Fiery Summations Heard in Murder Case : Slayings: The defense and prosecution paint wildly divergent portraits of the socialite charged in the two killings.

In highly emotional summations, a defense attorney and a prosecutor painted two wildly divergent pictures of the woman who has admitted killing her former husband and his new, young wife as they slept.

Calling it an ambush and a double execution, a prosecutor said Wednesday that La Jolla socialite Elisabeth Anne (Betty) Broderick fully intended to kill her ex-husband and his wife because she crept into their bedroom while they slept and “blew them away.”

But as he has throughout the trial, defense attorney Jack Earley characterized Broderick as an emotionally devastated woman who had intended only to kill herself.

In a summation that the defense said badly miscast Broderick’s emotional state, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kerry Wells said the killings were the culmination of years of planning and a smoldering, constant hate for her ex-husband, prominent lawyer Daniel T. Broderick III.

When the time was right--after their four-year divorce was over, when Betty Broderick had nothing left to gain in the courts and needed again to be the “center of attention”--she killed him and his new wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, Wells said.

Urging the jury to return two first-degree murder convictions, Wells said, “You don’t point a .38-caliber gun loaded with hollow-tipped bullets at two people lying in bed early in the morning and fire without intending to kill them.”

Broderick, 43, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Nov. 5, 1989, killings. She could be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Daniel Broderick, who was 44, was a leading medical malpractice lawyer and a former president of the San Diego County Bar Assn. Linda Broderick, who was 28, was his office assistant.

After 16 years of marriage, Daniel and Betty Broderick separated in 1985. During their bitter divorce, which was not final until 1989, she accused her husband of cheating her out of her fair share of his seven-figure annual income.

Earley said Wednesday that, as Betty Broderick had testified, she sought only to talk to Daniel Broderick when she stole into his house, then crept into his bedroom before dawn.

The Brodericks’ bitter divorce had made her feel immense emotions of anger, rage and depression, Earley said. Broderick stepped into the bedroom and encountered another rush of emotion because, for the first time, she saw her ex-husband in bed with his new wife, he said.

She fired her gun, but not in a cold and calculating way. Instead, she was at the mercy of her emotions, out of control, like a boat without a rudder, Earley said.

“Her act was one of craziness, one of emotion, one that should never have happened,” he said.

Both lawyers were emotional during their closing arguments, raising their voices often and gesturing frequently to the jury. Broderick, however, wrote notes to her attorney and, for the most part, sat impassively with her chin in a hand, looking away from the jury.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Thomas Whelan said he would instruct jurors today on their five options in the case--first- and second-degree murder, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter and not guilty on any charges.

The case, which has aroused extraordinary attention in San Diego, drew an overflow crowd Wednesday to the county courthouse that included civics students from El Cajon Valley High School.