Motive Probed as Broderick Trial Begins : Justice: Attorney for woman accused of killing ex-husband and his new wife concedes his client pulled the trigger, but focuses on why.

Elisabeth Anne (Betty) Broderick killed her ex-husband and his new wife after sneaking into their house while they slept, but she had no intent to murder, and emptied her .38-caliber revolver only after being startled, her defense lawyer said Monday.

Rejecting the prosecution’s claim that Broderick “made the choice to kill,” attorney Jack Earley opened her defense by admitting that Broderick fired the shots that mortally wounded Daniel T. Broderick III and his new wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick.

When Betty Broderick fired, she felt “every emotion a person could probably feel--fear, depression, anger and hurt,” Earley said. But, he contended, her bitter divorce from Daniel Broderick, which left her without the custody of her four children and in financial trouble, made her feel like killing only herself.

“What you see left is a person who hurts, with no self-esteem, no way of dealing with problems, someone who was acting on emotions thrust on her,” Earley said.

Broderick brushed away tears as Earley recited her plight.

She had stared straight ahead and ignored the jury as Deputy Dist. Atty. Kerry Wells painted a different picture, telling jurors that Betty Broderick’s “hatred for Daniel Broderick became the absolute focus of her life,” an obsession that resulted in two cold and calculated murders.

“There was no way (Betty Broderick) was going to let them live happily ever after,” Wells said.

Broderick, 42, is charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths last Nov. 5 of her ex-husband and his new wife.

Daniel Broderick was a prominent medical malpractice lawyer and a former county bar president. During and after their bitter divorce, Betty Broderick accused her husband of using his legal influence to cheat her out of her fair share of his seven-figure income.

Betty Broderick, who has pleaded innocent, has been held without bail at the County Jail in Las Colinas since November. If convicted, she could be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

As the trial opened Monday, prosecutor Wells said killing Daniel Broderick had been an act that his ex-wife had been “talking about, thinking about, deliberating over for a long, long time.”

She had married him because he was “going to be a money-maker,” Wells said. When he finally began making big money in the mid-1980s but then began the process of divorcing her, she felt “she was being gypped,” Wells said.

As for Linda Broderick, Wells said, she “had what (Betty Broderick) still felt belonged to her, and only her, and she hated her for it.”

Two weeks before the killings, Wells said, Betty Broderick told a housekeeper, “I’m either going to make (Daniel Broderick’s) life a living hell or I’m going to kill him.”

On Nov. 3, Betty Broderick received a letter, the last in a chain of letters from her ex-husband or his lawyers, telling her to stop leaving vulgar or angry messages on his home telephone answering machine, Wells said.

Wells played for the jury some of the messages that Betty Broderick had left on the machine in the previous months. One said: “I’ve got very important things to ask you. You’re making me mad. I’ll kill you.”

Early on the morning of Nov. 5, Wells said, Betty Broderick looked again at the new letter, then drove from her La Jolla house to Marston Hills. “At that point, she clearly had the opportunity to stop and think about what she was doing,” Wells said.

However, she entered the house with her daughter’s keys, Wells said. Climbing the stairs and entering the bedroom, where her ex-husband and his wife were sleeping, Betty Broderick began shooting, Wells said.

The first shot hit Linda Broderick in the chest, she said. The second hit Daniel Broderick in the back. The third and fourth missed. The fifth hit Linda Broderick in the back of the head and killed her instantly, Wells said.

Daniel Broderick “essentially was left to suffocate in his own blood and die,” Wells said.

Betty Broderick ripped a phone out of the wall, left the house, called friends and, on the advice of a lawyer, surrendered later that morning, Wells said.

“This case is not only about murder, it’s about premeditated murder,” she said.

As testimony began, Wells displayed a series of photos of the killing scene, pictures of the victims soaked in blood on and next to the bed. Betty Broderick did not look at the photos.

One of the first witnesses, San Diego Police Officer Terrence DeGelder, testified that the phone ripped out of the wall was found with the cord wrapped tightly around it, suggesting that that was part of a plan.

The prosecution’s own photos, however, showed the wire trailing away from the phone, Earley pointed out--and DeGelder changed his recollection.

Like that contradiction, Earley said, the case was just not that simple.

When Betty Broderick entered the house, she sought only to talk to her ex-husband, who had alternately harassed her, intimidated her and, worst of all, ignored her during the divorce, Earley said.

All of it, Earley said, was a calculated campaign to marry Linda Kolkena and to convince Betty Broderick that she was crazy. He nicknamed her “The Fat One,” Earley said, and would ask their four children, “Did The Fat One call you today? What’s your crazy mother doing now?”

Betty Broderick’s intent, Earley said, was to kill herself if she couldn’t talk to her ex-husband. But, as Betty Broderick stood before the victims’ bed, she heard a yell, “Call the police,” and saw her ex-husband reach for the phone.

“Set off” by the yell, Betty began firing wildly, Earley said. She doesn’t even remember firing all five rounds, only the first shot, he said.

Betty ripped the phone off the wall, he said, but not to prevent Daniel or Linda from calling for help. It was to keep him from having her arrested for violating a court order requiring her to keep away from them, Earley said.

“We don’t contest the facts,” Earley said. The issue, however, is, “What is her mental state? What is going on? What made her do this?”

The trial is expected to take four weeks. Testimony is to resume today with Kim Broderick, one of Betty and Daniel’s two daughters, taking the stand.