Betty Broderick Murder Case | Mental Health & Personality

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. Gandhi today's question asks if I can analyze the mental health and personality characteristics that may be at work in the Betty broderick murders Broderick murdered her ex-husband and his wife in 1989 just remind I'm not diagnosing anybody this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this so here a look at the background of Betty Broderick the timeline of the crimes I'll move to the mental health and personality factors and then look at her sentence and talk about my opinion on whether the sentence was just or not given the circumstances so starting with the background Betty Broderick was born on November 7 1947 in East Chester New York which is in the southern part of Westchester County she was the third of six children she graduated from high school in 1965 that same year she would meet 21 year old Dan Broderick at a party in South Bend Indiana she had traveled there to watch a Notre Dame football game she was 17 at that time the relationship was on and off for a while as Betty finished her degree in childhood education Betty would later say that Dan pursued her suggesting he was obsessive-compulsive and stalked her which is ironic considering her behavior in the future the couple would marry in 1969 and a lavish ceremony according to Betty the nature of the relationship shifted after this when they were dating she said she had her own vehicle her own money and freedom after they were married and took charge of everything she felt as though she had to do what he said Betty had five children between 1970 and 1979 one of her children died just a few days after he was born in 1973 not long after this Betty attempted to end her own life as Betty stayed home and watched the children Dan Broderick earned a medical degree and a law degree after completing a two-year clerkship dan took a job in San Diego California and the family moved to La Jolla California the job became the center of their existence Betty reported that all their friends were attorneys were wives and children of attorneys eventually the family moved to the coral reef neighborhood of San Diego in 1978 dan left his job and started his own practice he earned a considerable amount of money the family had a comfortable lifestyle in 1982 21 year-old Linda Coquina started working as a receptionist in the same building where dan had his office he began having an affair with her and shortly after that he hired her to work as his legal assistant within about a year Betty started to have suspicions that Dan was having an affair she confronted him on multiple occasions but he denied any infidelity Betty demanded that Dan fire Linda but he wouldn't do it November 7 1983 Betty turns 36 and Dan misses her party without providing a reason she attempted to end her life for a second time on Dan's 39th birthday Betty visited his office but discovered that Dan and Linda had already left for the day after she returned home she burned her husband's clothing as her children watched in September 1984 the family moved out of that house in Coral Reef to a five bedroom rental in La Jolla Shores evidently the coral reef home needed some repairs this living arrangement continued until 1985 when Dan moved back to the Coral Reef home saying they just needed some space Betty dropped off the children to Dan one-by-one saying things like you'll see what it's like raising a family by yourself eventually Dan obtained a court order designed to prevent Betty from entering the house but she kept coming over anyway there are a number of instances where Betty became aggressive she threw a wine bottle through a window she left angry voice messages on the answering machine she put a hole in one of the walls she spray-painted the curtains and walls and smeared pie on Dan's bed ever so subtly expressing some underlying anger many of these things that she did she did while the children watched and she would say things like the court can't keep me out of my own house dan filed for divorce in September 1985 this would begin a brutal divorce process that would last until 1980 evidently Dan leveraged his knowledge of the law and his contacts in the legal community to deprive Metis access to shared assets Betty claimed that she could not find adequate legal representation nan created his own system of financial penalties for Betty he would charge her $100 for every expletive that she used $250 for every time she walked onto the property five hundred dollars if she entered the house and one thousand dollars if she took one of the children without permission on top of these fines Betty was also put in jail a few times for violating the court order dan was held a house in Coral Reef and moved to the Balboa Park neighborhood Betty drove her car through the front door of that house during the sense that Dan tried to remove her from the car but she reached for a butcher knife she had under the seat after this we see betty spends three days in a mental health facility when the divorce was finalized in january 1989 betty lost custody of the children and received a settlement of twenty eight thousand dollars cash as well as sixteen thousand dollars a month in alimony evidently this was much lower than she had expected sometime around March 1989 betty purchases a five-shot Smith & Wesson 38 caliber revolver dan not soured on the idea of marriage marries Linda