The Police Reports and the Time Discrepancy

On Wednesday, August the 12th in 1992, thirty years and six days past the date of Marilyn’s pronounced death, live at 8:00 PM, Pacific Time, KTLA in Los Angeles broadcast The Marilyn Files, which I have already mentioned several times in this text. A docudrama, the program dramatized, for two full television hours, all of the well-known and familiar constructs as frequently presented by all of the well-known names and familiar faces. Most of those familiar faces have already appeared earlier in various sections of this text.

The faux investigative analysis of the purported facts and circumstances surrounding Marilyn’s death, which included a mock-trial or prosecutorial-like questioning of all the pertinent witnesses, prominently featured the testimony and assertions of the centrally important, former LAPD sergeant, Jack Clemmons. He dramatically clarified what the three witnesses at Fifth Helena told him when he questioned them that intense August morning: the discovery of Marilyn’s body, and all the related activities, happened at approximately 12:30 AM on August the 5th, or as Clemmons asserted, around midnight, which obviously created a serious issue: if Mrs. Murray discovered a deceased Marilyn Monroe around midnight, after which the housekeeper summoned both Dr. Greenson and Dr. Engelberg, why did the three persons present at Fifth Helena that morning delay their call to the police department until 4:25 AM? That suspicious delay before alerting the police troubled the sergeant, as did the discrepant, contradictory witness testimony advanced by the LAPD’s official death reports. Those reports altered the time of Marilyn’s discovery from around midnight, or 12:30 AM, to 3:30 AM. Sgt Clemmons concluded that the three witnesses obviously altered their testimony after he left Fifth Helena in order to reduce the troublesome and suspicious delay between Marilyn’s discovery, her pronounced death by Dr. Engelberg and when the three witnesses finally notified the COPs, meaning, of course, that Marilyn Monroe must have been murdered; and the three persons in the house that morning were obviously complicit.

Perhaps former Sgt Clemmons did not actually know, because he failed to mention, that the Los Angeles Police Department’s original files pertaining to Marilyn’s death contained three official death reports. Lead detective Sgt Robert Byron essentially filed two, one on August the 5th and a follow-up death report on August the 6th whereas Officer J.R. Brukles filed one death report, apparently on behalf of Sgt Byron. Copies of the actual reports filed by Officer Brukles and Sgt Byron follow hereafter; and each is also followed by a transcription.

Re Death Report of Marilyn Monroe―L.A. Police Dpt.

Death was pronounced on 8/5/62 at 3:45 A.M., Possible Accidental, having taken place between the times of 8/4 and 8/5/62, 3:35 A.M. at residence located at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, Brentwood, in Rptg. Dist. 814, Report #62-509 463.

Marilyn Monroe on August 4, 1962 retired to her bedroom at about eight o’clock in the evening; Mrs. Eunice Murray of 933 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, Calif., 395-7752, CR 61890, noted a light in Miss Monroe’s bedroom. Mrs. Murray was not able to arouse Miss Monroe when she went to the door, and when she tried the door again at 3:30 A.M. when she noted the light still on, she found it to be locked. Thereupon Mrs. Murray observed Miss Monroe through the bedroom window and found her lying on her stomach in the bed and the appearance seemed unnatural. Mrs. Murray then called Miss Monroe’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson of 436 North Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills, Calif., CR 14050. Upon entering after breaking that bedroom window he found Miss Monroe possibly dead. Then he telephoned Dr. Hyman Engelberg of 9730 Wilshire Boulevard, also of Beverley Hills, CR 54366, who came over and then pronounced Miss Monroe dead at 3:35 A.M. Miss Monroe was seen by Dr. Greenson on August 4, 1962 at 5:15 P.M., at her request, because she was not able to sleep. She was being treated by him for about a year. She was nude when Dr. Greenson found her dead with the telephone receiver in one hand and lying on her stomach. The Police Department was called and when they arrived they found Miss Monroe in the condition described above, except for the telephone which was removed by Dr. Greenson. There were found to be 15 bottles of medication on the night table and some where prescription. A bottle marked 1½ grains Nembutal, prescription #20853 and prescribed by Dr. Engelberg, and referring to this particular bottle, Dr. Engelberg made the statement that he prescribed a refill for this about two days ago and he further stated there probably should have been about 50 capsules at the time this was refilled by the pharmacist.

