Published 7 days ago • loading... • Updated 6 days ago
Former San Diego Socialite and Convicted Killer Betty Broderick Dies in Prison
The former La Jolla socialite had served a life sentence since 1992 after killing her ex-husband and his new wife in a 1989 double murder.
Betty Broderick, the former San Diego socialite imprisoned for 1989 murders, died early Friday morning from natural causes at 3:40 a.m., according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She was 78.
More than 35 years ago, Broderick gunned down ex-husband Dan Broderick and his new wife Linda Kolkena Broderick as they slept in their Cypress Avenue home near Balboa Park. Prosecutors portrayed it as calculated revenge; Broderick claimed a bitter divorce drove her to kill.
Convicted of second-degree murder in 1991, Broderick arrived at the California Institution for Women on February 26, 1992, to serve a 32-year-to-life sentence. She was denied parole three times, most recently in 2017, with the Board of Parole Hearings stating she showed no signs of remorse.
Following her transfer to an outside medical facility on April 18 for higher-level care, family members were at her bedside when she passed. Broderick is survived by four children and seven grandchildren.
Her story captivated the nation, inspiring books, a television movie, an L.A. Times podcast, and an eight-episode miniseries. Reporter Lorraine Kimel-Hennessy, who covered the 1989 events, described Broderick as a woman who was "out for blood.