Broderick Interviews Describe Anger, Anxiety

“I am madder than hell, and I want to kill him for being lied to and cheated,” Elisabeth Broderick once said, describing the bitter divorce proceedings with her ex-husband, lawyer Daniel T. Broderick III.

And Daniel Broderick, perhaps in his own premonition of events yet to come, reflected on the abuse and torment he alleged he suffered from Elisabeth and said, “She’d like me to be destroyed.”

Daniel Broderick and his new wife, Linda, are dead, shot while sleeping in their Hillcrest home two Sunday mornings ago.

Elisabeth Broderick has pleaded not guilty to murder charges and remains without bail at the County Jail at Las Colinas. Locked up and confused, Elisabeth Broderick, according to her criminal defense attorney, is unaware of the seriousness of the charges filed against her and still believes her ex-husband is alive.

Using separate, tape-recorded interviews of Elisabeth and Daniel Broderick conducted last year, the Reader, a weekly San Diego newspaper, on Thursday published lengthy accounts of how each viewed the divorce case, the vengefulness of their ex-spouses, and how they seemed to foreshadow the events that purportedly led up to the double slaying Nov. 5 in Daniel Broderick’s master bedroom.

The Reader published a short article in January about the protracted divorce case and the fact that Daniel Broderick had successfully obtained a court order sealing the divorce records from public inspection.

But, after Daniel Broderick threatened a lawsuit for invasion of privacy, the Reader withheld publishing the interviews with the couple, saying the divorce case was not newsworthy at that time.

In the now-published interviews, it is clear that both Elisabeth and Daniel Broderick had grown to distrust each other, that Elisabeth was distraught about losing custody of their four children, and that Daniel felt he was at his wits’ end to control his ex-wife.

Daniel Broderick told the Reader that Elisabeth had burned his clothes, damaged his home and destroyed some of his personal property--all in a rage over the continuing divorce battle. He said he had her arrested and jailed for violent behavior, and once even saw that she was sent to a mental-health facility.

He said her irrational conduct was unsettling his new life with Linda, and was equally upsetting to the four children from the first marriage.

“All I want is peace and quiet,” he said. “That’s all I want.”

But that seemed unlikely, he said, because “she’s filled with hatred. I left her, and she’s mad about it. And she cannot let go of it.”

Elisabeth Broderick saw things differently. She felt taken advantage of by Daniel Broderick’s influential legal connections and tossed aside in the divorce. She described her settlement with him of more than $16,000 a month as not enough to provide her the style of living and social standing she was accustomed to from her wealthy upbringing in the New York area.

She acknowledged once ramming her car into Daniel Broderick’s front door, and said, “I’d do it again, only I’d do it better. I was mad!”