MONROE PROBE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404360008-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: August 11, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404360008-8
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` L.n. reopens. inquiry
Into Actress' 'Suicide'-
By Joan Goulding
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 (tJPI)-
The district attorney's office said
today it is investigating Marilyn
Monroe's drug overdose death of 20,
Y ago because of her mysterious-
lY missing "red diary" and allegations
of improper handling by the coro-
ner's office.
District Attorney John Van de
Kamp made the disclosure shortly'
before the Los Angeles County
Board of Supervisors -unanimously
passed a motion requesting an inves-
tigation.
The board cited allegations by a
former coroner's aide that he was co-
erced into signing the death certif-
icate for the movie star and that
Monroe's diary had mysteriously dis-
appeared from the coroner's office.
"We should look into allegations
made in a series of New York Post
articles concerning the. death by
drugs of the actress in her hillside
home in West Los Angeles," Super..
visor Mike Antonovich :said.
Van de Kamp issued a statement
saying he_ alreadyhad_di_-ected his
office to review reports of Monroe's
Aug. 5, 1962, death, which was ruled
a suicide. "Early last week, as news
accounts on both the East and West
coasts raised questions about Miss
Monroe's death 20 years ago," he
said, "I asked assistant district attor-
ney Mike Carroll to gather all rele-
vant materials and reports in an at-
tempt to put this information into
some kind of context.
THE WASHINGTON POST
11 August 1982
"Since former district attorney
William McKesson apparently never
opened an investigation in the Mon-
roe death, we had no files of our
own. We are in the process now of ``
reviewing both the news accounts
and official police reports on her
death in order to see,.what further:..,
? action may be necessary, if any!-:
The supervisors' motion asked the
die iict attorney to refer ~tne''matter -
to the grand jury "if any or all
charges-are substantiated." .
"Within .recent days various news
accounts have highlighted alleged ir-
regularities in the handling of the
coroner's investigation into the death
of Marilyn 'Monroe,' then motion
said.. - _, ...,
"Specific news accounts have
quoted former coroner's investigator
Lionel Grandison, who stated that
one, he was coerced into signing
Marilyn Monroe's death certificate;
two, part of the evidence collected,
specifically Marilyn Monroe's diary,
was missing from the coroner's office
two days after it was brought in; and
three; the ' coroner's . investigation
into Marilyn Monroe's-death was in-
complete."
Both the New -York Post and the
Los Angeles Herald Examiner have
run articles on new questions about
Monroe's death...
' L st week shortly before the 20th
anniversary of Monroe's death, a ri-
va investigator o e -a
reward for the -actress:-red di my, i
it rove his eo she
was ,m e a 'dissident faction
of the UW to rotect madi re_I
veale to her-by-Robert Kennedy. -
Investivator Milo S ri lio claims
Monroe threatened to reveal CIA
--p ots to kill Cuban resident Fide
Castro after Kennedy, then attorney
Renerai, refused to marry her,
r. Thomas Noguchi, who was de-
moted this spring from coroner to
.autopsy surgeon, performed the au-
topsy on Monroe and concluded that
she committed suicide at home by a
drug overdose. His attorney, Godfrey
Isaac; said Noguchi would have no
comment because he is in the midst
of a civil service battle to regain his
former post.
Van de Kamp told ii news confer-
ence he expects -the "threshold inqui-
ry" to take about'10 days before of-
ficials determine if'a'YInll-scale -aim-
inal investigation' is warranted.
. He said the probe would consist of
reviewing ,official records and ques-
tioning some of the individuals
quoted in recent mews accounts to
determine the "veracity' of their
statements. * ,.
He said an exhumation of Mon-
.roe's body would only come "quite a
ways down the line," if at all.'
Coroner's spokesman Bill Gold
said Grandison was a coroner's aide
whose duties were mostly clerical,
and was not an investigator, as the
supervisors identified him. '
Gold also said Grandison's alle-
gations about coercion and the miss-
ing diary were first made in an in.
.
terview with the National Enquirer
in 1979.
Playwright Arthur Mii ler, who
had been married to Monroe, said
today that -he ;coiildn't comment on
any reopening of the case because he
has nothing to add `to_ what already
~,-
is known. ? ,!.! "
41 just have no information-wbot.
soever. I was nowhere near it it e
time so there' nothing-i eoul4 say,'
Miller said froid`-his 'hazne in! -
bury, C411n~
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404360008-8