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MarineCombatEngineer

(18,171 posts)
Sat May 9, 2026, 10:07 PM 19 hrs ago

Double murderer Betty Broderick dies at Chino hospital

Elisabeth “Betty” Broderick, the jilted ex-wife of prominent San Diego attorney Daniel T. Broderick III who turned to murder to settle festering scores with her longtime husband and his new bride before spending decades in custody for her crimes, has died at a hospital after being transferred from a state prison in San Bernardino. She was 78.

The first wife of the high-profile lawyer who specialized in winning medical malpractice cases was serving a 32-year-to-life prison sentence for the 1989 killing of her former husband and his wife, Linda.

Broderick’s death was announced by the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office hours after she died Friday. County officials said Broderick died at the Chino Valley Medical Center. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Rhett Broderick, the youngest of the couple’s four children, said he and two of his siblings were able to travel to Chino and spent time with their mother before she died.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/double-murderer-betty-broderick-dies-at-chino-hospital/ar-AA22K0Tf?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=69ffe720783f4dae81d417df9bf3e6cd&ei=14

I'd forgotten all about her.
At the trial and subsequent years, she never once expressed remorse for killing her ex and his new wife, yes, he was an asshole but that didn't give her the right to murder him and his second wife.
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Maru Kitteh

(31,933 posts)
1. Meanwhile the 20yo man that raped and killed my best friend at 15yo?
Sat May 9, 2026, 10:18 PM
19 hrs ago

He was out in less than five. Can’t have a perfectly good white man wasting his whole life in prison over a little domestic thing, dontcha know.

MarineCombatEngineer

(18,171 posts)
2. So sorry for your loss of your best friend
Sat May 9, 2026, 10:24 PM
19 hrs ago

and the lack of a just punishment for the rapist/killer.

Maru Kitteh

(31,933 posts)
10. I was sixteen. It was a white-hot dividing line in my life. After that
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:50 PM
18 hrs ago

I was so much older. He took so much from so many. But I did learn. If you’re a female, way too often they can just go ahead and kill you with not too much fuss.

Sadly she was not the last child or woman I knew who was killed by a partner or another man in the household. One was seventeen when her stepfather set her on fire in her bed. The entire house went up in flames.

Most women have stories like this.

AloeVera

(4,371 posts)
12. Women get longer sentences.
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:58 PM
17 hrs ago
According to statistics compiled by the ACLU, women who kill their partners will spend an average of 15 years behind bars, while men who kill their female partners serve much shorter sentences, on average between 2 to 6 years. While most would agree homicide dictates a sizable prison stint, the question is, why are women being punished so much more harshly, especially when you consider this statistic: At least 90 percent of women in prison for killing men report having been abused by those men?


Some of the real-life cases compiled here reveal the shocking disparity:

https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/in-the-news/women-serve-longer-prison-sentences-after-killing-abusers#

There are of course added layers like race and socio-economic status. All of it is rotten.

I'm so sorry about the loss of your friend. How horrid at any age but especially at such a young age.

haele

(15,566 posts)
3. He was an abusive gaslighter. No excuse, but there was a lot of cruelty and she snapped.
Sat May 9, 2026, 10:30 PM
19 hrs ago

I knew people who knew him and both Betty and Linda. Betty was "beneath him'; he married her when they were at University and she quit her classes and worked while he got his Law Degree and started in practice, then quit everything to be his hostess wife. She was always nervous and anxious being his "hostess", but she managed to pull off the events and make a presentable family picture for his political ambitions.
One thing my friend mentioned is that Dan used to talk down about and at her in public often complain she was too clingy and crazy.
He took up with the much younger Linda, his paralegal, when Betty got "too fat" and started looking dumpy after the kids were pretty much grown. When they got divorced he kicked her out of the.family house with basically nothing but the clothes on her back; Linda later was seen wearing some the jewelry Betty had worn. Since Dan was a well known lawyer with political aspirations, Betty couldn't get a decent family lawyer and ended up with basically enough money to live in a cheap apartment for a year and no alimony.
My friend felt sorry for her, and, while shocked it happened, basically shrugged when she shot them.
Betty had some serious mental issues - but Dan, and Linda, were also rather ambitious people who had no time to be gracious if it wasn't worth their while.

AloeVera

(4,371 posts)
4. Gaslighting, cheating narcissists are the worst people imaginable.
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:07 PM
18 hrs ago

The amount of mental anguish, dissonance and heartbreak they inflict on people cannot be fully grasped except by their victims. Even reasonably sane and stable people can come close to snapping. That Betty snapped is not shocking to me either. Would not wish their fates on anyone, I mean all 3 victims. We all know murder is wrong and rarely justified except in self-defense but this story is a cautionary tale.

Perhaps in Betty's mind there was no other way out of her torment and I believe that what she suffered was pure torment.

MarineCombatEngineer

(18,171 posts)
7. I can't argue with that, but in the eyes of the law, those mitigating circumstances are moot,
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:21 PM
18 hrs ago

if she had shown any sort of remorse at trial or sentencing, she might have gotten a different outcome, and, like you said, I would not wish their fates on anyone, well, there is one person I would wish that fate on, but that's for another discussion.

AloeVera

(4,371 posts)
13. Well, even Battered Woman Syndrome has not been very successful in reducing sentences.
Sun May 10, 2026, 12:56 AM
16 hrs ago

That the law considers mental and emotional abuse as moot is not surprising.

Not that Betty's lawyers made a good case for it or could convince Betty to act in her self-interest.

I might make an exception for that ONE PERSON too.







IbogaProject

(6,045 posts)
5. This is what alimony was created for
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:20 PM
18 hrs ago

She helped him get through law school and raised their kids. She wasn't able to get proper council and failed to get alimony and was left destitute. Cant justify cold blooded murder but that guy got out the easy way rather than sitting in prison for decades.

MarineCombatEngineer

(18,171 posts)
8. Just went to Youtube and watched the trailer, looks interesting,
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:25 PM
18 hrs ago

I'll check it out further tomorrow.
Thanks for the tip.

Sewa

(1,630 posts)
9. What a horrible person
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:45 PM
18 hrs ago

Glad she never got out of prison.

She terrorized her children. And x-husband and his wife before murdering them.

Nothing justifies what she did 😏💀

valleyrogue

(2,783 posts)
11. Good riddance. Justice was done in this case, unlike so many others involving the rich.
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:51 PM
17 hrs ago

I cannot believe there are still people out there who sympathize with a narcissistic, sociopathic piece of trash. Her legal team did a great con job on a sector of the public, mostly women, who thought the victims deserved what they got.

Two of her four children were against her ever being released. The California Parole Board denied her release time and time again. She had no remorse for what she did. The worst thing was denying the children their father, who had custody of all four of them.

It was all about revenge on the part of Betty Broderick. She wasn't going to let Dan "win" and move on with his life even though she had also done so (generous divorce settlement, a career in real estate, a boyfriend).

She was another Donald Trump. She never took responsibility for her actions.

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