Description of Deceased: Female Caucasian, age 36, height 5.4, weight 115 pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes, and slender, medium build.

Occupation: Actress, Probable cause of death: overdose of Nembutal, body discovered 8/5/62 at 3:25 A.M. Taken to County Morgue from there to Westwood Mortuary. Report made by Sgt. R.E. Byron, #2730, W.L.A. Detective Division. Next of kin: Gladys Baker (Mother).

(8/5/62 11 AM WLA hf J.R. Brukles 5829)

FOLLOW-UP DEATH REPORT
filed by Sergeant Robert Byron on 8-6-1962

Upon re-interviewing both Dr. Ralph Greenson (Wit #1) and Dr. Hyman Engel­berg (Wit #2) they both agree to the following time sequence of their actions.

Dr. Greenson received a phone call from Mrs. Murray (reporting person) at 3:30A, 8-5-62 stating that she was unable to get into Miss Monroe’s bedroom and the light was on. He told her to pound on the door and look in the window and call him back. At 3:35A, Mrs. Murray called back and stated Miss Monroe was lying on the bed with the phone in her hand and looked strange. Dr. Greenson was dressed by this time, left for deceased resident which is about one mile away. He also told Mrs. Murray to call Dr. Engelberg.

Dr. Greenson arrived at deceased house at about 3:40A. He broke the window pane and entered through the window and removed the phone from her hand.

Rigor Mortis had set in. At 3:50A, Dr. Engelberg arrived and pronounced Miss Monroe dead. The two doctors talked for a few moments. They both believe that it was about 4A when Dr. Engelberg called the Police Department.

A check with the complaint Board and WLA Desk, indicates that the call was received at 4:25A. Miss Monroe’s phone, GM 61890 has been checked and no tell calls were made during the hours of this occurrence. Phone number 472-4830 is being checked at the present time.

Virtually every biographer and conspiracist author has mentioned a suspicious time delay before the police were notified, as long as four hours in some accounts, along with testimonial discrepancies by the three persons present that morning; and each author dutifully approached the questions regarding these issues from various negative perspectives. However, all of the authors consistently relied on the statements of Sgt Jack Clemmons and focused on this assertion: Mrs. Murray’s testified that she observed a strip of light beneath Marilyn’s bedroom door at 12:30 AM on August the 5th; the light triggered her concern that something might be wrong with Marilyn; and her concern triggered her telephone call to Dr. Greenson, which began all the tense activity and confusion at Fifth Helena. Sgt Clemmons asserted that 12:30 AM was the only time Mrs. Murray mentioned to him that morning; and 12:30 AM was the only stipulated time that appeared on the official police reports.

In support of Clemmons’ resultant accusation, that Mrs. Murray deliberately and dishonestly altered her story, various authors, particularly the conspiracist authors, presented the former police sergeant as a paragon of honesty and truth; but then, those defending salvos could not have been farther from the truth and missed the factual bull’s eye by a wide margin. As much of Sgt Jack Clemmons’ history clearly proves, he was not a paragon of honesty or truth. Similarly, all the conspiracist authors invariably asserted that Sgt Clemmons’ testimony was consistent, that his testimony never varied; but those defending salvos missed the factual bull’s eye as well and by an equally wide margin, a fact clearly demonstrated in the following subsection.

