old-school-gossip-Marilyn Monroe Murder Rumors Return

by Catherine St. Ives
Marilyn Monroe‘s death has been long disputed — was it suicide, accidental, or murder? It’s been a few years now, so new "evidence" of Ms. Monroe’s "murder" was bound to surface, because people will never tire of Monroe gossip, or of making money off her in some way. And now we have some "secret tapes" that just resurfaced, with the source claiming, "I listened to Marilyn Monroe die."

I’ve changed my mind over the years, going back and forth from thinking suicide to accident, and then briefly thinking murder because if she swallowed so many pills, how come there wasn’t a glass of water in the room? But that’s a long debate in and of itself, the infamous water glass. (And by the way, if you’re interested in this entire story, you should read The Empty Glass by J.I. Baker.) It’s like her version of Kennedy's "magic bullet". And speaking of the Kennedys…

One of the persistent theories/rumors/stories is that the Kennedys were responsible for Marilyn Monroe’s death, because out of everything they had going on at the time, a movie star was definitely the most important thing and at the top of their list to deal with. Apparently, these recently uncovered tapes are recordings of her being murdered, and by Bobby Kennedy. Detective Fred Otash (now deceased) allegedly bugged her home, and his daughter Colleen says she found these tapes and listened to them. From The Daily Mail via MSN:

Colleen uncovered a stash of tapes in a suburban storage unit owned by her father. There, in his notes, Colleen said her father wrote "I listened to Marilyn Monroe die."

Otash’s notes claim that on that same day, he heard Monroe screaming while having a violent argument with the Kennedys (The Daily Mail does not state which Kennedys, but it is implied that it was John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy). "She’s in the bedroom and Bobby gets the pillow and he muffles her on the bed to keep the neighbors from hearing. She finally quieted down and then he was looking to get out of there," the Mail reports Otash as writing.

So yeah, this basically proves nothing and may not even be real, but who doesn’t love a good old school Hollywood mystery? I’m sure next we’ll find tapes of Natalie Wood drowning, with Christopher Walken in the background saying, "Help…someone…someone help the poor girl. I–I am not. Very good…at swimming, I can’t…the swimming, it’s not…it’s not what I. What I do. Is anyone. Out? There?"

Do YOU think Marilyn Monroe was murdered?