Why James Patterson Believes Marilyn Monroe Was Murdered

Best­selling author James Pat­ter­son has a chill­ing the­o­ry about one of Hollywood’s most haunt­ing mys­ter­ies — the death of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe.

The 78-year-old crime writer, whose upcom­ing aut­ofic­tion The Last Days of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe: A True Crime Thriller explores the final weeks of the leg­endary star, believes Monroe’s death was no acci­dent. Accord­ing to Pat­ter­son, the actress may have been mur­dered because of her prox­im­i­ty to some of the most pow­er­ful men of her time — Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy, Sen­a­tor Robert F. Kennedy, and Frank Sina­tra.

“I think she was tread­ing in very dan­ger­ous waters,” Pat­ter­son told The Hol­ly­wood Reporter. “They told her stuff, and she kept track of it. She had infor­ma­tion that was kind of dan­ger­ous.”

The Dangerous Circles Marilyn Moved In

Pat­ter­son, who co-wrote the nov­el with Imo­gen Edwards-Jones, said their research uncov­ered new and unset­tling details about the star’s final days. While the book is labeled as a work of fic­tion in fine print, Pat­ter­son insists that many of its events are based on real find­ings.

“A lot of peo­ple don’t know the sto­ry,” he explained. “There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know. I didn’t know much about the death scene. The key is, a lot of peo­ple know about her a bit, but not that much — you’d be sur­prised.”

The author’s fas­ci­na­tion with Mon­roe isn’t new. Her mys­te­ri­ous pass­ing in August 1962, at just 36 years old, has puz­zled the world for decades. Found life­less in her Los Ange­les home, she was said to have died of a bar­bi­tu­rate over­dose. Emp­ty med­i­cine bot­tles lay beside her bed, and offi­cials declared it a prob­a­ble sui­cide.

Yet the whis­pers nev­er stopped.

Decades of Doubt

Monroe’s entan­gle­ments with polit­i­cal pow­er­hous­es and enter­tain­ment elites only deep­ened sus­pi­cion. Could some­one have want­ed her silenced? By the 1980s, pub­lic pres­sure forced the Los Ange­les Coun­ty Dis­trict Attorney’s Office to reopen the case. But even then, the con­clu­sion remained uncer­tain.

“Based on the evi­dence avail­able to us,” then–district attor­ney John Van de Kamp told the Los Ange­les Times, “it appears that her death could have been a sui­cide or a result of an acci­den­tal drug over­dose.”

The report not­ed that prov­ing mur­der would require “a mas­sive, in-place con­spir­a­cy” involv­ing not just poten­tial killers, but med­ical exam­in­ers, police offi­cers, and even supe­ri­ors in law enforce­ment. Inves­ti­ga­tors said they found “no cred­i­ble evi­dence sup­port­ing a mur­der the­o­ry.”

Still, for those who see Monroe’s sto­ry as a tragedy woven with secrets, offi­cial expla­na­tions don’t set­tle the mat­ter.

Marilyn’s Immortal Legacy

No oth­er actress has remained as vivid­ly alive in mem­o­ry as Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe. Beyond her trag­ic end­ing, her image is eter­nal — the blonde bomb­shell in a hal­ter dress, laugh­ing over a sub­way grate in The Sev­en Year Itch.

Her fash­ion moments defined Hol­ly­wood glam­our:

• The daz­zling white gown from The Sev­en Year Itch that float­ed around her in one of cinema’s most icon­ic shots.
• The skin-tight, rhine­stone-embroi­dered “naked” dress she wore to sing “Hap­py Birth­day, Mr. Pres­i­dent” to JFK at Madi­son Square Gar­den in 1962.
• The hot pink satin gown from Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes, for­ev­er immor­tal­ized in the num­ber “Dia­monds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”, lat­er echoed by Madon­na in Mate­r­i­al Girl.
• The shim­mer­ing gold lamé pleat­ed gown that cap­tured her allure in por­traits, and the emer­ald sequined dress she wore to the 1962 Gold­en Globes.
• Even her play­ful “pota­to sack” dress — a tongue-in-cheek response to a crit­ic who claimed she’d look bet­ter in one — became a sen­sa­tion.

Each look told part of her sto­ry: lumi­nous, sen­su­al, untouch­able, yet impos­si­bly human.

Patterson’s Take

For Pat­ter­son, Monroe’s death is more than a mys­tery — it’s a para­ble of pow­er, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and betray­al. “She knew too much,” he sug­gests, por­tray­ing her not as a frag­ile vic­tim but as a woman who dared to live close to dan­ger.

The Last Days of Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe: A True Crime Thriller is both fic­tion and inves­ti­ga­tion, a blend of cold case and cau­tion­ary tale. “Peo­ple think they know Mar­i­lyn,” Pat­ter­son said. “But she’s still got secrets. And they might be more dan­ger­ous than any­one ever imag­ined.”