Betty Broderick, California socialite convicted of 1989 double murder, dies in prison at 78

Betty Broderick, the San Diego socialite whose 1989 double-murder trial became a national media sensation, died on May 8, 2026, in a California prison medical facility. She was 78. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed her death on Saturday, stating she died of natural causes after a brief hospitalization. Broderick was serving a sentence of 32 years to life at the California Institution for Women before being moved to an outside facility in San Bernardino County.

The death ends one of the most high-profile legal sagas in the history of world news and American true crime. Broderick was convicted in 1991 for the killings of her ex-husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, and his second wife, Linda Kolkena. On November 5, 1989, Broderick entered her ex-husband’s Hillcrest home using a key she took from her daughter. She shot the couple as they slept in their bed using a .38-caliber revolver. Daniel Broderick was a prominent medical malpractice attorney and a former president of the San Diego Bar Association.

The case followed a bitter four-year divorce battle that saw Betty Broderick lose custody of her children and her financial status. During her trials, she did not deny the killings but claimed she was a victim of psychological abuse. She told the court she intended to kill herself but fired the weapon in a moment of panic. A first trial in 1990 ended with a hung jury. A second trial in December 1991 resulted in a conviction on two counts of second-degree murder. A detailed record of the 1991 trial by Court TV shows how the proceedings polarized the public between those who saw her as a cold-blooded killer and those who viewed her as a woman driven to madness by a domestic crisis.

Broderick remained in prison for over three decades and was denied parole three times. Her most recent parole hearing occurred in 2017, where officials noted her continued lack of remorse for the crimes. According to an official timeline of the case, she was not eligible for another hearing until 2032. Her story inspired two television movies in the 1990s and a 2020 season of the series “Dirty John.”

The Los Angeles Times maintained a lengthy archival gallery of her life in prison and the original 1989 investigation. Her death marks the final chapter for a case that helped birth the modern true-crime media era. San Bernardino County officials have not released further details regarding her medical history leading up to the Friday morning death.