Unraveling Betty Broderick: From Divorce Descent to Infamy

Kimberly Dotseth joins us to unravel the intricate and gripping tale of Betty Broderick in our latest episode. As we navigate Betty's life story, from her roots in a middle-class Catholic family in the Bronx to the trials of her tumultuous marriage, Kimberly lends her unique real estate perspective to the financial intricacies of the Broderick household. Together, we explore the emotional and psychological landscape that led to Betty's infamous actions, shedding light on the complexities often overshadowed by sensational headlines.

The episode further delves into the 1980s, a time of intense conflict as Betty and Dan's divorce escalated into a dramatic legal battle. We piece together the puzzle of Betty's increasing desperation, highlighting the inadequate legal support she received and the emotional strain on their children. Amidst escalating tensions and destructive actions, the tragic events of November 5, 1989, are unraveled, offering a poignant look into the dynamics that consumed the Broderick family.

Reflecting on Betty Broderick's legacy, we discuss societal changes that have influenced women's independence over the generations. Kimberly shares insights from her correspondence with Betty, offering a rare glimpse into Betty's perspective and the personal grievances she felt during her ordeal. We contemplate the ongoing debate about justice and redemption in Betty's case, considering the supportive communities that have emerged in her defense. Join us as we engage with these thought-provoking themes, examining not just Betty's story, but the broader implications for women like her throughout history.

Sources:

https://www.amazon.com/She-Gave-Her-Pearls-Broderick/dp/B0C1JDQM67

https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/inside-the-psychological-battleground-that-pushed-san-diego-socialite-betty-broderick-to-commit-murder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Broderick

https://www.vulture.com/article/dirty-john-the-betty-broderick-story-characters-true-story.html

https://youtu.be/ieR0CZpzNyQ?si=2h_d3zG7LK3-PT4B

https://www.oxygen.com/true-crime-buzz/epstein-credits-used-betty-broderick-divorce-daniel-broderick

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1989/jan/12/divorce-trial-murder/

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1989/nov/16/cover-till-death-do-us-part/

Chapters

• 0:01 True Crime Podcast
• 14:28 Betty Broderick's Descent Into Violence
• 23:56 Betty Broderick's Legacy and Real Estate
• 32:42 Podcast Promotion and Interaction

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

DarkCast Network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasting.

Speaker 3: 0:09

Welcome to Murder and Mimosas a true crime podcast brought to you by a mother and daughter duo.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Bringing you murder stories with a mimosa in hand. With a mimosa in hand, murder Mimosas is a true crime podcast, meaning we talk about adult matters such as murder, sexual assaults and other horrendous crimes. Listener discretion is advised. We do tell our stories with the victims and the victims families in mind. However, some information is more verifiable than others. However, you can find all of our information linked in the show notes. Welcome to Murder Mimosas. I'm Danica and I'm Shannon, and today we have a special guest with us.

Speaker 4: 0:58

My name is Kimberly Dotseth, I'm in San Diego, I wrote a book called she Gave Her Pearls. It's about Betty Broderick and Betty Broderick's husband, dan, and his second wife, linda, and I decided to take a different approach to the story. First of all, I'm in San Diego, where the murders occurred. But you know how, when we hear about a murder on the news, our first question is why, why, why? And having only been sort of involved with the Betty story from Court TV on the news, our first question is why, why, why. And having only been sort of involved with the Betty story from Court TV and the news, I decided to take another look at maybe the why, and it occurred to me as I was watching this TV show in the summer of 2020 that there might be a small piece missing and they portrayed the real estate of this couple. I thought incorrectly, but I decided to do some research on the real estate of this couple. I thought incorrectly, but I decided to do some research on the real estate that these people owned and I ended up doing a 30-year deep dive. And the book is about the documents and the interspersing of the documents and what happened in real life and you have a background in real estate, correct, that's right.

Speaker 4: 2:05

I'm a California real estate broker. I've had my own brokerage since 2007, but I actually started in real estate in 1989. I worked in commercial real estate for about eight years and then I switched to residential. I kind of had this feeling I wanted to hand people house keys. It felt like a very emotional, fun way to make money, make a living. So I switched to residential and that was about 99. And then I was a salesperson. So we have a salesperson's license study and sit for my broker's test and I took about six months to do it and passed in 07, october and opened my own brokerage then.