Of all the books in my possession, both the authentic biographies and the murder orthodoxies, only one of them included any substantial text from the official police reports, the case closing literary effort written jointly by Jay Margolis and Richard Buskin. Anthony Summers, for instance, made a normally critical and passing reference to three relevant police reports in reference to the questionable presence of a drinking glass; and Summers then added: The meager record only creates further confusion (Summers 557). Donald Wolfe asserted that not even Monroe’s death report was in the official police files (Wolfe 85), certainly an incorrect assertion and criticism; but Margolis and Buskin at least published the entirety of two police reports, the report filed by Officer Brukles for Sgt Bryon on August the 5th and the follow-up report dated August the 6th. However, Margolis and Buskin, did not include the text or reproduce the “Original Police Death Report.” The conspiracist authors reprinted, instead, the text of another related report written by L. Selby, OIC, Homicide Special Sec., R.H.D., dated August the 27th in 1974, entitled, “Police Reports on Marilyn Monroe Death.” That report noted:

At the request of Commander McCauley, an attempt was made to determine the number and type of police reports taken by this department in connection with Marilyn Monroe’s death which occurred in W.L.A. Div. on August 5, 1962. Commander McCauley also requested we determine if any of these reports were still available at this time.

Apparently a search performed by an LAPD sergeant named Sturgeon did not produce any death reports; and Sgt Sturgeon did not locate any reports we [the LAPD] may have. The sergeant noted additionally that the LAPD’s procedures mandated the destruction of all crime reports […] after a 10-year retention period. All reports, file cards and DR blotters are included in the destruction. Sgt Sturgeon contacted then retired Sgt Byron, the official investigative detective, who could not recall just how many actual reports had been filed in 1962; and Byron did not have any copies of any of those reports. Even though, in Goddess, Anthony Summers made a glancing statement about three official reports, evidently Jay Margolis and Richard Buskin believed that only two official police reports about Marilyn’s death still existed in 2014 when they published their murder orthodoxy; but that was not actually the case. The text of the original death report, which included a significant declaration by Mrs. Murray that morning, follows hereafter. First a copy of the actual report and then a transcription. Please note: All emphasis added by me.

ORIGINAL POLICE DEATH REPORT
filed by Sergeant Robert Byron on 8-5-1962

Deceased retired on 8-4-62, at about 8PM. At approximately 12AM, P/R [an LAPD acronym for person reporting] observed light on in bedroom of deceased. She (P/R) went to the door, but was unable to arouse deceased. At about 3:30 a.m., she noticed the light was still on and after trying the door found it locked. P/R went to the bedroom window and observed deceased lying in bed on her stomach and seemed unnatural. She (P/R) telephoned Wit #1, who is deceased psychiatrist. Upon arrival, he broke the bedroom window and upon entering found deceased possibly dead. He then called Wit #2, who came and pronounced deceased dead at 3:35PM. Dr. Greenson had seen deceased on 8-4-62, 5:15PM, at her request, because she was unable to sleep. He had been treating her for about one year. When he found deceased, she was nude, lying on her stomach, with phone receiver in her hand. The Police Dept was notified and found deceased in above described condition with the exception of telephone which had been removed by Wit #1. On the night stand were about 15 bottles of medication, some of which were prescription. One bottle with Prescription Number 20853, marked 1½ grain Nembutal, prescribed by Dr. Engelberg. Dr. Engelberg stated that he had prescribed a refill about two days ago and that there probably should have been about 50 capsules at time of refill.

[The illegible information at the bottom of the report indicates that Village Mortuary signed for and removed Marilyn’s body, an obvious reference to Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary.]

Obviously, as clearly noted on the preceding report, Mrs. Murray’s first noticed the burning light at approximately 12:00 AM; but she did not become alarmed by that light until about 3:30, the time, according to her testimony, that she telephoned Dr. Greenson. Obviously, then, the time modifications noted in the subsequent follow-up police reports did not represent a story or testimony alteration, as alleged by Sgt Jack Clemmons: the alteration was actually a clarification.

As I have already noted herein, the ever present Robert Slatzer interviewed Jack Clemmons for the former’s 1974 publication, The Life and Curious Death of Marilyn Monroe. By then, Jack Clemmons was a disgraced former sergeant due to his forced resignation from the LAPD as a result of the Thomas Kuchel Incident. Despite that fact, former Sgt Clemmons testified to Slatzer as follows:

The maid told me she saw a light under the door about ten o’clock, but she didn’t think too much of it. Then she said she woke up again about midnight and tried to get in and found the door locked. And she said she became disturbed and she called the doctor. As I recall, this is what was told to me at the time (Slatzer 285: emphasis mine).

