Marilyn Monroe was murdered, and her death was made to look like suicide. This has long been rumored – but I know it for a certainty.
I also know, because I was there, how just one week earlier she was used as bait in a mafia plot to blackmail President John F Kennedy and his brother Bobby – by secretly filming the three of them having sex together.
So many people know pieces of the story. When you put them all together, like a jigsaw puzzle, you get the full picture. And I’m doing that in my book, Mafia Secrets.
One of those who was either involved or who knew the killers was club owner Joe DeCarlo, a guy I knew through playing backgammon at Pips Disco in Beverly Hills.
Joe was connected – he once had dinner at Jimmy Carter’s White House with Cher on his arm. He’d been tried for murder too, and acquitted.
One time, Joe was watching a TV show that said Bobby Kennedy had an alibi for Marilyn’s murder. That set him off.
He knew. Bobby and the Rat Pack movie actor Peter Lawford went to Marilyn’s house that Saturday evening on August 4, 1962, he said. Their intent was to talk her out of having a tell-all press conference.
She wanted to tell the media how Bobby got her knocked up – and forced her into having an abortion when she was six weeks’ pregnant.
Marilyn wanted to tell the media how Bobby got her knocked up – and forced her into having an abortion when she was six weeks’ pregnant
According to Russo, Marilyn Monroe was murdered, and her death was made to look like suicide
Russo claims he has put the jigsaw pieces together to tell the truth about Marilyn’s death
They begged her to shut up. Marilyn told them to get lost.
‘So they sent people there,’ DeCarlo said. ‘They had it handled, no needles, anal. A drug enema.’
That ties up with new research by investigative journalist Mark Shaw. He interviewed a pair of hitmen who claimed to have done some dirty work for the Kennedys.
On the night of the murder, Bobby opened Marilyn’s bedroom window and his men climbed in. The men were not identified by name, just as ‘Bobby’s guys.’
Somehow, they subdued her, probably with a tranquilizer. Once she was out of it, they grabbed her and positioned her, ass up.
They took her medication, diluted it into a solution and then, using a hypodermic syringe, injected it into the mucous membranes of her bowels, a massive dope enema, shot directly into her bloodstream for immediate effect.
The coroner Dr Thomas Noguchi’s autopsy report supports the anal-overdose theory. There was a ‘purplish discoloration’ in Marilyn’s lower colon, he noted.
When the intruders broke in, Marilyn was on the phone to a friend, a woman named Louise.
The break-in interrupted their conversation. The hoods pulled Marilyn away from the phone, but they didn’t hang up the receiver.
Marilyn Monroe is pictured standing between Robert Kennedy, left, and John F Kennedy, center right, in 1962
John F Kennedy with his brother-in-law Peter Lawford, left, who was said to be at Marilyn’s house the night she died
Joe DeCarlo (left) was connected – he once had dinner at Jimmy Carter’s White House with Cher on his arm
There were sounds of a struggle and then silence.
The FBI traced that last phone call and questioned Louise. She knew who the killers were, because she heard Marilyn say their names. But Louise refused to tell investigators anything, insisting: ‘I can’t. Not if I want my family to live.’
Marilyn’s death came as no surprise to me. Just one week earlier, the mafia godfather Frank Costello, alias the Ambassador, confided to me that it was inevitable the Kennedys were going to put out a contract on her.
She was telling anyone who would listen what Jack and Bobby were really like.
‘They’re going to kill her,’ Mr Costello said.
He was my mentor. I had polio as a kid, and Mr Costello once saw me selling ballpoint pens on a street corner for nickels. He took pity and gave me five bucks.
A few hours later, a hitman took a shot at him. The bullet grazed his scalp.
Mr Costello reckoned I was his good luck charm, and nicknamed me The Kid. For years, that was the only name I had or needed.
To get me off a truancy rap with the education board, Mr Costello enrolled me at the Wilfred Academy Beauty School on New York’s Seventh Avenue. My job as a trainee was washing the customers’ hair.
Great job – the ladies used to take off their clothes in front of me. I’d help them on with a robe.