Speaker 2: 2:57

So today we're going to talk about Betty Broderick. Betty was born in 1947 and she grew up in the Bronx. Born in 1947 and she grew up in the Bronx, she was one of six children, very middle-class Catholic family. At only the age of 17, she was attending college in Mount St Vincent in the Bronx and she was working on getting her degree in her own childhood. While she was in college she decided to fly to Indiana to watch a Notre Dame football game and while she was there she met this other student. He was 21 years old, he was working on his medical degree, his name was Daniel Roderick and they happened to meet at a party For a little while.

Speaker 2: 3:37

The two did the long distance dating thing until Betty finished up and graduated. Then they ended up having this beautiful, elaborate wedding in New York in 1969 and then followed it up with a honeymoon in the Caribbean. Once they returned they moved into Dan's dorm at Cornell, since Dan was not yet finished with a medical school, and during that Betty got pregnant right away. But she also got a job teaching and was the one who was supporting the family, and she worked um right up until the day before their first child kid was born, so that's I'm a teacher and I would not work until the day right before, couldn't pay any of that, though. Dan finishes medical school in 1971, and while most people would be like really ecstatic about starting this new phase in their lives, dan defines that he decides like he wants a new path and he wants to go to law school he decided that he could make more money as a malpractice lawyer suing doctors.

Speaker 4: 4:45

So Betty was a loyal wife through medical school and then, through law school, dan got a job in San Diego. So they moved to Southern California and they were renters. This was in the 70s. They lived in a rental house that had a house fire and there was an insurance settlement that really was to cover their contents. No one was injured, no one was harmed, but it was a rental home. So the insurance helped give them a little bit of money to recoup their losses of their items. But they used that money to buy a down payment on their first house.

Speaker 4: 5:18

And this is a story about a very, very successful guy who had an extremely beautiful, loyal housewife mom who really held the family together. They ended up having four kids and Dan became super successful. He joined a big firm in downtown San Diego and the situation was he would sue doctors for medical malpractice but instead of it going to court it often settled. Just, you know the suit happens. Everybody realizes let's settle, and then the money starts coming in. You know these settlements are generating lots of money for the firm.

Speaker 2: 5:58

Betty gave birth again to a son in 1973, but he died soon after birth and because of that he was never named, at least not publicly At that time. Betty claims to have attempted suicide in that year, which losing a child. I can only imagine how that has to feel. She says she felt totally trapped and if you watch her interview with Oprah she says she had a great life. All she ever wanted was to be a mother and a wife. So I don't really want to say I don't know which of your version is true. I think you can have a good life and still feel trapped in a moment you can have, especially when you're pregnant, that many times. Postpartum is a thing that could have influenced her during that year. It could have made her felt trapped at that time and then later she could feel as if that's you know. Overall she had a good life, but there are times that Betty can be very conflicting in what she says.

Speaker 1: 7:03

So you're looking for something creepy to read? Well, I got you that. He can be very conflicting in what she says. So you're looking for something creepy to read? Well, I got you. Just grab my two books psychological domestic thriller series called Willow's Wounds. Willow's Flame is book one and Willow's Crush is book two. Both are told from dual point of views and in book two there is a stalker psychopath. You're not gonna know who that is until the very end and all chapters of his are labeled as him. Both have creepy stalker psychopath vibes and they are realistic stories, which makes it even scarier. You can grab it on Amazon, barnes and Noble and more. Thank you for reading and reviewing Willow's.

Speaker 3: 7:44

Wounds. In a world where anything can happen, being prepared with critical information can make all the difference. That is why we have partnered with Help you Find Me, which is a platform where you can securely share your private information with loved ones.

Speaker 2: 8:01

They have so many different features, such as the live location, travel itinerary, medical information and more, All important to have, especially if you go missing.

Speaker 3: 8:12

As a murder and mimosas listener, you can get 20% off the power plan using code MMPOWER20. That's MMPOWER20. So head on over to helpyoufindme and get your setup today.