on April 22 1989 on the front lawn of their Balboa Park home the couple hired security guards for the ceremony because they were worried about Betty showing up the threats and the less than polite communication continued after the marriage now moving to the timeline of the crimes November 4 1989 Betty receives a letter from Dan threatening to take her back to court and preventing her from seeing her son's apparently this was because she kept leaving voice messages full of expletives the next day November 5 Betty Broderick eager to reserved the coveted prison venue for her 42nd birthday party which was just two days away drives to Dan's house and makes entry about 5:30 a.m. using a key she had stolen from her daughter Lee she made her way to the master bedroom to find 40 four year old dan and 28 year old Linda sleeping she fired all five shots from the revolver Linda was struck in the head and the chest she died instantly dan was struck in the chest once and evidently he survived for a few minutes before succumbing to his injuries two of the shots missed at some point after the attack Betty also removed the phone in an effort to prevent Dan from getting help Betty called her daughter Leigh and among other things communicated that Dan's last words were okay you shot me I'm dead technically of course I'm dying would have been more appropriate but under the circumstances it's understandable after this she turned herself in to the police Betty would later say that she just wanted to go there and make them listen and end her own life forgetting that being shot at detracts from the application of quality listening skills now moving to the trial the facts of the actual murders were not really in dispute during the first or the second trial Betty had shot both Dan and Linda the trial was really about whether if she committed second-degree murder or manslaughter essentially the same narrative is presented by both the prosecution and the defense in both trials the prosecution argued that the murders were premeditated they portrayed Betty's escalating violent behavior the fact that she stole the key to the house and the fact that she entered the house and killed both victims as evidence that the crime was planned according to the state betty was a cold-hearted killer the defense argued that Betty was the victim in this case dan had committed to her by marrying her and raising a family together then he broke that commitment by having an affair during the divorce he took custody of the children he told Betty that she was crazy what we would now refer to as gaslighting and then he limited her access to financial resources he lied repeatedly over the course of years therefore caused emotional damage that led to Betty killing him and Linda they argued that it did not rise to the level of second-degree murder in the 1990 trial the jury could not decide between second-degree murder and manslaughter in the 1991 trial the jury convicted Betty of two counts of second-degree murder she received two sentences of 15 years to life and another two years for the illegal use of a firearm she was denied parole a few times evidently because she did not show any remorse she is eligible again in 2032 she will be 84 years old at that time she has referred to herself as a political prisoner because she was denied parole now moving to the mental health and personality factors during her trial a mental health expert named dr. Park Dietz testified that Betty had both histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders I really thought about this idea of both histrionic and narcissistic personality disorder as far as Betty's behavior let's look at history onic first how does this align with her behavior this disorder has eight symptoms one is uncomfortable when not the center of attention that could be inappropriately sexually seductive I don't really see that here rapidly shifting and shallow emotions may be using physical appearance to draw attention to himself we do see that she bought a 40,000 dollar fur coat while she was getting divorced but that alone wouldn't necessarily aligned with this criterion excessively impressionistic speech I don't really see that self traumatizing and theatrical that's a possibility being suggestible I don't really see this one and evaluates relationships as more intimate than they are I don't know about this one but we do see where she thought that everybody would side with her automatically after she committed these murders but that's not really the same thing it does show a distortion though and how other people are seeing her so someone could make an argument for maybe four of these symptoms but I don't necessarily think this is a good fit with her behavior now looking at narcissistic person is order here we see 9 symptoms grandiosity fantasies of success and power believing oneself to be special or unique requiring excessive admiration having a sense of entitlement being manipulative lacking empathy often being envious and having an arrogant attitude I don't see strong support for most of these one could make an argument about a lack of empathy being manipulative and the sense of entitlement however in through this case I'm surprised that borderline personality disorder really wasn't brought up very often if we look at this disorder we see an argument could be made for five of the symptoms frantic efforts to avoid abandonment impulsivity and at least two areas that are