As I recall―remarkably, Jack Clemmons admitted that his 1974 testimony to Robert Slatzer was merely a recollection of Mrs. Murray’s August the 5th account, perhaps a selective recollection. His admission certainly transformed that testimony into an evasive and equivocal uncertainty rendered a full twelve years after the events of that August weekend. Likewise, Clemmons’ 1974 testimony completely contradicted what Mrs. Murray actually told Sgt Byron and what he, Sgt Byron, recorded upon his arrival at Fifth Helena just a few minutes prior to Sgt Clemmons’ departure. Once again, Mrs. Murray did not actually alter her story; Sgt Clemmons altered her story: the time of 10:00 PM that Sgt Clemmons included in the 1974 account delivered to Robert Slatzer does not appear on any of the officially filed police reports.

Furthermore, Sgt Byron arrived prior to Sgt Clemmons’ departure; and their time at Marilyn’s hacienda evidently overlapped slightly. So, when did and where did Mrs. Murray, doctors Greenson and Engelberg convene to devise their sinister plot to alter their story and thereby deceive the COPs? Clemmons’ contention that Mrs. Murray and the doctors conspired secretly to alter their testimony does not appear to be supported by the actual facts.

I hasten to denote here, once again, that by August of 1962, without a doubt, Sgt Clemmons was already involved with Frank Capell. Clemmons even admitted that he met Capell a few months before Marilyn’s death, a fact even noted by Anthony Summers. Most certainly the two Kennedy haters had already developed and started to enact their anti-Communism and anti-Kennedy crusade. Most certainly, it is reasonable to conclude that Sgt Clemmons had already started to elicit information from sources within the LAPD, perhaps even to plant false information or stoke the unfounded rumors already circulating within that police department about Robert Kennedy’s alleged affair with Marilyn Monroe. It is likewise certain that Frank Capell had already started to organize and compose his anti-Robert Kennedy pamphlet, The Strange Death of Marilyn Monroe, which Capell would publish in 1964 just ahead of the Thomas Kuchel defamation scandal, a scandal, as already noted in the preceding subsection, that included Sgt Jack Clemmons. All things considered, not a word that Jack Clemmons ever uttered about Marilyn’s death, or the circumstances pertaining to that unfortunate tragedy, should be accepted at face value. Besides, do you, like me, find it more than slightly curious that the police sergeant who first arrived at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive that Sunday morning did not bother to file any type of official report? And what a corkscrew of fate: of the many hundreds of men who could have answered Dr. Hyman Engelberg’s telephone call to the LAPD that morning, it just happened to be Sgt Jack Clemmons.

Still, I must report, as was her propensity, years later during subsequent interviews, Mrs. Murray changed her story about the visible light acting as the trigger of her concern. It was not the visible light; the trigger was a telephone cord running beneath the door. I must also report that the instigator of the telephone cord modification appears to have been none other than Robert F. Slatzer, who, In his 1992 publication, The Marilyn Files, reported the following:

[…] I pointed out that the high pile on Marilyn’s newly installed carpet would have prevented light from escaping under the door, she claimed to have been mistaken before: It was the sight of the telephone cord stretched under the bedroom door that had alarmed her, not the light (Slatzer Files 170-171).

Robert Slatzer’s preposterous opinion, unfortunately, motivated the malleable housekeeper to modify her story, at least according to his 1992 publication; but light would have been visible beneath Marilyn’s bedroom door regardless of the carpet’s thickness. Preventing the passage of light requires specially designed and installed seals: thick wool carpet does not qualify. Additionally, any type of  cord running under the door would have depressed the carpet pile and would have most certainly allowed the passage light around it. As usual, Robert Slatzer was simply wrong; but before I leave our right honorable friend, Marilyn’s discredited weekend husband, I must denote: along with his incorrect assertion about thick carpet preventing the passage of light, other problems exist with Slatzer’s anecdote involving his interview with the malleable Eunice Murray. Allow me to digress briefly.

