Death of Marilyn Monroe: Coroner Who Performed Autopsy Still Has Doubts 63 Years Later

Marilyn Monroe, the starlet famous for many things, including an affair with President John F. Kennedy, reportedly committed suicide sometime on August 4, 1962. A junior coroner named Thomas Noguchi was somehow tasked with the autopsy despite the notoriety of the case. He eventually ruled it a suicide, but…

More than six decades later, Noguchi, 98, still has his doubts. The cause of death was ruled an overdose of sedatives. Next to her bed were found a bottle of the sleep medication Nembutal and a partially empty bottle of the powerful sedative chloral hydrate.

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The autopsy, however, found no traces of pill consumption, nor of injection marks. A full autopsy proved impossible since the head toxologist disposed of Ms. Monroe’s internal organs before they could be diagnosed.

The actress was found face down and naked on the morning of August 5, 1962, when her home attendant noted a light on in her bedroom at 3 a.m. and the door locked from the inside. She called Ms. Monroe’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, who came to the actress’s home and broke into her bedroom through a window.

Reportedly, Ms. Monroe had been visited by Robert F. Kennedy, then U.S. attorney general and brother of the president, the afternoon/evening of her reported suicide. Conspiracy theories immediately began circulating, as both of the Kennedy brothers had been rumored to have had affairs with the actress of “Some Like It Hot” and other Hollywood blockbusters.

One theory has it that the actress was given enough sedatives to conk her out and then was delivered a fatal enema. Dr. Noguchi himself even found bruises on her hip when he visited the scene of the reported suicide.

Noguchi went on to become known as the coroner to the stars — as he later examined the bodies of RFK, Sharon Tate, John Belushi and others — but to this day still has his doubts whether Ms. Monroe’s death was truly a suicide.