Speaker 4: 8:35

Dan decides to go off on his own, so he leases an office space pretty small in downtown San Diego and it was a situation where there were lawyers in independent offices with their own shingle out, but they shared a receptionist. They would share a copy machine and it was there that Dan met the receptionist, linda Kulkina, and this was in the early 80s, and she was just absolutely stunning, a blonde, much like Betty, and he had a type. He had a type, you know willowy, tall, long hair, and Dan himself was not what I would call you know a ravishing looker, but he was dynamic and successful and he, I guess in their eyes he was the whole package. So Betty started to see signs of problems in her marriage and she would lash out and she believed Dan was having an affair with Linda and the lashing out it has been portrayed in so many different forms of media now that the story is pretty much nationally famous. She would set his clothes on fire, she would throw paint on things and it just became almost like hysteria.

Speaker 4: 9:52

And so eventually she was told over and over again no affair, no affair, no affair. But then eventually it came out that it wasn't a fair and you know the phrase gaslighting, right. Well, he had been kind of the originator of gaslighting. He really did gaslight her for a long time. So at first.

Speaker 2: 10:09

Betty's just hoping this new assistant, you know, means Dan isn't working such long hours and he could be at home some more. Sadly that's not the case at all and Betty has some intuition that the two are having an affair and she confronts Dan and he adamantly denies it. So Betty demands that he fires this you know blonde bombshell because she doesn't feel comfortable and he flat out just refuses. On November 7th of 1983, betty turned 36 years old but Dan was not present at her birthday party. Betty claims that night that she slit her wrist and took pills in an attempt to commit suicide.

Speaker 2: 10:56

On Dan's birthday on November 22nd, she attempts to surprise Dan at his office, but it would actually be her that gets the surprise. She gets all dolled up and she buys a bottle of champagne and gets him a nice present so that she can celebrate him, but probably more to make her presence known to. You know, linda the assistant Betty arrives around four or five that day, but Dan and Linda have yet to arrive. Back from lunch she went home and she threw his clothes in the backyard and she set them on fire, even though the couple didn't separate at the time and Dan continued to deny the affair until Dan moved out in February of 1985 and filed for divorce in September of 1985.

Speaker 4: 12:41

And then he files for divorce. He admits that he's seen Linda and the divorce was protracted. It was very long. It went on for I think five years. It made San Diego's news. It was in the newspaper because it was this man now making about a million dollars a year in the 80s. I don't even know what that would be today.

Speaker 4: 13:03

I don't either, maybe it would be two million a year, but it was such a sum that he could have just cut her a big check and moved on. You know, be fair, this woman raised your kids, but he fought her for every dollar. So over the course of the divorce, he would punish her in weird ways. She would call and leave a voicemail, and she would leave a nasty message, and it would be about Linda, and he would create this system called Epstein credits, where he might owe her some money, but he would personally deduct from that for every time she swore on the answering machine or she was loud. And so the story of the book, though, does kind of go through this roller coaster of what's happening in the background with their real estate, and they got.

Speaker 4: 13:54

Linda and Dan got married in April of 89. I would write a book just on 1989 alone, and I'm going to talk to Betty about it, but this is this was the year where things fell apart. Dan got married. Linda said she's going to kill you, so could you please wear a bulletproof vest At their own wedding? He got married in his new home, the brick house in San Diego that they were killed in. They got married in the backyard. It was very, very large and Dan laughed. He laughed it off. They got married in April. Betty did not show up at the wedding and the summer was just a little bit of like good for Dan and Linda and really bad for Betty. There were real estate things happening. There were money problems. She wasn't getting the money she was owed.