In Slatzer’s 1974 publication about Marilyn’s curious death, he referenced an interview with Mrs. Murray which transpired in August of 1973; he did not identify the actual date or day of the week on which the interview transpired (Slatzer 30). Later in that literary effort, Slatzer asserted: I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mrs. Eunice Murray, and she reconstructed from memory the events of that last Saturday (Slatzer 266: emphasis mine). Obviously Slatzer was referring to his purported 1973 interview with Mrs. Murray, an interview that he putatively taped. If you recall, Slatzer claimed to have a large notebook filled with copious notes and letters from Marilyn, along with many taped interviews, more than a few of them actually with the blonde movie star; but her alleged weekend husband never produced any of that information and none of that information has surfaced during the passing parade of decades. Also, as I noted in Section 4, Will Fowler, just one of the many secret co-writers who actually wrote Slatzer’s 1974 publication, never received any of the notes, letters or taped recordings promised by Slatzer, which caused Fowler to withdraw from Slatzer’s writing project. Fowler began to doubt Slatzer’s honesty, if you can imagine that.

While Robert Slatzer did not identify the actual calendar date of his taped interview with Eunice Murray, Donald Wolfe did; but Wolfe’s attributed date suffers from a serious problem: he translated the date back in time eleven years to 1962 just one day after Marilyn’s funeral. Wolfe asserted:

After Marilyn Monroe’s friend Robert Slatzer learned of her death, he went to the Monroe residence with executrix, Inez Melson, on Thursday, August 9. Slatzer noted that the recently installed carpeting was so thick that it was difficult to close Marilyn’s bedroom door. The door scraped along the surface of the carpet, and it was impossible to see light beneath it. Murray, who was present during Slatzer’s discovery, admitted that he was correct and that she must have been mistaken (Wolfe 17).

In Robert Slatzer’s 1974 publication, in which he initially mentioned his taped interview with Mrs. Murray, Inez Melson appeared only twice. According to Slatzer, after Marilyn’s death, Inez Melson acquired an empty file cabinet, which was delivered to W.N. Davis, at 9110 Sunset Boulevard, in Los Angeles, the same business address as that of Marilyn’s mother’s conservator, Mrs. Inez C. Melson (Slatzer 18); and then he noted that Inez initiated a proceeding in New York objecting to the probate of the will, Marilyn’s will, that is (Slatzer 327). Slatzer did not mention that Mrs. Melson was involved in his 1973 Eunice Murray interview; and he certainly did not mention an interview with either woman that transpired in August of 1962. In fact, Donald Wolfe’s translation of the alleged Melson–Murray interview to the day following Marilyn’s funeral is problematic, to say the least. Here’s why.

