Betty Broderick Dies at 78 in California Prison

Betty Broderick, convicted in 1991 of the second-degree murders of her ex-husband Daniel Broderick and his second wife Linda Kolkena Broderick, died early Friday morning at age 78 while serving a life sentence in California.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed that Broderick died at 3:40 a.m. on May 8 at an outside medical facility where she had been transferred on April 18 from the California Institution for Women in Chino for a higher level of care. A medical doctor determined the initial cause of death as natural, though the San Bernardino County Coroner will issue an official ruling following an autopsy. According to her son, Broderick had been in intensive care off prison grounds suffering from multiple septic infections after a fall weeks earlier that broke several ribs.

Broderick shot and killed Daniel Broderick, 44, a successful medical malpractice attorney, and Kolkena, 28, in the couple's San Diego bedroom on November 5, 1989. Authorities said she entered the home using a key she had taken from one of her children and fired multiple shots from a five-shot revolver as the pair slept. Daniel Broderick reached for a phone, but Broderick...