Betty Broderick

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Elisabeth Anne "Betty" Broderick née Bisceglia (born on November 7, 1947 in Eastchester, New York) is a former San Diego socialite convicted of the murder of her former husband and his mistress-new wife. She was convicted on December 11, 1991 of two counts of second-degree murder, and later sentenced to 32-years-to-life in prison, with her first possible parole date in March of 2011.

[edit] Biography

Betty was the third of six children born to devout Roman Catholic parents Marita and Frank Bisceglia, a social-climbing Irish-American mother and an Italian father who had founded a plastering firm with his brothers. She attended and later graduated from the College of Mount Saint Vincent, a small Catholic women's college in Riverdale, New York, where she earned a BA in child psychology. Betty met her future husband, Daniel Broderick III, eldest son in another large Catholic family, at a football game between the University of Southern California and the University of Notre Dame, where Dan was an undergraduate. They dated for some time and became engaged later. Dan's family was initially charmed by Betty's beauty, graciousness, and sophistication.

When the couple became engaged, Dan was attending the Cornell University Medical School, located in New York. The couple were married on April 12, 1969 at the Immaculate Conception Church in Eastchester in a lavish ceremony planned by Betty's mother. They honeymooned on a Caribbean cruise and later stayed with friends in St. Thomas. It was there that Betty felt that her marriage was not all that perfect and felt that Dan treated her as a housewife and their romance was gone. She returned from her honeymoon pregnant with her first child, Kim. She taught up until the day before she gave birth. After that she quit her job and was solely a mother. She gave birth to four more children Lee, Daniel, Rhett, and an unnamed boy who died four days after birth. It was later revealed she was pregnant nine times between 1970 and 1979, but had two miscarriages and two abortions performed, before having a tubal ligation after her last child.

After the first child, Dan announced to her that he didn't want to finish his medical internship and rather become a lawyer, and enrolled at Harvard Law School. Later they moved to San Diego, where they prospered and became well known within San Diego social circles and lived a life of luxury. It was then that they experienced marriage problems.

Betty became obsessed with hatred towards her husband after she discovered he was having an affair. Following a separation and divorce, Betty purchased a revolver and burgled her husband's home, gaining entry with a key that she had stolen from her daughter. She murdered Dan and his new wife while they slept. To the day she justifies the crime to herself by insisting that she is the real victim, and has expressed no remorse.

[edit] Other Notes

The song played at their wedding, "The Twelfth of Never", was also the title of a book about the murders
Her prison number is W42477, and resides at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, California.
Her story was turned into a Lifetime Television film, called (Part 1) "A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story" and (Part 2) "Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, The Last Chapter (1992)". Meredith Baxter portrayed her in the films.