20 years later, socialite Betty Broderick seeks parole in killing of ex-husband, his wife

Socialite Betty Broderick seeks parole in murders

CHINO, Calif. — Betty Broderick, the one-time San Diego socialite who drew national attention for fatally shooting her ex-husband and his new wife, told a parole board Thursday she was driven to violence after a bitter custody battle, saying she “couldn’t let them win.”

The 62-year-old Broderick delivered a long, rambling commentary in her first date with the parole board in her quest for freedom. The hearing was continuing through the afternoon.

She claimed she didn’t intend to kill anyone when she went to the San Diego home of her prominent lawyer ex-husband and shot the couple in their bed in 1989. But she said she had violent thoughts as she approached the home.

“I had one choice: to shoot them or myself,” Broderick recalled thinking. “I couldn’t let them win.”

Broderick was convicted in 1991 of second-degree murder and sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. Her story became the subject of a book and two TV movies. She has maintained she was a victim of battered-wife syndrome and was driven to kill by a bitter divorce and custody battle.

The case produced lurid headlines with details of the battles between Broderick and Daniel Broderick III. They married in 1969 and had four children. In the late 1980s, he began an affair with another woman whom he eventually married. The divorce battle lasted four years.

Broderick told the board “my whole world fell off its axis” when her husband left her and won custody of the children.

“I couldn’t get a settlement and I couldn’t get the kids,” she said. “… I allowed the voices in my head to completely take over.”

She said she intended to kill herself and left a suicide note in her kitchen before she went to her ex-husband’s home.

“I couldn’t take it any more,” she said. “The final thing was Dan calling me crazy. I hated myself, I hated my life. I felt like I was a failure.”

At her trial, Broderick admitted firing the gun that killed her 44-year-old ex-husband and his new wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, 28. She portrayed herself as the victim of a heartless man who discarded her for a younger, slimmer woman, then used his legal skills and clout with the local judiciary to gain unfair advantages in the divorce and child custody cases.

Betty Broderick admitted bombarding him with obscene telephone calls, smearing a Boston cream pie on his clothes and driving her truck through his front door.

It took two trials to convict her. The first ended in a hung jury, and the foreman was quoted as saying of the shootings: “We just wonder why it took her so long.”

During six days of emotional testimony at the second trial, Broderick said she crept into the couple’s bedroom before dawn planning only to confront them or to kill herself. She said she didn’t aim the gun and didn’t remember pulling the trigger.

The prosecution called it a cold-blooded execution motivated by jealousy and obsessive hatred. Broderick’s lawyer said her ex-husband heaped abuse on her and pushed her past an emotional breaking point.