potentially self damaging suicidal behavior affective instability and inappropriate or intense anger or difficulty controlling anger as far as the other symptoms it doesn't seem like there's good alignment it seems reasonable to believe that perhaps borderline wasn't brought up because that would have been a more sympathetic disorder than something like histrionic or narcissistic but has a more negative connotation even though all these disorders along with antisocial makeup cluster B personality pathology the real question with these personality traits would be were they present before the affair because one of the arguments that can be made here is that this was situational she was reacting to the extreme stress of dealing with somebody who is narcissistic so was her behavior a long-standing pattern or was it due to narcissism exposure this is an interesting case as far as the conceptualization because it's so polarizing there are some people who look at this case and say this is first to Reimer she walked into the room she shocked two people death that's the end of the story others look at the behavior of both Dan and Linda as completely unacceptable they ran off they had this affair dan repeatedly lied about it while trying to tell Betty that she was the problem and then he uses his education that he received with the support of Betty to defeat her in a court of law figuratively speaking Betty handed Dan a gun that he would later use to shoot her it seems reasonable to believe that both Betty and Dan had cluster B personality features perhaps Dan was more of a grandiose narcissist had a sense of entitlement he dominated her he didn't like her anymore because he found somebody younger and more attractive he was ready to trade her in and upgrade indicating a degree of shallowness in the case of Betty she simply couldn't cope with this she couldn't recognize that the relationship was over she was holding on to something that had died long before she believed it was her right to have Dan for the rest of her life she believes she was entitled to a certain lifestyle to the perfect family to the mansion the ideal life was shattered and her identity was tied to that life so her identity shared the same fate this case is so tragic because two people died for no reason their deaths didn't bring Betty peace her lifestyle in prison can't be better than the one she could have had on $16,000 a month it would appear that she is intransigent and unrepentant she still believes that she did the right thing society should have taken her side that because she was the victim of an affair she had the right to kill it's likely she would have been paroled if she could have just expressed regret she never truly accepted responsibility she said that when she took one step into that bedroom that morning in nineteen nine Lynda yelled call the police and then the gun just went off by itself five times evidently the gun aimed itself - so was justice served in this case what do we think about the verdict and the sentence in this case well I can appreciate that betty was the victim of narcissism exposure but there are indications that her behavior was aggressive long before the affair I think both the conviction and the sentence were fair most anyone could appreciate that she had every right to be upset but she took it way too far now another question I related to this is what was Dan thinking by being unprepared in his home somebody just gets the key comes in and kills them based on the behavior that she had manifested over many years it was clear that she was dangerous even just he driving the car into the house incident would be enough to convince somebody that she wasn't playing around why didn't Dan have a firearm near his bed a dog an alarm system how is it that he felt safe especially after he just sent a letter that he knew would provoke Betty he even indicated in that letter that he knew it would make her angry well the answer to the question may be narcissism the day he was married he reportedly said that Betty would never hurt him because he was too valuable to her he was paying the alimony at the time he was married this nearly delusional thinking made it easy for Betty to end both his life and Linda's life so there are my thoughts on Betty Broderick if you like this content please subscribe and consider supporting me on patreon I'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 261,686

Rating: 4.8624449 out of 5

Keywords: Betty Broderick, Dan Broderick, Linda Kolkena, histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissism exposure, narcissistic personality disorder, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, shame, anger, aggression, hypersensitivity, defensive, avoidant, depressed, socially awkward, neurotic, manipulative, blame-shifting, gaslighting, self-esteem, manipulation, arrogance, self-centeredness, jealousy, fantasy, entitlement, grandiosity, requires admiration, lack of empathy

Id: 89MmahIQ-A4

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 13 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ItsYourMotherDear]

I have met Betty at least 5 times over the years. She is Borderline Personality Disorder. She was always able to stay somewhat in control because she focused on parenting her kids but when they were out of her care she was just incapable of not physically acting out. She still has some highs and lows but underneath it she is a very maternal woman.