On August the 11th, just three days after Marilyn’s funeral, the Columbus Star featured a gossip section article, which I previously referenced in Section 4. Written by Paul Pry, Jr., the article clearly indicated that Slatzer was in Ohio when Marilyn died: Bob Slatzer read in Monday’s paper, the article noted, that Marilyn Monroe’s body lay unclaimed in a Los Angeles morgue.1Obviously, Monday’s paper referred to August the 6th’s Columbus Star. Over the years following Marilyn’s death, Slatzer asserted several times that he attempted to claim Marilyn’s body and arrange for her burial, which appears to be disproven by the Columbus Star article: Slatzer was in Ohio on August the 6th in 1962, reading about the movie star’s unclaimed remains before sending three dozen white roses to Los Angeles in memory of the girl who had been my friend, my sweetheart, and my wife (Slatzer 299), an alleged generous gesture left unmentioned in the Columbus Star article. Additionally, the article did not indicate that Slatzer had recently visited or planned to visit Los Angeles during the following days or that he planned to claim his friend’s body. In fact, the article noted that Slatzer’s last and most recent contact with Marilyn was an alleged forty-five minute telephone chat that had transpired two weeks ago. That being the case, that alleged telephone call had transpired during Marilyn’s visit to Cal-Neva Lodge the last weekend in July. Suffer me to express a more than reasonable doubt regarding the purported telephone chat; but other contradictory and dubious declarations about his geographic location at the time of Marilyn’s death and her funeral, along with other reliable sources who described Marilyn’s funeral, appear to prove conclusively that Robert Slatzer was nowhere near the Westwood Village Memorial Park in 1962 on August the 8th; but the habitual fantasist apparently could not resist this fantasy: At Marilyn’s house with Inez Melson before the burial services, Slatzer wrote in the introduction to his 1992 publication, I again saw the places she loved so much and realized that now all those high hopes had died, too. Thirty years after the Columbus Star article placed him in Ohio, Slatzer remarkably recalled that he attended Marilyn’s funeral with Inez Melson; and yet, the memoir written by Marilyn’s sister, Berniece Miracle, recalled Marilyn’s funeral in detail along with some intimate but disconsolate interactions with Inez Melson. Berniece did not mention the presence of Marilyn’s purported second husband, Robert Slatzer; and not one of the many photographs snapped on August the 8th in 1962 and not one of the many newsreels or home movies that captured Marilyn’s interment revealed the presence of Robert Slatzer, who, in his 1974 publication declared the following: I was at my home in Columbus, Ohio. It was early Sunday morning, August 5, 1962, when the persistent ringing of the phone roused me from an exhausted short-lived sleep. Slatzer’s close friend and neighbor unceremoniously, succinctly relayed the bad news: Marilyn’s dead (Slatzer 49). Then later in the same publication, Slatzer remarkably declared:

On the afternoon on the funeral I was at home in Columbus with four close friends […]. Late Wednesday afternoon, after the others had gone, Emerson Burkhart and I were left alone to empty the last bottle of brandy. The only one of the group who had ever met Marilyn, Burkhart was deeply moved by her death. […] After Emerson left, I felt lost. I didn’t feel much like staying at home alone, so I slipped into some old clothes, grabbed my hip boots, pulled out my favorite St. Croix fly rod, and drove into the autumn countryside. In the fading afternoon, which Marilyn had loved so much, I fished for bass in a secluded spot at Greenwood Lake, in Delaware County, Ohio (Slatzer 299).

I, for one, must express much confusion and incredulity, the shameless dishonestly of Robert Slatzer notwithstanding. Was he in Los Angeles with Inez Melson on August the 8th in 1962, or was he with friends that afternoon and then later that day, alone with his memories and sad thoughts as he fished for the bass that lived and swam in Ohio’s Greenwood Lake? I suppose, in 1962, Slatzer could have boarded a red-eye flight in Columbus and arrived in Los Angeles in time for an interview with Inez Melson and Eunice Murray sometime on the afternoon of the 9th; but that evidently did not occur, as the following clearly proves.

On the day following Marilyn’s funeral, the 9th of August in 1962, the day Donald Wolfe asserted that Slatzer actually interviewed Inez Melson and Eunice Murray together, the memoir written by Marilyn’s sister, which included her recitation of that day’s events, reported that August the 9th began in Milton Rudin’s office, an early morning meeting with Aaron Frosch to discuss Marilyn’s “Last Will and Testament.” After that meeting, Berniece and her daughter, Mona Rae, returned to 12305 Fifth Helena, along with Inez Melson, where they searched through Marilyn’s belongings and documents. According to Mona Rae:

After the funeral, Inez, who was appointed by Frosch and the court to act as administrator, and I, and Cherie [Redmond], a secretary who had done some work for Marilyn, spent three days at Marilyn’s home checking through all her belongings. I was there just to help in an unofficial capacity (Miracle 224-225).

Mona Rae recalled that her mother sat tearfully at her task, hour after hour, as the three women [picked] through stacks of paper like amateur archaeologists (Miracle 225). Within the pages of Berniece’s memoir, Robert Slatzer is completely absent, nowhere to be found. In addition to Slatzer’s absence from Berniece’s memoir and her chronicle of those August the 9th events, Berniece, along with Cherie Redmond, are also absent from the events of August the 9th and the Melson–Murray interview as reported by the conspiracist Donald Wolfe; but then Wolfe, like many others, blindly believed Robert Slatzer. Donald Wolfe, like Anthony Summers, evidently never read Robert Slatzer’s fraudulent publications. We are left, once again, to wonder why?

