The tale of Linda Kolkena is more bizarre than any Netflix season. Within a week or two of Linda Kolkena and her husband Dan’s deaths, everyone in the US knew who she was.
But as Spencer Busby, a friend of Linda and Dan, put it, “There are no winners here.”
What actually transpired to Linda Kolkena, and why was it such a hot topic? Exists any other information regarding the case? Let’s investigate.
Daniel Broderick and Linda Kolkena tied the knot on April 22, 1989, during a lovely, sunny day.
Little did the pair know as they exchanged vows in the backyard of Marston Hills in San Diego that their marriage would be far from a “happily ever after”.
Linda was a stunning young wife who was raised a Catholic by Danish parents. When she fell in love with Dan Broderick, she was 21 years old.
It’s amazing how much Betty and Linda look alike when you look at pictures from their younger selves.
Dan was already married to Betty Broderick when Kolkena first met him. He had been married to Betty for 14 years. The couple have four kids together.
Dan resumed his law career out of the office where Linda worked as the receptionist. The relationship between Dan and Linda quickly came to light. At one gathering, Betty overheard Dan describing Linda as “beautiful.”
However, Betty didn’t care about it at the time. This was only a phase, a poor period, too foolish to be true.
On November 22, 1983, however, the truth came to light. Betty surprised Dan by showing up to his workplace on his birthday.
However, Dan spent the day outside with Linda. Betty waited until five o’clock, but no one showed there. She then saw leftovers from a party in Dan’s office.
In February 1985, Dan moved out of the home he shared with his family. He and Linda Kolkena became engaged in June 1988. Dan married Linda after his divorce from Betty was legally settled.
It wasn’t, however, a carefree wedding. Concerned about Betty’s warning, Linda.
Dan’s wearing a bulletproof vest at the wedding was even proposed by her. Dan, though, shrugged it off and decided to hire security to watch over the couple.
Thankfully, there was calm and harmony during the wedding. Later, the couple went on their honeymoon to the Caribbean.
Linda had a happy life. With Dan, she was enjoying the life of her dreams.
The couple’s answering machine occasionally played voice mail. They came from Betty calling Linda a number of derogatory names and cursing at her.
The lines “Eat your heart out, bitch,” were written over a picture of Dan and Linda that Betty had also got in the mail along with an unnamed message.
Betty questioned Linda’s guilt. Betty claims Linda also gave her anti-wrinkle treatments and refused to return the wedding china.
Using a house key she stole from her daughter, Betty entered Dan and Linda’s home on the dreadful morning of November 5, 1989.
Betty walked to the bedroom while toting a brand-new pistol. When Linda awoke, she yelled. Betty began to fire.
Three of the five bullets she fired struck Dan in the back, while the other two struck Linda, one in the neck and the other in the breast.
Both were fatally shot. Linda was 28 years old, and Dan was 17 days away from turning 45.
600 people showed up for Dan and Linda’s funeral at San Diego’s St. Joseph’s Catholic Cathedral five days after the attack.
The couple’s names were permanently etched into the annals of mystery and sorrow when they were interred at San Diego’s Greenwood Memorial Park.
With his ex-wife Betty Broderick, Dan had four children at the time of his death: Lee, Kimberly, Daniel IV, and Rhett Broderick.
Dan’s will, which was written a year before his passing, directed that his three children be given an equal share of his estate. Lee, his second-oldest daughter, received “no provision” from him.
Dan allegedly excluded his daughter Lee from his will because she struggled with drugs and school issues.
Lee’s connection to their mother did not cause him to exclude her from the will.
At the age of 75, Betty is currently incarcerated in Chino, California’s California Institution for Women.
Betty’s children visit her in prison and remain close to her. Betty remarked, “I didn’t want all their recollections of those times to be of going to see Mom in jail.
Without a doubt, the tragic tale of Dan Broderick, Linda Kolkena, and Linda Kolkena involves an obsession.
Everyone loses their happiness, and children do suffer the most.
The second season of the Dirty John anthology series, Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, examines the problems surrounding what Oprah termed “one of America’s messiest divorces.”
Dan and Betty Broderick were a wealthy San Diego couple, and news of their traumatic divorce process spread across the country.
The main characters in Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story are Dan and Betty, played by Christian Slater and Amanda Peet, but the show also explores how their conflict affected their four children and Dan’s girlfriend and subsequently second wife, Linda Kolkena.
She was portrayed by Rachel Heller. Linda Kolkena subsequently experienced the negative effects of the unhappy divorce outcome.
Months after the divorce was finalized, on November 5, 1989, Betty broke into Kolkena and Dan’s bedroom and shot them both viciously.
In April of that same year, the pair was hitched. 28 was Kolkena’s age.
Betty Broderick is currently incarcerated serving her sentence. Three novels, numerous documentaries, an Emmy-nominated film, and now a Dirty John season have all been based on her narrative.
In Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story, Betty’s perspective on the events leading up to the night she shot and killed Dan and his second wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, on November 5, 1989, is the main focus.
Betty claimed that Dan, a well-known lawyer at the time, was abusing his “legal influence to cheat her out of her fair share of his seven-figure annual income” during their bitter divorce battle in the late 1980s, as we see in the series and what actually occurred, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Moreover, Betty was subjected to psychological assault by Dan, according to her defense attorneys.
In the fall of 1991, Betty told The New York Times, “He took my home, my kids, and my money.” The manner he thrashed you was a white-collar method. I could have exposed him to the public and forced him to stop if he had struck me with a baseball bat.
It was a reality that shocked and divided a large portion of the nation, with some seeing Betty Broderick as a cold-blooded killer while others questioned and even understood her claims of mental torture.
Dan and Betty were wed in 1969. She helped him pay for his education in law and medicine. They had four children at the same time.
Betty is alleged to have a challenging personality and to have occasionally behaved abusively against her children.
At the time of the murder, she had two days left till her 42nd birthday.
Because of the 1989 killings of her ex-husband Dan Broderick and his new wife Linda Kolkena, Betty Broderick is still behind bars in 2023. Betty stated in the 1991 New York Times story, “But jail life, she acknowledged, offers advantages over her old one. “I live a lot happier now than I did when I had all that money,”
Betty Broderick claimed that she still speaks to and sees her and Dan’s children, Kimberly, Kathy Lee, Dan Jr., and Rhett, in her 2015 autobiography Betty Broderick: Telling on Myself. They gave testimony during the parole hearing in 2010 when Betty came up for parole.