The Coroner's End-of-Life Confession

We Still Don't Know What Happened to Marilyn Monroe

Thomas Noguchi, the former Chief Medical Examiner and Coroner for the County of Los Angeles is 98-and-a-half years old. Always controversial, he is best known for having conducted the autopsies for Robert Kennedy, Janis Joplin, John Belushi, William Holden, and Sharon Tate, among others.

Being the autopsy guy to the stars is not an easy gig. He performed the controversial autopsy on the late Robert Kennedy, which got him in hot water to the point that he was forced to resign. Japanese-born Noguchi claimed he was being pushed out of office because of racism, and he was reinstated, but not until insults flew from both sides, including those that claimed Noguchi himself was antisemitic and hated Blacks.

The assassination of Robert Kennedy remains controversial to this day since a guy named Sirhan Sirhan was promptly convicted of the murder, but there is solid evidence he did not do it (even Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Mr. MAHA, supports parole for Sirhan Sirhan on this basis). Noguchi’s work or post-autopsy opinions did not claim that Sirhan Sirhan was the killer; however, his autopsy findings did not rule it out, either.

Nevertheless, Thomas Noguchi enjoyed a long career and the most celebrity ever given to a coroner. In 1983, Noguchi wrote his memoirs. A new documentary is being made about his life, and his character is featured in a musical called “Dead Outlaw.” It’s up for a Tony.

Now that Thomas Noguchi is nearing the end of his life, he made a sort of semi-confession about an autopsy he performed six decades ago. It wasn’t really a confession as much as misgivings. He knew something was wrong and he didn’t speak up.

The Death of Marilyn Monroe

Early in his career, the 37-year-old Noguchi was handed an autopsy that should have been given to a more experienced coroner. He was tasked with doing the autopsy of the most famous movie star of the era. Marilyn Monroe died on August 4, 1962 under what could be called mysterious or at least unclear circumstances. It was clear she died of an overdose but was it suicide? Murder? An accident?

The Chief Medical Examiner at the time, a guy named Dr. Theodore J. Curphey, specifically wanted young Thomas Noguchi to do the autopsy. Since Curphey was Noguchi’s boss, Noguchi had little choice but to complete the assigned task. He has remarked that even at the time, he thought it was strange that as the “newbie” on the staff, he would be handed such a high-profile case.

Noguchi conducted the autopsy on August 5, 1962 and, together with his supervisor, Noguchi signed off on her case report, that officially ruled her death a “probable suicide.”

Most of the autopsy findings were what physicians call “unremarkable.” There were no signs of prior sexual intercourse. They checked for that, since if foul play was involved, rape or necrophilia is might have occurred. The autopsy found the body was that of a 36-year-old woman in generally good health. A routine blood test found toxic amounts of barbiturates in her system but no alcohol.

There is really not much disagreement on that: Monroe died of an overdose of barbiturates. (Barbiturates were commonly used as sleeping aids or tranquilizers in the 1940s and 1950s but they were addictive and dangerous and have been largely replaced in modern times with benzodiazepines, which are also dangerous, just in different ways.)

Over the years, Noguchi rose in prominence, distinction, celebrity, and, yes, ego. He was embroiled in controversy occasionally. He was never shy about posing for a camera and he wrote about the many interesting cases in his life and allowed others to do the same. But over the years, there was one case he never mentioned much. He never talked much about Marilyn Monroe.

Now as the years are closing in on him, Noguchi wants to clear the air about what may have been his first “big star” autopsy. This is a radical departure for Noguchi, who generally steered clear of the Marilyn Monroe case. And the fact that something that happened more than half a century earlier still gnaws at him to this day suggests that this is a big deal.

