Do you remember the famous Betty Broderick murder case? Betty is now coming up for parole after over 16 years in prison. In November 1989, at the age of 42, she snuck into the La Jolla, California home of her 44 year old ex-husband, Dan Broderick, and murdered him and his 28 year old second wife Linda, shooting them as they lay sleeping in their bedroom. In 1991, she was convicted on two counts of second degree murder and sentenced to 32 years in prison.
Her story shot to national prominence at the time because Betty was in some ways the sympathetic personification of an unfortunately common social phenomenon: a stay-at-home mother who had been unceremoniously dumped by her husband in middle age, in favor of his much younger assistant. The lurid details of how off-the-rails she went following her divorce, stalking and threatening her ex-husband in an increasingly erratic and menacing way, may have made her less sympathetic. But at the same time they also made her subsequent murder trials compelling viewing. Her initial trial (which ended in a hung jury) was among the first ever broadcast on then-fledgling Court TV.
You can read a CNN article today about her upcoming parole hearing HERE. The A&E network's American Justice television show once did an excellent, 1-hour episode on her case, which has been posted on You Tube. I have embedded part 1 below:
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