Betty Broderick

In spring 2020, a true crime podcast about the Betty Broderick case was produced by the Los Angeles Times titled It Was Simple: The Betty Broderick Murders.

On July 15, 2020, Oxygen aired a special episode of Snapped devoted to the Betty Broderick case.

Broderick is serving her sentence at the California Institution for Women (CIW), in Chino, California. In January 2010, her first request for parole was denied by the Board of Parole Hearings because she did not show remorse and did not acknowledge wrongdoing. She was denied parole in November 2011 and again in January 2017. She will not be eligible again until January 2032, at which date she will be 84 years old.

At least four books were written about her story (Until the Twelfth of Never: The Deadly Divorce of Dan and Betty Broderick, 1993, by Bella Stumbo; Until the Twelfth of Never - Should Betty Broderick ever be free?, 2013, by Bella Stumbo; Forsaking All Others: The Real Betty Broderick Story, 1993, by Loretta Schwartz-Nobel; and Hell Hath No Fury, 1992, by Bryna Taubman). Broderick was interviewed by Ladies Home Journal magazine and others.

An article about Broderick's case in the Los Angeles Times Magazine led to the production of a television film called (Part 1) A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story, and (Part 2) Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, The Last Chapter (1992), where Meredith Baxter portrayed Betty, Stephen Collins portrayed Dan, and Michelle Johnson portrayed Linda Kolkena. Baxter received an Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of Broderick. The murder was also dramatized in the season 4 episode of Deadly Women, titled "Till Death Do Us Part."

The 1991 Law & Order episode "The Wages of Love" partially was inspired by this murder and the trial that followed. Guest star Shirley Knight was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

The divorce was finalized in 1989, four years after Dan filed the petition. Betty Broderick's behavior became increasingly erratic. She left hundreds of profane messages on Dan's answering machine, and ignored numerous restraining orders that forbade her from setting foot on Dan's property. She vandalized his new home, and even drove her car into his front door despite the fact that their children were inside the house at the time.

On April 22, 1989, Dan and Kolkena were married. Kolkena had been concerned about Betty's behavior and even urged Dan to wear a bulletproof vest to their wedding. However, Betty did not arrive and the wedding proceeded without incident. After the wedding, Betty Broderick claimed that Linda Broderick taunted her by mailing her facial cream and slimming treatment ads.

Eight months after buying a Smith & Wesson revolver and seven months after Dan and Linda were married, Betty Broderick drove to Dan's house at 1041 Cypress Avenue in the Marston Hills neighborhood near Balboa Park in San Diego. Betty used a key she had taken from her daughter Lee to enter the house while the couple slept, whereupon she shot and killed them. The murders occurred at 5:30 a.m. on November 5, 1989—two days before Betty's 42nd birthday. Two bullets hit Linda in the head and chest, killing her instantly; one bullet hit Dan in the chest as he apparently was reaching for the phone; one bullet hit the wall, and one bullet hit a nightstand. Dan was 17 days shy of his 45th birthday; Linda was 28.

In the fall of 1982, Dan hired 21-year-old Dutch American Linda Kolkena (1961–1989), a former Delta Air Lines flight attendant, to be his legal assistant. As early as October 1983, Betty suspected that Dan was having an affair with Kolkena, but Dan denied it. Against Betty's wishes, Dan moved out in February 1985. He eventually took custody of their children after Betty left the children on his doorstep one by one. Betty claimed that Dan confessed he had in fact been having an affair with Kolkena, and a long, drawn-out, and hostile divorce ensued.

In 1965, Elizabeth (Betty) met her future husband, Dan Broderick (1944–1989), at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Dan was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eldest son of a very large Irish Catholic family. The couple married on April 12, 1969 at the Immaculate Conception Church in Tuckahoe, New York. Betty returned from the honeymoon pregnant with their first child, daughter Kim (b. 1970). She gave birth to four more children: daughter Lee (b. 1971), sons named Daniel (b. 1976) and Rhett (b. 1979), and an unnamed boy, who died four days after birth.

Broderick graduated from Maria Regina High School, in Hartsdale, New York, in 1965. She graduated from the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, where she earned a degree in early childhood education through an accelerated program. Her credits also earned her a minor in English.

Elisabeth Anne Broderick (née Bisceglia; born November 7, 1947) is an American woman who was convicted of murdering her ex-husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, and his second wife, Linda (née Kolkena) Broderick, on November 5, 1989. At a second trial that began on December 11, 1991, she was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and later sentenced to 32-years-to-life in prison. The case received extensive media attention. Several books were written on the Broderick case, and a TV movie was televised in two parts. In 2020, an 8-episode miniseries was produced and aired about Broderick.

Betty Broderick was born Elisabeth Anne Bisceglia on November 7, 1947 and grew up in Bronxville, New York. She was the third of six children born to devout Roman Catholic parents Marita (née Curtin; 1919–2007) and Frank Bisceglia (1915–1998), who owned a successful plastering business with relatives. Her mother was Irish American and her father was Italian American.