Monroe died of barbiturate toxicity. An overdose. That was pretty clear. She had a prescription for a variety of barbiturates, including injectables, and she was known to take them, sometimes with alcohol, which is a dangerous combination. During the autopsy

• Noguchi inspected the body for needle marks, since she had a prescription for injectable barbiturates. He found nothing suspicious and did not think she had injected the barbiturates

• He also found no residue in her stomach of barbiturates. Some say this sounds suspicious, others say that the barbiturates had passed through her system by the time the body was found

• It is controversial as to whether pill bottles were found in her bedroom near where she died; there are photos of them, but some dispute their authenticity, claiming the photos were staged

• A prevailing theory is that Monroe received the barbiturates rectally. She had actually talked prior to her death about barbiturate enemas. As gross as this sounds, it’s actually a way to get drugs quickly into the system. But the question is whether she did this herself or whether this was forcibly done to her

• The toxicologist on the case, Raymond Abernathy, found toxic levels of barbiturates in Monroe’s system, ruled no further tests were needed of any internal organs, which were then disposed of so no further testing was possible. Further testing might have demonstrated if there were other substances that might have caused her death as well

• Noguchi wanted to do further testing, but Abernathy’s ruling and throwing out her internal organs made that impossible. Noguchi was told to sign off on the report but he felt the report was not complete

• Sixty years later, he is still haunted by this. In suspicious deaths, the autopsy report is generally used as a rosetta stone to help investigators. It can clear suspects or point to suspects. But there is a lot of evidence that autopsies in this country are done with the same integrity and commitment to honesty as mail-in ballots

• Noguchi didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. He was coerced into signing off on something that was, at the very least, incomplete. At the very worst, he was covering up a crime

Marilyn Monroe

She’s been dead for 60 years and she’s that rare case where we know how she died, we just don’t know why she died. Rumors started almost at once. Was she murdered? She was known to be entangled with political figures, notably the Kennedy brothers who were running the country at the time. She also had boyfriends in organized crime. There is a story about how in that last year of her life her sometime-boyfriend Sam Giancana beat her up while they were together in Reno, Nevada.

She was also being followed by the FBI for her alleged ties to communist sympathizers, one of whom she married (Arthur Miller). She attended an American Communist Party meeting in Mexico. She was also reportedly the lover of Jose Bolanos, who was both a Mexican and a lefty screenwriter. Of course, finding a lefty in Hollywood isn’t that difficult. It would be more amazing if Marilyn didn’t know any communists.

Some said that Marilyn Monroe “knew too much” from pillow talk with the Kennedys or others. Others wondered if she might not have gotten pregnant by John Kennedy. It’s one thing for a womanizing President like Jack Kennedy to have a girlfriend, quite another for him to father children outside marriage while in the White House. (The autopsy said she was not pregnant and Noguchi has never recanted on that.)

When she died, she was the most famous woman in the world. Was somebody trying to kill her? There are two main theories of her death: she was murdered or she completed suicide. There is also a third possibility that the death was accidental but people do not talk about that much.

Murder or Suicide or Accident?

Born Norma Jean Mortenson in Los Angeles to a single mom with serious mental health issues, the blonde goddess Marilyn Monroe grew up mostly in the humble homes of relatives, while her mother was in and out of mental institutions. When Gladys Mortenson was well, she worked as a film cutter in a Hollywood studio and she did her best to care for her daughter. Norma Jean always knew her mother, sometimes lived with her, and took care of her in her later years. She was never an “orphan” or without family, as some suggest. She predeceased her mother and made provisions in her will for her mother’s lifelong care.

Most of the people who fostered Norma Jean were family, but they shuttled her around, since no one in the family really had the means or will to take on an extra child long term. By all accounts, Norma Jean was a good kid and didn’t cause much trouble. There are stories that she was sexually abused in her childhood, which her first husband has denied.

It is true that Norma Jean sometimes lived in foster care and spent a few months in an orphanage on Hollywood Boulevard. It was from a window there that she watched the Hollywood stars, dripping in jewelry and furs, step out on the red carpet for film premieres at Mann’s Chinese Theater. Norma Jean dreamed of that life—and she got it, maybe more than she wanted.

At the age of 16, she was married off to James Dougherty. It was legal back then for a 16-year-old girl to marry with parental or guardian’s consent, and the idea was that Norma Jean was old enough to make her own way in the world. Although it was sort of an arranged marriage, the young couple was loving, even though her marriage to Dougherty lasted just four years, from 1942 to 1946. During that time, she embarked on a modeling career that took her all the way to the top of Hollywood. Dougherty did not much approve of that, but they divorced amicably.

