MYSTERY STILL LINGERS ON MARILYN MONROE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404360011-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: August 6, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404360011-4
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
ARTICLE AFr 'F.::'D 6 AUGUST 1982
ON PAGE
By Ronald. Yates
Mystery still lingers.
on Marilyn Ma
Cnicpo -row" Press Service
LOS ANGELES-Ever since Marilyn
llionroe's nude body was found sprawled
on the bed of her fashionable home 20
years ago in. Brentwood,. Calif., there
.have been questions.
. Did she - really.-die of a ? self-ingested
overdose of barbiturates;as'stated in the
coroner's official report? Or was she
murdered, injected_with'the lethal drugs
against.her-will,:as several--investigators
have since insisted?
Wednesday, the 20th anniversary of the
death of Hollywood's platinum blond sex
symbol, ' a -Los Angeles private inves-
tigator-who has spent more than a de-
cade probing the case said the answers
are in Marilyn Monroe's so-called "red"
diary, missing since her body was ex-
amined in the Los Angeles :.-coroner's
off ice. .
"THIS DIARY names names," said
Milo Speriglio, director of the 76-year-old
Nick Harris detective -agency in Van
Nuys, Calif. "It inay tell us who killed
Marilyn Monroe."
Speriglio is so confident the diary con-
tains incriminating murder evidence that
he is offering a $10,000 `reward for it.
"We know it still exists," said Sperig-
lio, who also has demanded that au-
thorities reopen the Monroe case and
hold an inquest. "I got a call from a New
York attorney who told me his client had
the book, but would turn it over only to a
living blood relative of Miss Monroe's."
Monroe's-.only; .living relative as her
mother, who has spent the last several
years as a patient in a mental institution,
Speriglio said. There is also a half-sister.-
SEVERAL BOOKS written after Mon-'
roe's death have linked her romantically
with both former President John F. Ken-
nedy and one of his brothers, the late
U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy.
According to Speriglio, the missing
diary details those affairs and also con-
tains information about a CIA plot to kill
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
"Miss Monroe was murdered to keep
her from talking about her relationship !
with the Kennedy brothers, the CIA plot
and her association with certain San
Diego Mafia figures," Speriglio said.
Just who may have murdered Monroe
is still a matter of conjecture and the
wide range of theories have kept the
public supplied with an almost inexhaust-
ible flow of biographies and counter-
biographies.
One theory is that Kennedy loyalists in.
the Department of justice or the Central
Intelligence Agency killed Monroe with a
lethal dose of barbiturates in order to
protect the Kennedy brothers from,
scandal.
WRITER TONY Sciacca, in his 1976,
book "Who Killed Marilyn?" insists that
neither Robert nor J.F.K. was involved.
or knew anything about the murder al-
legedly committed on their behalf.
Robert Slatzer, another writer and
close friend of the actress, said in. an
earlier book that Monroe had been upset
over Robert Kennedy's attempts to break
off their alleged affair and was angry;
because she couldn't reach the then attor-
ney general at the Justice Department.
"If he (Robert Kennedy) keeps
avoiding me, I might just call a press
conference -and tell them about it .. .
and my' future plans," Slatzer said Mon-
roe told him a few days before her death.
. Slatzer, who came to Speriglio with his
information several years ago, asserts in
his book that Robert Kennedy visited
,Monroe the day before her death.
"There was definitely a cover-up in
Miss Monroe's death," Speriglio said.
"Some famous people were protected."
JACK CLEMMONS, the Los Angeles
Police Department homicide investigator
who was the first policeman to arrive at
the- dead actress'. house, agrees.
"She was murdered by needle injection
by someone she knew and probably
trusted,". Clemmons told reporters. "This
was the cover-up crime of the century-a'
matter of the Los Angeles Police Depart-
ment and other officials here protecting a
famous political family of the East who
had good reasons to shut Monroe's
mouth," - said Clemmons, who has since
retired from the force.
Deputy Coroner Lionel Grandison, who
signed :the death certificate, has since
said he did so under duress.
"The whole thing was organized to hide
the truth," he said. "An original autopsy
file vanished, a scrawled note that Mari-
lyn Monroe wrote and which did not
speak of suicide also vanished and so did
the first police report. I was told to sign'
.the official report-or I'd find myself in a,
position I couldn't get out nf.
IT IS THE CORONER'S report that is at
the center of the controversy. Speriglio said.
Though it says death was caused by the in-
gestian of barbiturates, there was no trace
of pills in the stomach or duodenum when
the coroner examined the body., .
Indeed, 'a toxicologist's report showed
barbiturates only in the blood and
liver--an'tndication that the drugs were
not taken orally, -but rather were in-
':'.-Deputy Medical Exa-r'diner Thomas
Noguchi;' who now holds the same posi-
tion as he did in 1962 when he performed
the` autopsy o`n Monroe, flatly denies as-
sertions that there was a cover-up in the
star's death.
"There is nothing new about this talk
and nothing new I know. of about how
Marilyn Monroe-died." said Noguchi, the
recently demoted "coroner of the stars."
"The case has been investigated. again
and again. The autopsy records are pub-
lic information." .
Noguchi also insisted that no samples'
were taken from Monroe's stomach be-
cause in the early 1960s it was standard
practice to rely on blood tests only to
determine the presence of drugs.
Theodore Curfee, the Los . Angeles
County coroner ;when -Monroee- c1 d who'
has since retired, insists the case is-
closed.
"If someone doesn't- believe it was sui-
cide, it's a*ee-country,'.' he recently told
a Los Angeles newspaper. -
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404360011-4