More than sixty years after Marilyn Monroe’s sudden death, the legendary actress and pop culture icon remains at the center of a swirling storm of controversy, speculation, and legal drama. Recent developments in Los Angeles have not only reignited the debate around the mysterious circumstances of her passing but also cast a spotlight on the fate of her last and only home—a modest Spanish Colonial-style hacienda nestled at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood.
On August 4, 1962, Monroe was found dead at the age of 36. The official cause was listed as an “accidental overdose,” but rumors of foul play and a cover-up have never faded. According to Reality Tea and Masala, new claims from Jeanne Carmen—a model, neighbor, and confidante of Monroe—have surfaced, suggesting that Monroe’s death was in fact a mob hit ordered by the notorious gangster Sam Giancana. Carmen’s son, Brandon, recounted, “Marilyn was killed by the mob on Sam Giancana’s orders. Two mob guys broke into her home that night and gave her a chloral hydrate enema. That’s what killed her.”
The alleged motive behind this chilling act? Silence. At the time, Monroe was rumored to be threatening to go public with details of her affairs with both President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Carmen claimed that Giancana had bugged Monroe’s Brentwood home, eavesdropping on her conversations in hopes of gathering dirt to blackmail the Kennedys, who were ramping up government efforts to crack down on organized crime. “The mob was listening,” Brandon explained. “They knew what was going on; they were just waiting for the right moment to strike.”
That moment, according to Carmen, came after Monroe had a heated argument with Bobby Kennedy inside her home on the night of her death. Monroe, reportedly distraught, took pills to calm down. Carmen’s account, as reported by Reality Tea, claims that Sam Giancana, having heard the fight through his surveillance, dispatched two men to carry out the fatal act. Jeanne Carmen was adamant: “Marilyn didn’t kill herself. She was murdered to keep her quiet.”
The coroner who performed Monroe’s autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, now 98, has also cast doubt on the official suicide ruling. According to Masala and Reality Tea, Dr. Noguchi has stated publicly that the examination was incomplete, crucial evidence was quickly lost, and he was blocked from fully investigating the possibility of murder. He pointed out a critical discrepancy: although many pills were found at the scene, Monroe’s stomach and intestines showed no trace of capsule residue. “The autopsy was rushed, and the body showed no signs of swallowed pills despite sedative bottles scattered around her room,” Dr. Noguchi said.
These explosive claims have fueled decades of conspiracy theories involving the highest levels of American politics, the mafia, and Hollywood’s elite. Biographer Darwin Porter backed the mob hit theory, pointing to Giancana’s clear motive: “Giancana had the motive to kill her – she was threatening to blow the lid off his operations.” Private investigator Milo Speriglio went even further, suggesting the mob may have acted as a favor to Kennedy family patriarch Joe Kennedy. Yet, not everyone buys into the murder theory. As one source told RadarOnline, “By all accounts, Monroe’s death appears to have been an overdose. Whether it was accidental or intentional, that’s another matter.”
While debate over Monroe’s tragic end continues, the physical site of her final days has become the focus of its own battle. The Brentwood home where Monroe spent her last six months was purchased in August 2023 by Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank for $8.4 million. The couple, who also own the adjacent property, planned to demolish the house and merge the lots. After acquiring a demolition permit from the Department of Building and Safety, their intentions sparked immediate outrage among Angelenos, historians, preservationists, and Monroe’s global fanbase.
Traci Park, the Los Angeles City Council member representing the area, responded to the outcry with urgency. “There is no other person or place in the city of Los Angeles as iconic as Marilyn Monroe and her Brentwood home,” Park said in June 2024. “To lose this piece of history, the only home that Marilyn Monroe ever owned, would be a devastating blow for historic preservation and for a city where less than 3 percent of historic designations are associated with women’s heritage.”
Despite the home’s significance—it was the first and only residence Monroe ever purchased herself—the owners argued the house had been heavily renovated by 14 different owners since 1962 and that there was “not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing,” as their lawsuit stated. They also contended that Monroe’s main residence was in New York, which she shared with her then-husband, playwright Arthur Miller.
Still, the city pressed forward. After hundreds of emails and phone calls from concerned citizens, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously in June 2024 to designate the home as a Historic Cultural Monument, a move later backed by the Cultural Heritage Commission. The house had been flagged as potentially significant in a 2013 evaluation, but the formal designation had languished until the demolition threat became imminent. Plans to backfill the kidney-shaped pool—famously captured in photographs as police responded to Monroe’s death—were also halted.
The legal fight reached its climax on September 8, 2025, when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant rejected Milstein and Bank’s lawsuit. In his ruling, Judge Chalfant called the owners’ request “an ill-disguised motion to win so that they can demolish the home and eliminate the historic cultural monument issue.” The court’s decision, as reported by The New York Times and Time Out Los Angeles, means Monroe’s home is now protected from demolition in perpetuity.
The story of Monroe’s home is, in many ways, a microcosm of Los Angeles itself—a city where real estate development often threatens to erase the past, but where public sentiment and cultural memory sometimes win out. As Time Out Los Angeles noted, “The house serves as a cultural mausoleum and symbol of historical preservation in Los Angeles.” The phrase cursum perficio—“the journey ends here”—is carved into the home’s porch, a fitting epigraph for both Monroe’s life and the long legal odyssey to save her last refuge.
For now, Monroe’s Brentwood home stands as a testament to the enduring fascination with her life, her death, and her place in American history. The mysteries may never be fully unraveled, but the house where her journey ended will remain, at least for the foreseeable future, a silent witness to one of Hollywood’s most enduring legends.