Mrs. Dougherty first went into modeling and even posed nude—a rebellious act for the era. By the time Norma Jean Dougherty had transitioned to Marilyn Monroe and was famous, the nude pictures surfaced. Naked photos of Marilyn Monroe became tabloid fodder, and this caused apoplexy among studio bosses and gave migraines to her many publicists and their assistants. The studio urged Marilyn to deny the naked pictures, and pursue a more squeaky-clean image, but she refused. Marilyn Monroe not only admitted to posing nude, she was proud of how good she looked. She owned the scandal, and she emerged more popular than ever. People who dismiss Marilyn Monroe as ditzy forget this instance (she was smarter than the studio executives) and they forget how she transitioned from a foster kid to the biggest movie star of her era. Marilyn’s problem was never that she was stupid; it was that she suffered mental illness off and on for her whole life and never got the care she needed. She got rich and famous, but she was still exploited along the way.

Marilyn Monroe was mentally ill her whole life, although symptoms waxed and waned and life circumstances sometimes made the symptoms easier to hide when times were good. Her mother had been institutionalized for a good portion of her life and her maternal grandparents both died in a “lunatic asylum.” Marilyn Monroe inherited some of those problems and toward the end of her life she was seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, on a daily basis. She had the money and he had the time—Greenson consulted with Marilyn daily and once even interrupted a long-planned family vacation in Europe to fly back to Los Angeles, when Marilyn called and desperately needed his presence.

When Marilyn died, her body was discovered by Eunice Murray, who is often described as a housekeeper. Eunice Murray may have done a little light housework here and there, but she wasn’t Marilyn’s housekeeper. I don’t know the exact words for what she did but she was given the job by Dr. Greenson to monitor Marilyn throughout the day. She was Marilyn’s regular companion (they often went shopping together or driving down to the beach) but her actual work was being Greenson’s watchdog. Marilyn was considered so unstable that despite daily therapy sessions, Greenson was unsure how well Marilyn could bear up under daily activities. It was thought that even a minor upset or conflict might send Marilyn out of control. Plus, as a starlet, her schedule was wildly erratic and that was hard on her mental health. She was either busy dawn to late night working on a film or on photo shoots, or she had nothing at all to do. She was sometimes applauded and sometimes criticized; studios loved her but punished her with outrageous demands and she punished them back with flakiness.

Eunice Murray lived in with Marilyn Monroe in order to summon Greenson or call an ambulance, if one was needed.

Marilyn had attempted suicide in the past. It is unknown how often or under what circumstances, but she definitely suffered suicidal ideation and actually tried to end her life on more than one occasion. She was also a “pill popper,” which is the old way of saying she had substance use disorders. She drank a lot and she took barbiturates. That’s a deadly combination although toxicology reports from her autopsy found barbiturates but no ethanol (alcohol). However, her use of these substances was reckless, to say the least. Her friend Frank Sinatra reported that he once saw syringes in her purse and was alarmed, but Marilyn assured him she was using drugs under a doctor’s supervision. That might have even been true.

Murray’s job was no secret to Monroe, who knew full well who Murray was and why she was there. Although Murray actually reported to Greenson, it was Monroe who paid her. And strangely, the day before she died, Marilyn had terminated Murray’s employment. According to Murray’s memoirs, the parting was amicable, and based on the notion that Monroe no longer needed her services. To the best of my knowledge, this unusual fact has never been much discussed in the Marilyn Monroe case.

Eunice Murray also stated on the record that she was at Marilyn’s home the last day she was alive and that she observed no indications that Marilyn was suicidal. Since Murray was trained to keep an eye on such things, this argues against the suicide theory.

It is unclear how Marilyn felt in these last summer days of her life, but there are lots of speculations and not all of them align.

• There were rumors that she was getting back together with Joe DiMaggio, who was the love of her life (and also the briefest of her three marriages)

• But there were also rumors that Marilyn was depressed since she had no romantic prospects at all at that time since she was thrice-divorced and the Kennedy boys were getting tired of her

• Some who knew her said that Monroe was spiraling into depression over problems with her film career

• Murray and at least one friend of Marily Monroe reported that the insomnia that plagued her all of her life had gotten nearly unbearable that summer

• Her career was hitting the skids and as a starlet in her 30s, she knew she was aging out of the sort of roles Hollywood wanted for her

• On the other hand, some say Marilyn had new prospects for work and was looking forward to some new projects

Marilyn Monroe was notoriously difficult to work with and sometimes had to do dozens of takes for the most simple lines. Even in the land of divas, her tardiness was legendary. These things do not prove mental illness or depression, but they sure don’t suggest wellness, either.

