Betty Broderick, the California woman convicted of killing her ex-husband and his new wife in 1989, has died while serving a life sentence, authorities said.
Broderick, 78, was pronounced dead at 3:40 a.m. on Friday after being moved earlier from the California Institution for Women to an outside medical facility, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.
Initial reports and prison officials described her death as due to natural causes, and the San Bernardino County coroner will complete the official determination, according to the New York Times.
Broderick was serving a 32-year-to-life sentence after being convicted in 1991 of two counts of second-degree murder for the Nov. 5, 1989, killings of Daniel Broderick and his 28-year-old fiancée, Linda Kolkena, at the San Diego-area home they shared.
Prosecutors said Broderick entered the home and shot the couple while they slept; she was convicted following a high-profile trial that drew national attention.
The case produced sustained media coverage and multiple dramatizations, including the two-part TV movie "A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story" and its follow-up "Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, the Last Chapter," which aired in 1992, and later true‑crime programs and books chronicling the divorce and murders.
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Authors have examined the marriage, the bitter custody and financial disputes, and the murder in books such as "Until the Twelfth of Never: The Deadly Divorce of Dan and Betty Broderick" and other accounts.
Court records and contemporary reporting documented a long, acrimonious divorce that began after the couple's 1969 marriage and produced four children; legal filings and press reports described disputes over money, alleged harassment, and contentious courtroom exchanges that helped make the case a national spectacle, The Daily Beast reported.
The prosecution argued Broderick's actions followed months of escalating conflict after Daniel Broderick left the marriage and began a relationship with Kolkena, who had been his legal assistant.
Broderick was denied parole in at least two hearings, in 2010 and 2017, and remained in custody at the California Institution for Women until her transfer to a medical facility in mid‑April.
Family members previously reported that she suffered a fall in prison that fractured ribs and led to complications, including an infection and sepsis in the weeks before her death, according to interviews with relatives published by news outlets, as per CBS News.
