Marilyn Monroe died from a barbiturate overdose on the night of August 4, 1962, at her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles. She was 36 years old. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office ruled her death a “probable suicide,” a conclusion based on the toxicology findings and her history of previous overdoses.
The Night of August 4, 1962
Monroe’s final evening followed what seemed like a relatively normal pattern. Between 7:00 and 7:15 p.m., she took a phone call from Joe DiMaggio Jr., the son of her ex-husband, who told her he had broken up with a girlfriend Monroe didn’t like. DiMaggio later said he detected nothing alarming in her behavior during the call. Around 7:40 p.m., Monroe phoned her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, to share the news about the breakup. She retired to her bedroom around 8:00 p.m.
Shortly after, actor Peter Lawford called to invite her to a party. Lawford grew concerned because Monroe sounded like she was under the influence of drugs. She reportedly told him, “Say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to the president, and say goodbye to yourself, because you’re a nice guy,” before trailing off. Lawford tried repeatedly to reach her again but couldn’t get through. He called his agent, who eventually contacted Monroe’s lawyer, Milton Rudin. Rudin phoned the house and was told by Monroe’s housekeeper, Eunice Murray, that everything was fine.
At roughly 3:30 a.m. on August 5, Murray woke up “sensing that something was wrong.” She saw light coming from under Monroe’s bedroom door but got no response when she called out, and the door was locked. On Greenson’s advice, Murray looked through an outside window and saw Monroe lying facedown on her bed, nude and covered by a sheet, clutching a telephone receiver. Greenson broke through the window to get inside and found her dead. Her physician, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, arrived around 3:50 a.m. and officially confirmed the death. Police were notified at 4:25 a.m.
What the Autopsy Found
The toxicology report revealed lethal levels of barbiturates in Monroe’s system. She had been taking multiple sedatives, including phenobarbital and other powerful sleeping medications. Some sources indicate she was also using the painkiller Demerol. At the time of her death, she had prescriptions from more than one doctor, a situation that made it easier to accumulate dangerous quantities of medication without any single physician seeing the full picture.
The coroner classified the manner of death as “probable suicide” rather than a definitive suicide. That wording reflected the evidence available: the drug levels were clearly fatal and consistent with an intentional overdose, but absolute certainty about intent wasn’t possible. Monroe had a documented history of prior overdoses, which weighed heavily in the ruling.
Monroe’s Mental Health Before Her Death
Monroe had struggled with serious mental health problems for years. She was under the care of Dr. Greenson, a prominent Beverly Hills psychiatrist, and had been prescribed a cocktail of barbiturates and other sedatives to manage insomnia, anxiety, and depression. The final months of her life showed a progressive worsening of her condition. She had been fired from her last film, “Something’s Got to Give,” in June 1962 after repeated absences, and her personal life was turbulent.
After her death, the coroner’s office commissioned a psychological autopsy, one of the earliest formal attempts to reconstruct a person’s mental state leading up to death. The team from the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center examined her behavioral patterns, medical history, and the accounts of people close to her. Their findings supported the coroner’s conclusion of probable suicide, noting the pattern of escalating distress and previous self-harm.
Why Conspiracy Theories Persisted
Monroe’s connections to powerful political figures, particularly President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, fueled decades of speculation that her death was not a suicide. Theories ranged from a government cover-up to murder staged to look like an overdose. Adding fuel to the doubt, Deputy Coroner Lionel Grandison publicly claimed he had been pressured into signing the autopsy report.
These claims prompted the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office to conduct a formal reinvestigation in 1982. Over three and a half months, investigators reviewed the original evidence and explored the murder theories. The reinvestigation found no evidence supporting foul play and no evidence of a police cover-up. It reaffirmed the original conclusion that Monroe died of a self-inflicted overdose.
The gap between Murray discovering the body around 3:30 a.m. and police being called at 4:25 a.m. has also drawn scrutiny. Critics have pointed to that delay, along with inconsistencies in witness statements, as signs of a cover-up. Supporters of the official finding note that the people in the house were in shock, that Greenson and Engelberg needed time to arrive and confirm the death, and that witness accounts in traumatic situations are often unreliable without anything sinister being involved.
A Dangerous Prescribing Environment
Monroe’s death also reflects the prescribing culture of early 1960s Hollywood. Barbiturates were widely used as sleep aids and anti-anxiety medications, and the risks of dependence and fatal overdose were not as well understood or as carefully monitored as they would be in later decades. Monroe had multiple doctors prescribing her powerful sedatives, sometimes without full knowledge of what the others had given her. This kind of overlapping prescribing, now recognized as a major overdose risk factor, was far more common and less regulated at the time. Whether her final overdose was intentional or the result of impaired judgment from heavy sedation, the sheer volume of drugs available to her made a fatal outcome almost inevitable at some point.