Timeline – Marilyn’s Last Day
There has been much speculation, controversy, rumour and intrigue surrounding the circumstances of the night Marilyn died – Here are the facts as we know them:
08.00am Eunice Murray arrives at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive.
09.00am Marilyn gets up, has some grapefruit juice and tells Mrs. Murray that Pat Newcomb has stayed over.
10.00am Larry Schiller calls to the house to discuss Marilyn’s nude photos from the set of “Something’s Got To Give” appearing in Playboy magazine.
10.30am – 12.00pm Marilyn’s bedside table is delivered and she writes a cheque for it. Marilyn’s citrus trees are also delivered during this time.
12 .00pm Pat Newcomb gets up and is about to leave when Eunice offers her breakfast. Newcomb decides to stay on and spends the afternoon with Marilyn. Later reports said that the two argued over the fact Newcomb had slept so late.
1.00pm – 2.00pm Murray claimed Marilyn asked her if they had any oxygen in the house.
2.00pm – 4.00pm Henry D’Antonio and his wife arrive with Murray’s car. (D’Antonio was a mechanic who was a friend of a relative and had been fixing Murray’s car that morning.) Murray brings them in to the kitchen and tells them Marilyn is resting in her room.
4.30pm – 5.00pm Dr. Greenson arrives. Greenson sees Marilyn in her room.
6.00pm Greenson comes into the living room, where Newcomb and Murray are chatting, and asks Newcomb to leave. Newcomb, indignant at being asked to leave, gets up and leaves without saying another word. (It is believed that Greenson suggested Marilyn drink a coke and go for a drive to the beach.) *Much has been made of the coke suggestion. I tend to think that Marilyn may have been feeling tired and, given it was so early in the evening, Greenson thought a coke would keep her awake until a suitable bedtime, whilst a walk on the beach later in the evening would tire her out.
7.00pm Greenson leaves to attend a dinner party with his wife.
7.30pm Joe DiMaggio Jnr calls and tells Marilyn he has ended his engagement with his fiancee. Marilyn is happy with this news and sounds upbeat on the phone.
8.00pm Marilyn calls Greenson to inform him about the call from Joe Jnr. It is widely believed that at this point Marilyn and Greenson had an argument, possibly about his need to get off the phone. Marilyn asks him “Where is my Nembutal?” This would be the first time that Greenson realised Marilyn had any Nembutal, as he understood Engleberg was not prescribing it to her anymore. Regardless, Greenson has to go and the call ends. Following that call, Marilyn returns to her room telling Murray on the way “I don’t think we’ll take that drive after all, Mrs. Murray.”
8.00pm – 9.00pm Peter Lawford calls Marilyn and asks her if she is coming to dinner as planned. (Marilyn had previously agreed to attend the Lawfords dinner party on the basis that she would go home early as she said Sunday was to be a busy day for her. ) Marilyn, sounding “weird, fuzzy and sleepy”, says she is tired and won’t be going. It wasn’t unusual to hear Marilyn’s voice like this so Lawford thinks she is either drunk or about to sleep after taking pills. What Marilyn says next worries Lawford – she allegedly says “Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to the President, and say goodbye to yourself because you’re a nice guy.” Marilyn’s voice trails off and Lawford presumes she has fallen asleep.
9.00pm – 10.00pm According to the autopsy report Marilyn had ingested a large amount of barbiturates (approx 42). Even taking into account her tolerance for Nembutal, which was said be, still awake and functioning on 30 pills, the amount of pills in her system was enough to kill the average person a few times over. In order to wean Marilyn off Nembutal, her doctors had her taking Chloral Hydrate, which had similar properties to Nembutal. Whilst her doctors claimed to have been weaning her off Nembutal, Dr. Hyman Engleberg, her physician, had prescribed it for her just one day before she died. Marilyn loses consciousness.
9.30pm to 10.00pm Milton Rudin calls the house to ask is Marilyn ok. Murray, not realising Rudin has received a call from a worried Lawford, thought nothing of it and told Rudin Marilyn is in bed.
12.00am to 03.00am Eunice Murray wakes up feeling something is wrong and finds Marilyn dead in her bed.
03.15am Ralph Greenson arrives at Marilyn’s house.
03.30am Hyman Engleberg arrives at Marilyn’s house.
04.25am The police are called and arrive at Marilyn’s house.
It is speculated that the time between doctors arriving and police being called was used to dispose of medications that had been prescribed in a ‘clean up’ of the scene to protect Hyman Engleberg.
It’s also important to note that Eunice Murray was criticised by police who said she should have called 911 first and not Greenson.