Speaker 2: 14:41

At the time he agrees to pay $9,000 a month to Betty and I want you to keep in mind that this is the 80s, so that's $108,000 a year. That's $108,000 a year. While most of us would think that's amazing, betty says well, he's making $137,000 a month and this was a drop on the hat for him and, let's be honest, she's not wrong. But he did also continue to pay for insurance, taxes, club fees and boat fees. Betty claims to have issues finding counsel because some of her own doing Remember Dan is like a big-time attorney and he's also the president of the County Bar Association Finding an attorney that she feels would be on her side, rather than Dan's, proved difficult. In her opinion, she also says she can't just, you know, afford the money it would take to fight Dan in court like she truly felt like she needed to. Of course, you will learn a great deal more in the book from Kimberly, but there is an agreement to sell their home in 1986. In the last minute, betty changed her mind and Dan was able to get an emergency court order to sell the house. I don't really know how or why, but Betty's name was removed from the deed and she did not receive any proceeds of the sale from the home. In retaliation, betty drove her car through the door of Dan's home while her children were inside, like she knew they were were, and that right, there was a little bonkers for me. Her attorney at the time says he wanted out Betty would not follow his advice in any way, shape or form. So at the time of the divorce Betty didn't have an attorney and didn't show up for court.

Speaker 2: 16:33

Now, before the divorce was final, betty began to drop the kids off on Dan's doorstep, one at a time with their belongings. She left each of them there and Dan received full custody with no visitation. Due to this and, well, I'm sure, her lack of legal counsel and you know being there herself, she felt like he took her kids away. But her children don't see it that way and say they felt she left them there hoping to like disrupt his life or shake it up. It just didn't work out like she wanted. I know most of what we hear has been Betty's side, but Dan says that she was leaving mean, vulgar messages on his machine, that she was throwing bricks through his windows, spray painting on his house. She found a cake on his table when she came in without permission, and she took the cake and smeared it all over his clothes. Dan filed charges against Betty for driving into his house as he should, and she spent a week in a mental facility.

Speaker 2: 17:39

Once released, though, the harassment and the erratic behavior didn't stop With that. Dan took it upon himself to deduct money from Betty as follows $200 for every obscene word left on his answering machine or she called, you know, used towards him. $500 for entering his house without permission. $1,000 each time she took one of the children without permission. So there's like this running list of like deductions that he would have towards the payments he was making to her. In November of 1986, he decided that Betty actually owed him $1,300. So apparently she had done a lot of things in November, and by the time he finished all his deductions she was in red. She of course went to his house angry about this bill, and he had her arrested.

Speaker 2: 18:41

She ended up being sentenced to about a month in jail in 1987 for her contempt of court charges, but she only ended up serving a week and, just like the mental health stay, this did not deter her. 1988, she's yet again charged. The judge fined her to $8,000 and advised her the next time that she would also be paying $16,000 for Dan's attorney fees. And true to his word, the judge did exactly that. When Betty again ignored the orders, left obscene messages on Dan's answering machine. In 1987, the judge did order Dan to pay Betty $16,100 a month, but Betty still contended that that was not enough because of Dan's income and it wasn't enough to keep her in the lifestyle that she was accustomed to.

Speaker 4: 19:34

And to hear Betty tell the story in November. Now, by the way, I'm skipping a million things about houses and da, da, da, da, but I'm trying to get to the end. So she had two daughters and two sons. They all were on good terms with their father. They loved their dad.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Right.

Speaker 4: 19:52

Betty stole the keys of her daughter to the house that Dan lived in with Linda and the daughter thought she'd lost them, but Betty had them. Betty had a gun for about six months. She was kind of loosey-goosey with the talk about the gun. I've got a gun, telling her kids she would keep it in the car. On the morning of the killings, november 5th 1989, on the morning of the killings, november 5th 1989, she says that she woke up. Her boyfriend, brad, was at her house. Brad's not even a player here, so I just bring that up to let you know. She had sort of kind of started to move on. She looked at a stack of mail. This is what Betty says happened. I looked at a stack of mail. I hadn't opened mail in a long time. I opened a letter and it was from the courts and it was Dan trying to take me to court again to again manipulate the visitation and custody. Now Betty says that's when she said I'm going to go and talk to them at their home right now at 5.30 in the morning on a Sunday, and I'm going to wave this gun around and then I'm going to kill myself. That's what she said. So she drives from her house in La Jolla to Hillcrest, which is about 15 minutes, and she takes her daughter's keys to her ex-husband's home, goes in the back door, walks through the house that she's never been in and she goes upstairs and she opens the bedroom door. Linda and Dan are in bed and Linda sits up first and says call the police Now. Betty claims that she she meaning Betty shrieks and says ah, you can look at it on Betty's testimony on Court TV. She does this. Ah, really, it's like, ah, like a little bird. So in this moment she goes.