Unquestionably, Eunice Murray altered her story regarding the visible light and telephone cord running beneath Marilyn’s bedroom door; but unquestionably, also, she did not alter her story in 1962: she must have altered her story in 1973 under unknown circumstances; and she was not standing within the walls of 12305 Fifth Helena Drive, either. The only explanation I can offer regarding why Donald Wolfe time shifted Slatzer’s alleged interview with Mrs. Murray, making it contemporaneous to Marilyn’s death is this: to give Sgt Jack Clemmons’ allegation that the housekeeper altered her testimony for nefarious and sinister reasons some validity. Still, all the yarns and stories that precede lead to the following facetious assertion: Slatzer must have been cloned, so there must have been multiple identical Slatzers; that must have been the case, and not one of those multiple, time traveling Slatzers had the ability to tell the truth.

The conspiracists invariably launch into a paroxysm of questions and speculations about the actions of the suspicious and unholy trinity as they lingered for practically four suspicious hours with Marilyn’s corpse that Sunday morning. Did the unholy trinity discuss the stories each would tell the police or did the three collectively decide that Greenson would be their spokesperson? Did they destroy tangible evidence of murder as many conspiracists have dutifully alleged? Did they find an explanatory suicide note, which they then destroyed? Did they find Marilyn’s Little Red Diary, her Red Book of Secrets, and dutifully destroy it, also? Because the three persons present that morning obviously participated in the nefarious murder plot and subsequent cover-up, the conspiracists have speculated that many dark and ugly activities transpired that tragic morning, during those mysteriously missing  hours.

And yet, the amount of time that actually elapsed after the doctors arrived, Dr. Engelberg pronounced Marilyn dead and he then telephoned the police department was either 50 minutes, using the times noted on Brukles’ August the 5th report, or 35 minutes, using the times noted on Byron’s original August the 5th report and his follow-up report of August the 6th, not the almost four hours asserted by Jack Clemmons and others.

Still, even a brief 35 minutes seems too long for Dr. Greenson, Dr. Engelberg and Mrs. Murray to linger in Marilyn’s hacienda with her corpse; and I readily concede that I do not know precisely how they occupied themselves during that elapsing time. I know what the doctors asserted: they talked among themselves briefly, an activity that seems only natural and reasonable. Then, perhaps, each fell momentarily silent as the pulse of their beating hearts resounded in their temples, as each considered the night’s crushing event and the significance of Marilyn Monroe, the adored celebrity and world famous actress, now irreversibly dead. Perhaps they even momentarily wept. Perhaps criminations were hurled, doctor to doctor to housekeeper: How could this have happened? How in God’s name? The precarious nature of their predicament must have hit them squarely in their faces as fear and dread began to increase their tension and anxiety.

Many other assertions regarding what happened on the morning of August the 5th have been offered over the many passing years: the arrival of government agents who proceeded to ransack Marilyn’s possessions in search of her Little Red Diary and other evidence linking her to the middle Kennedy brothers; the removal and the destruction of any discovered evidence; the arrival of this private eye and that private eye to remove recording and bugging devices and audio tapes and also to clean every surface in Marilyn’s hacienda, even the fruit in the bottom of the fruit bowls, in order to remove any and all fingerprints; the arrival of a deception team dispatched by Robert Kennedy through the LAPD Chief. A veritable army of individuals, some wearing uniforms and some wearing street clothes, must have descended upon 12305 Fifth Helena Drive that Sunday morning in August of 1962; and the number of persons involved in the subsequent murder cover-up must have numbered in the several hundreds of thousands.

But in the end, it must be noted: not one conspiracist has presented one piece of credible or verifiable evidence resulting in proof that anything sinister actually occurred on the morning of August the 5th in 1962.

Testimonial Contradictions: The First Officer