Elisabeth “Betty” Broderick, who was convicted for the 1989 killings of her ex-husband and his new wife while they were asleep in their California home, has died at the age of 78 while serving a life sentence.
Betty Broderick died on Friday of natural causes at the California Institution for Women, according to confirmation from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to People.
A smiling 44-year-old Betty Broderick is shown as the verdict is read in court, while her attorney lowers his head in disappointment.
She had been transferred from state prison about three weeks earlier to receive a higher level of medical care, though details of her condition were not disclosed, according to reporting that cited the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Her death comes nearly 37 years after she fatally shot her ex-husband, Dan Broderick, 44, and his new wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, 28, as they slept in their home in the Balboa Park area of San Diego, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Betty Broderick had been married to Dan Broderick, a medical malpractice attorney, since 1969. The couple had four children before their divorce was finalized on January 30, 1989, following his affair with Kolkena, who had worked as his legal assistant. Dan Broderick and Kolkena married on April 22, 1989, less than three months after the divorce was finalized.
In the period leading up to the killings, Betty Broderick engaged in increasingly erratic and hostile behavior toward her ex-husband, including repeated phone calls, damaging his belongings, and even driving a vehicle into his home, according to reporting from CBS News.
On November 5, 1989, then 41-year-old Betty Broderick used a key taken from her daughter to enter the newlyweds’ home, went upstairs, and fired five shots into the sleeping couple with a .38-caliber revolver.
Betty Broderick appeared unusually composed as she walked toward her holding cell after being found guilty in the double murder case.
At one point, she removed a phone from the wall and left it in the hallway, placing it out of reach of the victims, according to the Los Angeles Times.
She surrendered to police on the day of the killings and later admitted to carrying them out. However, at both her first trial—which ended in a mistrial—and her second trial, in which she was convicted, Broderick argued that she had been subjected to emotional and psychological abuse by her ex-husband.
Broderick was sentenced in 1991 to 32 years to life in prison. She was denied parole in 2010 and again in 2017.
She is survived by her four children: Kim, Lee, Daniel, and Rhett.
