James Celerità

Betty Broderick

Betty Broderick in the San Diego County Courthouse on November 13, 1991, during her second murder trial.

Betty Broderick with defense attorney Jack Earley at the 1990 preliminary hearing in San Diego.

Betty Broderick at a social gathering in San Diego, circa early 1980s.

Betty Broderick was born Elizabeth Anne Bisceglia on November 7, 1947, in Bronxville, New York, the third of six children in a devout Irish-Italian Catholic family. Her father Frank owned a plastering business, and her mother Marita raised the children with clear traditional expectations: Betty would one day be a devoted wife and mother. She attended Eastchester High School, graduating in 1965, and went on to the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx, where she earned a degree in early childhood education with a minor in English.

At 17, she met Daniel T. Broderick III at the University of Notre Dame. They married on April 12, 1969, and embarked on what would become a life defined by sacrifice and ambition — his ambition, fueled by her sacrifice. Betty worked and managed the household while Dan completed Cornell Medical School and Harvard Law School, and together they raised four children: Kimberly, Lee, Daniel Jr., and Rhett. By the early 1980s, Dan had become one of San Diego's most prominent medical malpractice attorneys, eventually serving as president of the San Diego Bar Association. They lived in the affluent enclave of La Jolla, where their social standing was the envy of many.

The marriage began to collapse when Dan hired Linda Kolkena as a legal assistant and began an affair that Betty discovered and that Dan initially denied. He filed for divorce in 1985, after 16 years of marriage, and what followed was a brutally contentious four-year legal battle. Dan was awarded full custody and most of the couple's assets. Betty, left with a monthly support payment and a profound sense of betrayal, descended into escalating acts of harassment — profane answering machine messages, violations of restraining orders, and an act of vandalism that included driving her car into Dan's front door.

On November 5, 1989, Betty entered the Marston Hills home where Dan and Linda now lived as husband and wife, and shot both of them as they slept. Linda Kolkena Broderick died instantly; Daniel Broderick III died shortly after. Betty turned herself in to police that morning. Her first trial ended in a mistrial in 1990; a second jury convicted her in December 1991 of two counts of second-degree murder, and she was sentenced to 32 years to life.

In her years of imprisonment at the California Institution for Women, Betty found a degree of peace she said had eluded her in La Jolla. She published a memoir, "Telling on Myself," in 2015, and maintained contact with her children and grandchildren. She was denied parole in 2010 and 2017. In April 2026, she was transferred to an outside medical facility. Betty Broderick died on May 8, 2026, at age 78, from natural causes in a San Bernardino County prison medical facility.

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