Elisabeth Broderick
Elisabeth Anne "Betty" Broderick was born on November 7, 1947 in
Eastchester New York, one of six children born to Frank and Marita
Bisceglia. As a college freshman in 1965, she met Daniel T. Broderick
III, then a medical student at Cornell, and they married in 1969,
moving from Pennsylvania to California. Betty gave birth to two boys
and two girls thoughout the marriage. By this time, Dan Broderick had
gone from medical to law, and was making millions of dollars a year as
a medical-malpractice attorney. However, as the money poured in, the
marriage was dissolving, and in 1983 Dan began seeing Linda Kolkena,
who at the time was twenty-one years old. Betty reacted to this news
violently, and after Dan moved out and began initiating divorce
proceedings, she began vandalising his new premises, leaving
foul-mouthed messages on the answering machine and generally attempted
to make life difficult for both Dan and Linda. After the divorce was
finalised in 1989, Dan married his former mistress and tore Betty apart
in the settlement - she was left with, considering that by this time
Dan was a multi-millionaire, the bare neccesities (Dan was also awarded
custody of the children). All of this pressure eventually took it's
toll on November 5, 1989, and Betty broke into Dan's home and shot both
him and Linda whilst they lay sleeping. After two trials (the first one
resulted in a hung jury), she was convicted in 1991 of two counts of
second-degree murder, and sentenced to 32-years-to-life imprisonment.
Her first possible parole date is in March 2011.