On the night of August 3, 1962, Marilyn retired to her room and she went to bed naked and alone. This was not out of the ordinary, despite her playgirl reputation. She made at least one phone call and the receiver of the phone was still in her hand when her body was found. Eunice Murray had been at the house all night, and she noticed the lights on in her room under the door at around 3 a.m. Marilyn was found dead and the timeline here gets hinky. Depending on which timeline you use, there can be hours of unaccounted for time.

Other gaps in the narrative are whether or not Robert Kennedy visited Monroe right before she died? There are conflicting reports.

As Noguchi tells us in what may be his last formal statement on his career, it is almost a certainty that the powers that be wanted the Marilyn Monroe case to be closed as quickly and cleanly as possible. She was a big name but she had extensive contacts in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. She knew everyone: Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, Frank Sinatra, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Peter Lawford, Ella Fitzgerald, Milton Berle, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Truman Capote, Dean Martin, and Sam Giancana of the Chicago mafia. It is no telling how messy an investigation into her death could get.

There are rumors that she was a communist. She went to Mexico once and met with the American Communist Group that was convening in Mexico.She may have taken their leader, Frederick Vanderbilt Field, as a lover. She most assuredly knew him and was friendly with him. There is no hard evidence that Marilyn was a communist, unless you take The Atlantic as a credible source, since they say she had communist leanings. Marilyn Monroe was on an FBI watch list and the full Marilyn files have never been released. Marilyn is alleged to have had many affairs, but it’s hard to know how many of her self-reported lovers were telling the truth versus bragging.

The FBI was following her, but it’s unclear if they found anything.

What We Know

Monroe died from an overdose of barbiturates. We may never know if

• She took these drugs accidentally, simply trying to fall asleep

• She overdosed deliberately to end her life

• She was given the drugs against her will

• She was killed another way and the drugs administered rectally to cover up the crime

There is also such a thing as ambiguous suicide, where a disturbed person acts recklessly and does dangerous things, knowing it might result in death, but not caring. It’s a step back from an intentional suicide, but it’s a form of self-harm. Was Marilyn just so weary and lonely and sad that she kept taking drugs without caring if she lived or died?

It would help if we knew how the drugs were administered and if any other substances were in her body. Noguchi’s end-of-life confession reveals that something was covered up in the autopsy. Noguchi claims that as a young professional, he was forced to sign off on a document that he didn’t really believe in. For Noguchi at this stage to dig up an autopsy that happened six decades ago tells me that something was very, very wrong.

Facts about Monroe You Probably Didn’t Know

• She had a half sister (Berniece Baker Miracle)

• She did not think her natural smile photographed well so she “trained herself” to smile in a more photogenic way

• The rumor is that she kept a “red diary” with secret information she had from various biog shots who courted her. It has never been found

• She was once roommates with Shelley Winters

• She suffered most of her life from severe insomnia, which is often a comorbidity of mental illness and it’s why she originally started to take barbiturates

• Her ex-husband James Dougherty remembers her fondly and called her a “good cook” and a great housekeeper

• When asked about what it was like to be married to Marilyn Monroe, Dougherty famously commented, “I don’t know. I was married to Norma Jean”

• Her ex-husband Arthur Miller said he was embarrassed by her

• Marilyn grew up not knowing who her father was. After she died, DNA testing revealed that it was a guy named Charles Stanley Gifford. During her childhood, Marilyn imagined that her father was Clark Gable!

• She had three miscarriages in three years while married to Arthur Miller; she may have had other miscarriages as well

• In 1955, the FBI opened a “105 file” on Monroe which is done for people suspected to be involved in foreign counter-intelligence

• The FBI monitored Monroe when she went to Mexico six months before her death

Marilyn died at age 36, as did Princess Diana. There are lots of similarities between them. They were both world famous, frequently photographed, often unhappy and struggling with undiagnosed mental health issues, who suffered publicly in failed marriages, and left us with mysterious deaths. It’s why Elton John rewrote “Candle in the Wind” about Marilyn Monroe to “Good-bye, England’s Rose” as a tribute to Diana.

The Noguchi almost-deathbed confession about her sham autopsy has not stirred up much in the news cycle. Maybe that’s because by now, there are a lot of people who don’t even know who Marilyn Monroe is.