The Marilyn Tapes

Questions Still Remain About The Movie Star's Death

(CBS) 
On Aug. 4, 1962 Marilyn’s day reportedly began with a series of threatening phone calls.

"She’d been bothered by an anonymous female caller, who had been saying words to the effect, ‘Stay away from Bobby, you b****, stay away from Bobby,'" says Summers.

By late afternoon, Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn’s psychiatrist, was summoned to the house.

"He said she sounded a bit drugged and certainly depressed," says Summers.

According to newly released documents obtained by 48 Hours, Greenson said he "felt it was possible that Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to."

That evening, according to Peter Lawford, he called Marilyn to invite her to the beach house -but she decided not to come.

At 7:30 p.m. according to what she told police, Marilyn’s housekeeper, Eunice Murray, overheard Marilyn on the phone sounding happier.

"Marilyn came to her bedroom door. I was sitting in the living room. And she said, 'Good night Mrs. Murray. I think I’ll turn in now. And she closed the door," Murray told the BBC in 1985.

By 8:20 p.m., all seemed well in the house when Mrs. Murray tuned in to catch the last 10 minutes of Perry Mason, a popular TV show.

Sometime during that night, Marilyn called Carmen with what would later seem like an odd request.

"She wanted me to bring her over a couple of sleeping pills because she didn’t have any," says Carmen. "I had had a few drinks and I just didn’t think I could make it over there without getting arrested. So I said 'Marilyn, I can’t come over.'"

This is where the story takes a turn that would be called into question for decades. At 3:30 a.m., Murray saw Marilyn lying motionless on her bed. She quickly called Dr. Greenson; Marilyn's physician, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, was also awakened and rushed to her bedside.

"She was sprawled over the bed, and she was dead," Engelberg said in the audiotaped interview. "I took out my stethoscope to make sure her heart wasn’t beating. Checked her pupils because that’s one of the sensitive ways to tell if a person is dead or not. I said she was dead. Which, of course, Dr. Greenson knew anyway, but I had to go through the motions."

Engelberg told investigators in 1982 that he waited maybe half an hour before calling the police.

Asked why there was a delay, Dr. Engelberg said, "We were stunned. We were talking over what happened. What she had said."

The scene contained a mysterious clue: Marilyn was found clutching her telephone. Who was she calling?

As Marilyn’s lifeless body was taken to the morgue, police searched the death scene for clues to what killed her. Had America’s most famous movie star really taken her own life?

Just 12 days after her death, there was the announcement of an official finding when the coroner said Marilyn's death was a probable suicide.