Paul Holes, the veteran investigator who solved the Golden State Killer case, has reopened questions about Marilyn Monroe’s death more than 60 years after she was found dead in her bed in August 1962. Monroe was officially ruled to have died by suicide from an overdose, but Holes says the surviving scene photo and the evidence raise serious doubts about what happened that night.
Speaking in a report published Sunday by Fox News, Holes said the lone surviving crime-scene image shows unusual signs, including prescription bottles arranged too neatly on the bedside table. He argues that someone taking a fatal overdose would not likely be concerned with tidiness in their final moments. He is especially focused on an empty bottle of Nembutal, a powerful sedative for which Monroe received a prescription for 50 pills two days before her death.
Holes also says the autopsy findings do not fit the official theory. No trace of Nembutal was found in Monroe’s stomach, and he finds it hard to accept the explanation that the pills had already absorbed into her blood and liver. He points to possible medical negligence, saying Monroe also used chloral hydrate and that Dr. Engelberg was not fully transparent about the complete list of medications he prescribed. In his view, under modern standards, doctors who gave such extensive prescriptions without close supervision could face criminal scrutiny.
The investigator further criticized the delay in calling police. Psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson found Monroe’s body after breaking a window to enter the locked room, but nearly an hour passed before law enforcement was notified. Holes said that if the scene had been treated as a homicide from the start, key questions might have been answered more clearly. He also noted long-standing FBI surveillance tied to Monroe’s associations with people linked to communism, and suggested sealed FBI files about her conversations with John and Robert Kennedy may still exist. Holes said he has no proof of murder, only evidence of a flawed investigation, and believes the case could still benefit from testimony by relatives of original witnesses and from previously unseen classified material.
