Broderick Softens Testimony on Being Hit by Ex-Husband

Elisabeth Anne (Betty) Broderick testified Wednesday that her husband “never really meant” to hit her during their marriage, but did--on several occasions.

Under cross-examination from Deputy Dist. Atty. Kerry Wells, Broderick softened comments made earlier in the week, in which she said her then-husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, often hit her so hard that she was left with a black eye, a sprained ankle, a broken sternum and other injuries. Broderick is accused of murder in the 1989 shooting deaths of her 44-year-old ex-husband and his new wife, Linda Broderick, 28.

“You actually broke your sternum?” Wells asked.

“Yes,” Broderick said.

“You actually broke the bone?”

“It’s not a bone. It’s a cartilage,” Broderick replied.

But when Wells continued to press about the severity of her injury, Broderick backed off from the assertion that her sternum had been broken.

“Well, that’s what it felt like . . . for a very long time,” Broderick said.

Broderick allegedly murdered the couple as they were lying in bed. Her first trial ended in a hung jury.

Wednesday’s session was cut short because two jurors came down with the flu.

Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Whelan decided against seating alternate jurors, and, at the close of Wednesday’s session, admonished jurors not to watch the ABC TV news show “20/20” Friday night. He said the network has scheduled a lengthy interview with Broderick.

Much of Wednesday’s cross-examination focused on Broderick’s suicide attempts, what Wells portrayed as Broderick’s unwillingness to challenge her ex-husband for custody of their four children, and her spending habits, which Wells characterized as lavish.

Wells asked Broderick if she remembered telling Ruth Roth, a licensed marriage, family and child therapist that Daniel Broderick would “die first” before she would ever agree to be “a single mother with four children.”

Roth recently testified that Broderick made such a comment during a counseling session.

Broderick said that at the time she was an “absolute basket case . . . horrified and scared” about raising four children alone without an official custody or support agreement with her ex-husband.