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The acclaimed crime author also revealed that he believed that the Hollywood icon had a stutter as a child
Owen ScottTuesday 02 December 2025 14:37 GMT
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Marilyn Monroe was murdered in her Spanish-style, four-bedroom home in August 1962, according to a world-famous crime author who has sold just under half a billion books.
James Patterson, who penned Along Came a Spider and The President is Missing, believes that the blonde bombshell had found “information that was kind of dangerous” shortly before she died.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, ahead of the release of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe: A True Crime Thriller, Patterson claimed that cinema’s most famous woman had become entangled in a web spun by some of the most powerful people in the United States.
“I think that she was treading in very dangerous waters,” he said. “She had these incredible relationships with President Kennedy, and with Robert Kennedy, and with Sinatra, and with Mafia figures. They told her stuff, and she kept track of it. She had information that was kind of dangerous.”
open image in galleryJames Patterson has claimed the screen superstar Marilyn Monroe was murdered ahead of the release of his new book (© Twentieth Century Fox)Patterson, whose books have sold over 225 million copies, added that there was even “a lot of stuff I didn’t know” as he researched her story.
"The 11 foster homes. The fact that she had a pretty bad stutter when she was a kid," Patterson told The Hollywood Reporter. "I didn’t know much about the death scene, about the autopsy not being as complete as it should have been, that one of the detectives was convinced the scene was staged.”
Officially, Monroe died from an overdose of barbiturates on August 4, 1962, in what was ruled a probable suicide. Beside her body, authorities found an emptied bottle of Nembutal as well as pill containers on the nightstand in her Brentwood home.
The Some Like it Hot star’s death sent shockwaves around the world.
open image in galleryPatterson has been researching the star ahead of the release of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe: A True Crime ThrillerAfter she was interned at the Corridor of Memories at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, fascination with the circumstances of her death spread immediately.
One of the most well known conspiracy theories, first promoted by anti-communist campaigner Frank A. Capell, suggested that the United States Government had murdered Monroe after having an affair with President John F. Kennedy’s brother, the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
Norman Mailer’s Marilyn: A Biography took the conspiracy theory to mainstream audiences, with the acclaimed writer and journalist suggesting that the FBI or CIA had murdered the actress for her connection with the Kennedy family.
open image in galleryMonroe has long been the subject of conspiracy theories which have connected to her everyone from JFK to the leader of the mob (PA Archive)Other theories have suggested that Monroe was murdered by mob boss Sam Giancana and union leader Jimmy Hoffa, who wanted to obtain a book in which she had allegedly written the Kennedy family’s secrets.
Anthony Summers, one of the most prominent Monroe biographers, claimed that the Kennedy family had enabled the actress’s dependency on drugs and alcohol due to concerns that she could reveal their association with her.
In 1982, the Los Angeles District Attorney agreed to review the case but found no evidence to support the claims that Monroe had been murdered, according to Donald Spoto’s biography of the star.
