Until the Twelfth of Never - Should Betty Broderick ever be free? by Stumbo Bella

Author:Stumbo, Bella [Stumbo, Bella]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Taylor Street Publishing
Published: 2013-02-04T05:00:00+00:00

"Mr. Broderick, when did this case really start?"

"February 28, 1985," he said.

"Is that when you estimate this case started?" she challenged.

"Well, the case actually started in October of 1985 when I filed the [divorce] action," he said.

"When did this divorce actually start?" she persisted.

"At our separation, if that's what you mean," said Dan, trying to satisfy her.

"No, no," she lectured. "When did this divorce start?" He was tired of her interrogation already.

"I guess April 12, 1969, to tell you the truth," he said. Their wedding day.

It would be the single most hurtful remark he made in trial. Years later, she would still feel the sting of it. "How could the sonofabitch take away all the good memories, too?" she once asked from jail, on the verge of tears. "Just because he wanted to leave me for Linda Kolkena, why did he have to erase our whole life together? We had so many good times …"

But that day, she stayed on track. "No ... All right. What I'm trying to get at," she told him, "is when did I first become aware of your affair with Linda Kolkena?"

Barry objected. The question was irrelevant. Howatt agreed and delivered his first lecture to Betty about the nature of no-fault divorce proceedings.

"In California," he told her, "as you may have become aware, the issue is not one of whose fault the divorce was, because it is no longer a fault proceeding. We do not have the issue of finding fault with one party as opposed to the other. We are only here to decide the questions of division of property, the assets of the community, your interest and his interest in those assets, and the determination of the appropriate parent for custody of the children."

Betty argued it. "I understand those facts," she said. "But I [also] understand that my interest in the community was improperly manipulated for two and a half years purposely and with malice before this case was filed by an expert attorney. That's very important to my case!" Her questions were aimed at showing, she said, how Dan had begun to cut her out of their community assets from the time he began his affair with Linda.

Okay, said Howatt. "Let's start … and see if there is anything that you can develop with regard to the assets. You have to relate to the assets, okay? And not to any alleged affair or liaison." He also told her to stop talking so fast and interrupting him and the witness. Betty agreed—and then resumed exactly where she had left off.

"Do you remember what my reaction was when you hired this girl?" she asked next.

"Your Honor," Barry protested, "I don't want to make it difficult on Ms. Broderick, but I don't see the relevance of the question."

"Again," Howatt told Betty, "we are dealing with the area of fault."

She vowed to move on to the matter of the houses.

But Betty would never really move on until she felt like it. When she wanted, she could be dense as mud and tenacious as an army of cockroaches.

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