NEED TO KNOW
Betty Broderick, convicted of killing her ex-husband Dan and his new wife, died in prison at age 78 on Friday, May 8, 2026
Her four kids were divided for decades over her actions and punishment, with some supporting her release from prison and others opposing it
Two of Betty’s children first debuted their split opinions in a high-profile Oprah Winfrey Show interview in 1992
After decades behind bars, Betty Broderick has died at age 78. During an infamous appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, her kids were memorably divided about their mom’s punishment, and continued to be in the decades leading up to her death.
Betty was serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole when she died in the early hours of Friday, May 8, per the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She was convicted of second-degree murder with an enhancement for use of a firearm after shooting and killing her ex-husband, Dan Broderick, and his new wife, Linda Kolkena, in their bed on Nov. 5, 1989.
She also gained national notoriety for the incident, which came after an affair between Dan and Kolkena, and a messy divorce that saw her and Dan, a lawyer, battle over the sale of their family home and custody of their four children: Kim, Lee, Dan Jr. and Rhett.
In the 1992 Oprah Winfrey Show interview, host Oprah Winfrey spoke with two of Betty’s kids, Kim and Dan Jr., who were divided about their mother’s punishment.
Betty was serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole when, per the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, she died in the early hours of Friday, May 8. She was convicted of second-degree murder with an enhancement for use of a firearm after shooting and killing her ex-husband, Dan Broderick, and his new wife, Linda Kolkena, in their bed on Nov. 5, 1989.
Betty Broderick’s mug shot
Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
At the time, Betty’s eldest daughter Kim, who also testified against her mom in court, said, “I talk to some people, and they say things like, ‘Oh, well I relate to her,’ and ‘After all your father did to her.’ And they obviously haven’t been listening because dad didn’t do all these things to her.”
“And he definitely didn’t deserve to die, and they shouldn’t look up at her for doing that,” added Kim.
The exes’ eldest daughter also claimed that after her dad moved out, Betty dropped off her kids one by one on his doorstep with all of their belongings — her mother’s way of trying to “screw up Dad,” Kim said.
“I think Mom thought that it was going to be a total disaster and that then we’d all see that we needed her. And that we can’t do it without her,” she said on The Oprah Winfrey Show. “And so, basically, she just used us as pawns and took us over there to screw up Dad.”
Following her transfer from San Diego County to the California Institution for Women, Betty also revealed to Winfrey that none of her four children had yet been to see her in prison. She asked to include “a small glimpse of what her new home looks like,” the talk show host said before revealing footage of her visit to the facility.
“It’s too costly and it’s too hard for them to get here,” Betty said on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
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Betty Broderick in court in 1991
Credit: San Diego Union-Tribune/AP Photo
In a later interview of his own, Rhett opened up to Winfrey, 72, about why he strongly believed his mother should be released from prison, per Oprah.com. “She’s a nice lady,” he said of his mom. “Everyone here would like her … if they spoke with her on any topic other than my dad.”
“Keeping her in prison isn’t really helping her,” he continued of Betty. “She’s not a danger to society—the only two people she was a danger to are dead.”
Rhett also recalled thinking that he was not “really surprised” after learning of the murder. “On multiple occasions [my brother and I] went to my dad and said to him that we wanted to live with my mom, and that not having her kids was driving her crazy—and that she could do something extremely irrational if she didn’t have us,” he said of Betty.
The children continued to be split at a 2010 parole hearing for Betty.
Her daughter Lee — whom Betty had called just after the shooting, before turning herself in — testified that her mom should be able to “live her later life outside prison walls,” according to CBS News.
Dan Jr., meanwhile, asserted that “releasing a lost person into society could be a dangerous mistake.”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nz.news.yahoo.com ’