Speaker 4: 21:38

Betty is reacting to Linda and Betty says that the gun went off. But the gun was shot five times and she shot Linda and killed her instantly. Then she turned and shot Dan a couple times. He did not die instantly. He came off the bed. Betty's still in the room and he says you got me. This is what he says to her. According to Betty, betty doesn't shoot herself. She says the gun is jammed, she is done shooting. She drops the gun and pulls the phone cord out of the bedroom wall as she's leaving the home. My book starts where she drives from Hillcrest to another community called Claremont and she gets on a pay phone and the entry to my book is that phone call that she makes to her daughter Betty's first trial was a mistrial.

Speaker 2: 22:30

However, she was later found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. Since then, betty's been up for parole twice, once in 2010 and once in 2017. And although Betty's been a model prisoner, she's been denied parole both times. Most say that it's because, to this day, leticia's no remorse for what she's done. She will be, though, up for parole again in 2032.

Speaker 5: 23:13

Autumn's Oddities is a strange and unusual podcast made by the strange and unusual me, autumn Gruby. Each week, I'll be taking you through some of the creepiest cases true crime has to offer. It won't only be true crime. I'll also be covering cryptids, haunted places, haunted things and the true stories that inspired horror movies. Listen every Monday and Friday for new episodes and remember if it's creepy and weird, you'll find it here.

Speaker 4: 23:57

You know now that I've had enough time to think about the generations of what women have gone through. I look at my own mom, who's 83 now. But when she was a divorced young mom it was very, very uncool and she's about Betty's generation. You couldn't get a credit card in your own name, you couldn't have anything. Your man kind of ran your life. I'm one generation removed and that's not the case anymore. You're both removed from that as well. I can tell you're younger than that.

Speaker 4: 24:30

So I wanted to figure out, besides the gaslighting, if there was something that could have happened differently to change the lives of these three people differently, to change the lives of these three people, right. So the book really tries to illustrate that. I feel Dan mistreated her. I felt Linda was just a terrible victim. She just she's been portrayed badly in the media. But you know, as I point out, she bought her own house with her own money and I did. I was just a year younger than her. You know where I point out. She bought her own house with her own money and I was just a year younger than her. You know, she and I were the same age and so nobody I knew was buying condos and I was very proud of her for that, even though she's been gone for so long.

Speaker 4: 25:11

So when this TV show came out about the Betty Broderick murders and of course I already knew about it living here I decided to write to Betty Broderick in prison and I wrote her this letter and I told her I'd seen this show and I very, very you know honestly and openly, I said I'd like to be a sounding board for you. Would you be interested in speaking to me? Is there anything you want to get off your chest all these decades later and she and I started writing and she's the one who told me oh, you know what, you can email me. Kristen at that time had a really great email system and I would write her an email and then I would have to pay a credit like about 10 cents, so Betty could have the money to email me back. So there's like a let's like, you know, like a commissary, where candy bars are X dollars, emails are X dollars, right, right, when we were writing letters and cards, she would ask me to send her a card or paper and an envelope pre-addressed to me, already stamped, so it didn't cost her money. So this was kind of the habit we got into. But it kind of went, I thought, weirdly, off the rails. I have all of these letters and cards which I didn't publish because Betty is alive and I felt it was a violation of her trust. But I enjoyed getting them.

Speaker 4: 26:34

I was like a giddy schoolgirl and I had just started the research and I would describe what I was doing to Betty as my project. And she would say you need to stop working on that, that's not important, you need to dig into what Dan did with our money in Colorado. And she would go off on these long tangents about Dan stole my money, our money, gave it to his brother and they went into a partnership in Colorado and lost money. You know lots of tangential stories. And I would say to her hey, betty, I'm in California, I'm a California real estate broker, I'm never going to explore anything in Colorado, not my pay grade, it's beyond. That is beyond my pay grade.

