Linda Broderick Was Married for Less Than a Year Before Her Murder

When Daniel Broderick III and his second wife, Linda Broderick, were found dead in their San Diego, Calif., home, it didn't take long for authorities to place the blame on Daniel Broderick III's first wife, Betty Broderick. She was later charged with and convicted of the murders, but there are still questions about who his second wife was and, curiously, if Linda Broderick was pregnant at the time of her death.

In 1991, Betty Broderick was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder. She was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 15 years to life, along with two additional years for the illegal use of a firearm. After being denied parole multiple times, she won't be eligible again until 2032. But what of the woman she was convicted of murdering, alongside the husband Betty had been divorced from for merely months at the time?

Linda and Danielle Broderick III were murdered in their home in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 1989. This was just months after they were married and after Danielle Broderick III's divorce from Betty Broderick was finalized. Although Daniel Broderick III had four children with his first wife, there weren't any confirmed reports citing Linda Broderick being pregnant at the time of her death.

However, according to Oxygen, Linda Broderick's sister Maggie Seats told former Los Angeles Times reporter and author of Until the Twelfth of Never Bella Stumbo that Linda Broderick had wanted children.

"Our expectation was to grow up and have children," Seats told her. "You worked to work, not to have a career. We weren't cultured that way. The man would always be the breadwinner."  She added that all Linda Broderick "ever really wanted to be was a wife and a mother."

Shortly after the murders took place, Betty Broderick turned herself into the police. She didn't deny that she had been the one to shoot her ex-husband and Linda Broderick, but instead claimed she had been startled by Linda Broderick's screams to call the police and accidentally fired off the shots that killed them both.

Those claims did nothing to deter a jury, which found her guilty of murder rather than something less severe like manslaughter.

In 2010, 2011, and 2017, Betty Broderick was denied parole three separate times. At her 2010 parole hearing, Betty Broderick said, "I allowed the voices in my head to completely take over. I took the lives of two wonderful people who were loved by many." Regardless of what she had meant, her parole was still denied.

Today, she is still incarcerated at the California Institution for Women. While there have been multiple TV specials and even a miniseries based on the murders, Betty Broderick hasn't openly spoken much about the case in recent years. She will be eligible for parole again in 2032, when she will be 84 years old.