Antonovich an Odd Addition to the Monroe Saga : Inquiry: The conservative supervisor pushed for county investigations of the star’s death in ’82 and ’85. He says an August TV show raised legitimate issues.

An attempt by a Los Angeles County supervisor last week to reopen the investigation into Marilyn Monroe’s death drew a bevy of conspiracy-theory advocates to the county building, only one of whom professed to have known the sex symbol before her 1962 death by barbiturate overdose.

They spoke of cover-ups, of affairs with the Kennedys, of conflicting stories and botched autopsy reports. They spoke of the books and movies they have written and produced.

Urgency entered their voices: “Everywhere you look there are questions,” said Andrew Hittinger, co-executive producer of “The Marilyn Files,” which aired on television last month. “There are still surviving today people, who, before they pass away, could provide answers.”

But the question on many people’s minds was why Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the largely Republican Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys and favors blue pin-striped suits and conservative causes, had aligned himself with the Monroe zealots, many of whom believe that the late Robert Kennedy had her killed to prevent her from publicizing their much-rumored affair.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn accused Antonovich of political motives. “Is this all a political drama . . . geared to the presidential election and to smear the Kennedys?” Hahn asked.

Antonovich responded that the timing had nothing to do with partisan politics and everything to do with the August television program. The show raised some legitimate issues about Monroe’s death 30 years ago, he said, including the fact that neither of two earlier inquiries commissioned by supervisors included taking testimony under oath.

But Antonovich became interested in the Monroe saga long before August. He pushed for county investigations in 1982 and 1985. In fact, his leadership on the issue was so well-known that producers of “The Marilyn Files” interviewed him and included his name and address at the end of the program, encouraging viewers to write if they wanted to see the case reopened.

Dawson Oppenheimer, Antonovich’s spokesman, said the supervisor first became convinced that the Monroe investigation had been botched by the county coroner after various news accounts in the early 1980s--including a series in the New York Post--pointed to irregularities in the case.

“He doesn’t think he knows that it was murder and he realizes that the people who come forward on this issue all have an ax to grind,” Oppenheimer said. “But he sees that the same questions keep popping up time and time again and there are never any answers.”

After “The Marilyn Files” ran, Antonovich’s office was deluged with at least 1,900 viewer letters from as far away as Australia, which he said fueled his skepticism about the case.

All but a few of the letter writers pleaded for a new investigation, Oppenheimer said.

“There were a lot of really good letters, but there also were a fair share of peculiar letters,” Oppenheimer said.

True, a couple of letters dwelled on a CIA conspiracy, one saying that the CIA had killed not only Monroe, but also Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Kennedys--all because of their open-minded attitudes.

A few other letter writers were angry, admonishing Antonovich to concentrate on solving the county’s current budget crisis instead of on resurrecting inquiries into long-dead stars.

But the vast majority of the correspondence mirrored one from Nicole Neave-Cowley of Hamilton Australia, who wrote on Aug. 17: “I believe that you’re a good man and would want justice done in your America.”

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Last week, Antonovich said that the television show piqued his curiosity to ask the county coroner’s office about its files a few weeks ago. He said he was told that “there are some other documents in the Monroe file that are classified and confidential to the general public.” At a minimum, he suggested, that file should be opened to the public.

The board declined to even second Antonovich’s motion to reinvestigate, causing his motion to die. But past board members had voted with him twice before, instructing the county district attorney’s office to probe details of Monroe’s untimely death in 1962 and asking the county grand jury to take a look at some new information in 1985.

Another inquiry was done in 1975 by the Los Angeles Police Department following a Oui magazine story critical of the department’s handling of the original investigation.

Neither Antonovich nor die-hard Monroe supporters like Robert F. Slatzer were satisfied by any of those reviews. They said key players were never interviewed under oath, including an ambulance driver who claims Monroe was still alive when he took her to the hospital early on the morning of her death.

“There’s one crime been committed and that’s not looking into this when we should have, and the other was when the district attorney threw this out,” said Slatzer, who has written two books about Monroe and claims he was secretly married to her for a short time in “the early 1950s.”

Slatzer said evidence of cover-up shenanigans could be seen as recently as 1985, when the grand jury foreman--Antonovich ally Sam Cordova--was removed from the panel after announcing that he would ask an independent prosecutor to reopen the investigation. Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said the removal was prompted by complaints from other grand jury members that Cordova had repeatedly made unauthorized statements on their behalf, a charge that Cordova denied.

The real problem, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Carroll, who headed the 1982 investigation, is that the statute of limitations ran out long ago on everything but murder.

“The statute on conspiracy ran out in three years,” Carroll said. An investigation would only be warranted if new information pointed to murder, he said.

Carroll told supervisors that the investigation team was frequently sidetracked in 1982 by new disclosures in the tabloid press, but that, in the end, all the clues indicated Monroe had committed suicide.

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Monroe boosters were having none of it, shaking their heads vigorously from their seats in the audience and shouting “liar.” Patte Barham, author of “Marilyn: The Last Take,” rose to the microphone wearing a red tam-o’-shanter.

“If there’s nothing to hide, why is everyone so afraid to look in the files?” she asked.

Barham said that through research for her book--research that she said proved “very scary”--she became convinced that Monroe was the victim of foul play and that details were left out of reports on her death “for political reasons.”

But when pressed about the sources of any new information that might support reopening the investigation, Barham sidestepped, saying she had to protect her sources: “We cannot mention their names because naturally they want to live a little longer.”

As the dejected group left the supervisors’ chambers, Slatzer’s assistant and fiancee--another platinum blonde--shouted: “We’ll be back. We’ll be back.”

But Oppenheimer said he doubts Antonovich will raise the issue again, despite calls from several people in recent days offering to pay for a private investigation.

“The problem is that as time goes by, the trail will get colder and colder and colder,” he said. “Mike is very aware of that.”