histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders. Goldzband called her "severely narcissistic" and "histrionic". Clinical psychologist Katherine DiFrancesca testified for the defense. She concluded that Betty was "histrionic" with "narcissistic features". Terry DeGelder, the lead detective from San Diego Homicide, also testified for the prosecution.

  The first trial ended with a hung jury. Two jurors held out for manslaughter, citing a lack of intent, and Judge Thomas J. Whelan declared a mistrial.

  Betty was retried a year later, with the same defense attorney and the same prosecutor. The second trial began on the 11th of December 1991 and was essentially a replay of the first. This time Wells prevailed. The jury returned guilty verdicts on two counts of second-degree murder.

  Betty received two consecutive terms of 15 years to life, the maximum under the law. The judge added two years for the illegal use of a firearm.

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• 7. Prison and Final Years

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  Betty Broderick was held in custody from the day of the murders until her death. By the end she was serving her sentence at the California Institution for Women in Chino, California.

  In January 2010, the Board of Parole Hearings denied her first request for parole. The board found that she neither showed remorse nor acknowledged wrongdoing. She was denied again in January 2017. Her next chance would have come in January 2032, when she would have been 84 years old.

  Court records show how many other proceedings gathered around her. Dan and Betty were together named in a property damage case filed on the 1st of October 1975. A personal injury case over a car was filed against Betty on the 20th of April 1989. Two wrongful death suits against her were filed on the 2nd of November 1990. Betty herself sued the County of San Diego on the 21st of September 1992.

  On the 18th of April 2026, Betty was moved from the California Institution for Women to a specialized medical facility in Chino. She needed a higher level of care after a fall that broke her ribs and led to septic infections. She died of natural causes on the 8th of May 2026, at the age of 78, in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. According to her children, family surrounded her at the end.

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• 8. The Story on Screen

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  An article about the case in the Los Angeles Times Magazine led to a two-part television film. Part one was titled A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story. Part two, from 1992, was Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, The Last Chapter. Meredith Baxter played Betty, Stephen Collins played Dan, and Michelle Johnson played Linda Kolkena. Baxter was nominated for both an Emmy Award and an American Television Award.

  Betty herself spoke to the press, both before and after her trials. She gave numerous television and magazine interviews, including a feature for Ladies Home Journal. She appeared twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She also appeared on Hard Copy, 20/20 and Headliners and Legends.

  The 1991 Law & Order episode "The Wages of Love" was partly inspired by the murders and the trial. Guest star Shirley Knight earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Season four of Deadly Women dramatized the murders in an episode titled "Till Death Do Us Part".

  In 2017, Murder Made Me Famous aired an episode simply called "Betty Broderick". Holly Day played Betty, Chad Halbrook played Dan, and Valerie Lamb played Linda. Karen Kilgariff covered the case in episode 103 of My Favorite Murder, recorded live in San Diego.

  The year 2020 brought a wave of new versions. The second season of Dirty John told the story from the early years through the killings, with Amanda Peet as Betty and Christian Slater as Dan. In spring, the Los Angeles Times released a true crime podcast called It Was Simple: The Betty Broderick Murders. On the 15th of July, Oxygen aired a special episode of Snapped devoted to the case. An eight-episode miniseries about Betty also aired that year.

  At least five books have covered the case. Loretta Schwartz-Nobel wrote Forsaking All Others: The Real Betty Broderick Story in 1993, and Bryna Taubman wrote Hell Hath No Fury in 1992. Kimberly Dotseth added She Gave Her Pearls in 2023. Bella Stumbo wrote Until the Twelfth of Never: The Deadly Divorce of Dan and Betty Broderick in 1993. Her 2013 edition carried a pointed subtitle: Should Betty Broderick ever be free?

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