One day I was about to lather a head when I realized I was washing the hair of Marilyn Monroe. She was in New York, living at the Waldorf Astoria – where I later learned Mr Costello was footing the bill – and taking acting classes at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg.
Mobster Frank Costello was paying for Marilyn’s suite at the Waldorf Astoria – he would soon call in his favor
Mob boss Frank Costello planned to film Marilyn having sex with both Kennedy brothers, to blackmail them
Russo with Marilyn shortly before she died – he claims he had a brief affair with the star when he was a shampoo boy at her hair salon
She asked me to give her an extra-long wash because it felt so good. Then she invited me to up to her suite at the Waldorf, which led to me getting into a bathtub with her.
We made love for an entire weekend.
Years later, when I first met Marlon Brando, Marilyn long in her grave, I told him the story and he didn’t believe me.
I told him where her secret scar was. Then he believed me.
Marilyn must’ve known that she was indebted to Mr Costello and one day he was going to ask her to return the favor. When that time came, it blindsided her.
The Kennedys owed everything to the mob, but they didn’t want to pay. During Prohibition, Mr Costello and Joe Kennedy, the family patriarch, were partners in bootlegging and rum-running. That’s how Joe made his fortune.
But Joe suffered a massive stroke that left him in a wheelchair, barely able to talk. He lost his grip on the family.
Jack turned his back on all the promises he made to the mob during his election campaign.
And Bobby, who was attorney general, went to war on organized crime – attacking the very entity that helped get his brother into the White House. It was like he had a death wish.
Mr Costello laid a plan to set the Kennedys up in a sex scandal that would force them to keep their promises.
The brothers were to be invited to the Cal-Neva Lodge, a rustic resort on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, directly on the Nevada-California border.
The place was owned on paper by Frank Sinatra, but actually by Sam Giancana.
The plan was for Marilyn to have three-way sex with both Kennedy brothers in her bungalow. The session would be filmed by a hidden movie camera operated by Sam Giancana himself.
Jack turned his back on all the promises he made to the mob during his election campaign. And Bobby, who was attorney general, went to war on organized crime – attacking the very entity that helped get his brother into the White House
The plan was for Marilyn to have three-way sex with both Kennedy brothers in her bungalow
The Kennedy brothers were invited to the Cal-Neva Lodge, a resort on the north shore of Lake Tahoe
Marilyn with singer Buddy Greco and Frank Sinatra at the Cal-Neva Lodge
Marilyn with Sinatra and an unidentified man at the Cal-Neva Lodge
The wired bungalow – film with sound – was Cabin 3. It was known as ‘the girls’ cabin.’
Mr Costello gave me my instructions: ‘Marilyn Monroe is going to be there – and I want you to stay away from her.’
He was blunt. If the Kennedy boys didn’t show, they were dead.
If Sinatra didn’t show, he was dead.
Everyone better show up or they were dead.
On Friday night, July 27, 1962, I was by the pool at Cal-Neva when Sinatra came out bare chested. He looked at me for a second or two, figuring out why I was there.
Then he said: ‘How ya doin’, Kid?’
Peter Lawford came strolling in, with a woman in dark glasses – Marilyn.
It wasn’t hard to figure out the exact moment when she found out that she was part of a plan to ruin the Kennedys.
Frank Sinatra gently took her away from everyone and whispered in her ear in private. She began to scream bloody murder.
Marilyn’s death came as no surprise to Russo
‘The only two men around that I knew of were Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana (pictured). I later heard Giancana raped her’
She wanted nothing to do with the blackmail plan.
Bobby showed up and when Marilyn saw him, love was not in the air.
Once I realized that the plan wasn’t going to come off, I left Cal-Neva and reported back to Mr Costello that Marilyn was just one of the problems. The President was a no-show.
By the time I left, Marilyn was asleep, dead drunk in her bungalow, and the only two men around that I knew of were Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana.
I later heard Giancana raped her.
One week later she was dead.
Bobby gave the order, but so many others had her blood on their hands.
Mafia Secrets: Untold Tales From The Hollywood Godfather, by Gianni Russo with Michael Benson, is published by Citadel
