title: Until the Twelfth of Never: The Deadly Divorce of Dan & Betty Broderick
author:  Bella Stumbo 
description: Betty Broderick was positioned, by personality and acculturation, to be a victim of her husband, in the view of Stumbo, a recently retired reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Betty, described as beautiful and intelligent, was raised by her rigidly Catholic parents to be the loving wife of one man and the mother of his children. She was also trained to have "an infinite capacity to put on a happy face." She helped support Dan while he attended Cornell Medical School and Harvard Law School; after they moved to San Diego, he became a millionaire and president of the local bar association. When Dan began an affair with a former airline stewardess, he divorced Betty and determined to deprive her of their shared assets in a settlement. The San Diego legal community closed ranks behind him in his campaign of what one psychiatrist described as "legal abuse." In 1989, after several years of this treatment, Betty fatally shot both Dan and his new wife Linda. Betty's first trial ended in a hung jury, her second in a guilty verdict and a sentence of 30 years to life. Stumbo's sensitive portrait is not so partisan as to depict Betty as a saintly martyr, but it is nonetheless a searing depiction of a woman so conditioned by what she perceived as traditional femininity that she became self-destructive, "a woman in ruins." Photos not seen by PW. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  BETTY AND DAN BRODERICK. AN INSIDE LOOK.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By Pat Dwyer
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1. Introduction.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 2. Dan Broderick and Betty cross paths
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 3. Dan and Betty marry.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 4. Chaos slowly begins.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 5. Dan and Betty Divorce.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 6. The shooting and trials.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 7. The conclusion.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Every now and then a story comes along in the news that really generates
  interest. The media, the public, seem to have an endless quest to grasp it,
  review it and replay the issue over and over again. With such a high criteria,
  very few subject matters fit this exclusive profile. The 1963 assassination of
  then President Jack Kennedy does, the 1990’s era Orenthal James Simpson trial
  did and so did the late 1980’s and early 1990’s California based controversial
  divorce and th