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.”
Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortenson or Norma Jean Baker, 1926 – 1962). Photo: Getty
Today’s News in 90 – Wednesday, December 3
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 said. “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.
One of the most well-known conspiracy theories suggested that the US 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 the mainstream, with the acclaimed journalist suggesting that the FBI or CIA had murdered the actress for her connection with the Kennedy family.
Other theories 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.