Speaker 4: 27:17

So we would write, write and then she'd write me back about Dan and what ended up happening is her letters were just, they were venting. She did use me as a sounding board, but not in the way I thought she would. I thought she would say well, let me tell you about this house. Oh, let me tell you about this or this mortgage. And she would be like let me tell you how awful Dan was. And I was like, wow, I guess she's going to use me as this sounding board in this way.

Speaker 4: 27:46

So her letters started getting what I would call pretty fierce and I said to my husband oh, this is not good for her, because all of her letters are read before they're mailed out. And then I would write her back and I would be gentle and kind and let's talk about this and can we get on track? She wasn't co-writing with me, I was just telling her, if you want to fill in any missing pieces and one of the greatest missing pieces of all was this mystery that she made $16,000 a month from Dan. The media thinks that he was paying her alimony and child support combination of $16,000. But oftentimes it would be just a pittance like a couple thousand, because he would deduct for various things. She can't live, even then, on that and raise four kids.

Speaker 4: 28:33

I had decided to take pictures of all the properties, but I wanted them from my own camera so I didn't have any copyright issues. Makes sense, yeah, but that made me very sad Driving around to Dan's office and Dan's house and Linda's first condo. I was very bummed out. So the book ended up being what it is. I really truly love it that it's got a real estate angle. It's got a little bit of advice for women of a younger generation at the end. But at the end it turned me into a bit of a Betty believer that she has done her time. You know she has been turned down for parole I think three times, and it's usually because Dan's colleagues from his law days will show up to parole and say we're afraid for our lives, don't let her out. Well, betty would never harm any of them. She hurt the two people. She has no remorse. But she has served 30 some years now, so 35 years.

Speaker 2: 29:42

So, um, I would like to see her out um, I did end up joining some of the Facebook groups that Kimberly mentioned just to kind of see what they were about. Most of the ones that I were able to find were um supporters, um of Betty, and they will declare themselves supporters and if you even have like semi good thing to say about Dan or Linda, you will be booted from the group and they are fully supportive of Betty being freed, like that's what they want. I was able to find one group that supports Dan and Linda. Yeah, and.

Speaker 2: 30:21

I think you were right when you said that her you know she wouldn't hurt any of his colleagues and things like that. She went after the two people that had hurt her and made her feel the way she felt. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 30:35

And it was over. Yeah, that was it. He could have paid that mortgage off. If he had done that, her life would have been better. She wanted to stay in that house. She was purchasing a small condo. She didn't think was worthy of her, but she was out of funds and she took out a hard money loan off the La Jolla. I believe that that condo probably also represented her feeling cheated. You know, dan was in a big brick mansion in a different part of the city, and that's just my take. Of course, it could have been about the children too and the challenging that she was, how he continued to challenge her custody yeah um, let's just call it a combination of things.

Speaker 4: 31:44

I just wanted to present a different thought process.

Speaker 2: 31:48

Yeah, not whichever camp you fall into, whether you're team betty or team dan or linda or you're somewhere in the middle. This whole thing is a terrible tragedy for everyone involved, but especially for the Broderick children who were left without any parents in the end. Within the book, kimberly also has a lot of great information about real estate and how to protect yourself financially in real estate, and so I think that's a little bonus in true crime books that you don't really get, so I think that was really cool. But it's definitely an interesting book and we will have in our show notes links to where you can purchase the book and read it for yourself.

Speaker 3: 32:42

We always recommend more bubbly and less OJ Cheers.

Speaker 6: 32:49

If you'd like to see pictures from today's episode, you can find us at murdermimosas on Instagram. You can also find us at murdermimosas on TikTok Twitter, and if you have a case you would like us to do, you can send that to murdermimosas on TikTok Twitter and if you have a case you would like us to do, you can send that to murdermimosas at gmailcom. And lastly, we are on Facebook at Murder and Mimosas Podcast, where you can interact with us there. We love any type of feedback you can give us, so please rate and review us on Spotify, itunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts.