Betty Broderick was repeatedly paroled for murder before being killed in 1989
Double murderer Betty Broderick died while awaiting another distant parole hearing after being denied parole twice. RadarOnline.com.
On Friday, May 8, Broderick died at the age of 78 at an outside medical center near the California Institution for Women while still serving her life sentence.
The chilling case made headlines in 1989 after she was arrested for shooting her ex-husband, Dan Broderick, and his new wife.
Betty and Dan married in 1969 and welcomed four children together. However, more than a decade after their marriage, Dan, a medical malpractice attorney, had an affair with his assistant, Linda Kolkena.
The couple eventually divorced, and soon after, Dan and Linda said, “Yes, I do.” But just over six months after their wedding, Betty received written notice that her ex-husband was concerned about her gaining custody of their children.
“I was completely falling apart. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go back to court and back to prison, and I didn’t want my boys on probation,” Betty wrote in her book, Tell about myself. “I knew exactly what that meant: Dan would be my judge and jury, and I knew how that would go: an endless Salem witch trial.”
“I had to make it stop. I couldn’t live another day like this, waiting for his next ‘Gotcha!'” she continued. “I just couldn’t handle it. I felt like I had abandoned my children and that I had nothing left to live for.”
Although Betty claimed that she initially considered committing suicide, her plan changed. She said she was out of her “sane mind” as she drove to her ex-husband’s house and felt like she was going “insane.”
Once she arrived, she entered the house and shot Dan and Linda in their bedroom.
That same day, Betty turned herself over to the police and did not deny her role in the crimes.
While her first trial resulted in a mistrial, she was later sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder.
Over the years, Betty has tried to get paroled more than once. When she first became eligible in 2010, Prison Conditions Commissioner Robert Doyle refused her release on the grounds that she showed little remorse.
“Your heart is still bitter and you are still angry,” Doyle said at the time. “You are not showing significant progress in evolution. You are still in the same mode 20 years ago. You have to move on.”
Seven years later she tried again, but her bid was rejected a second time.
“Her demeanor was in fact defiant, grinning throughout the hearing, acting in complete denial, and not understanding where she is, why she is there and what happened,” said San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Richard Sachs.
Betty died before she was eligible for parole again in 2032.
In 1992, Betty’s daughter Kim spoke out about her mother’s murders Oprah Winfrey show.
“I talk to some people, and they say things like, ‘Oh, well, I’m dating her,’ and ‘After everything your dad did to her.’ And they clearly didn’t listen because Dad didn’t do all these things to her,” Kim said at the time. “And he definitely didn’t deserve to die, and they shouldn’t look up to her for doing that.”
Dan Jr. called her “lost” and suggested she should not be released into “society.”
However, in a separate interview, Lee said she would like her mother to “live her later life outside the prison walls.” CBS News.
Rhett too said Oprah that his mother was a “nice lady” when she wasn’t talking about his late father.
“Keeping her in jail doesn’t really help her,” he added. “She is not a danger to society; the only two people she posed a danger to are dead.”
