LOS ANGELES -- Marilyn Monroe's last words were a farewell to President Kennedy, actor Peter Lawford and his wife in a phone call she made to Lawford hours before she was found dead, a police report says.
The report, released Monday by Chief Daryl Gates, seeks to dispel 23 years of speculation that Monroe was murdered and authorities covered it up.
'Say goodbye to Pat (Lawford's wife), say goodbye to Jack (President Kennedy) and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy,' Monroe said, according to Lawford.
Lawford, who died earlier this year, told police that Monroe was upset about the loss of her contract with 20th Century Fox Studios and personal matters, 'presumably the romance with Robert Kennedy.'
Lawford, whose wife was a sister of the Kennedys, said the sex symbol sounded sleepy when she called and said his agent talked him out of going to Monroe's house after the telephone went dead.
Gates Monday said the report confirmed the official version of Monroe's death in 1962 -- that she committed suicide by swallowing dozens of sleeping pills.
A department spokesman said the report was released to dispel 'speculation, innuendo and out-and-out lies' that Monroe was murdered and that police and coroner's officials covered it up to protect Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
The half-inch-thick report counters charges raised in an October 1975 article in Oui magazine that suggested Monroe, 36, was murdered with a lethal injection of barbiturates.
The magazine suggested the police and coroner distorted evidence to protect Kennedy, who, the article claimed, was present when Monroe received the fatal overdose.
If the police were seeking to end the controversy over Monroe's death they did not succeed.
Anthony Summers, a former BBC reporter whose book on Monroe's life and death will be released this week, said from New York that he obtained the same material earlier this year and characterized it as 'superficial.'
'There is no way the material could be regarded as substantial enough to quell reasons for (further) inquiry into why Marilyn died,' he said. 'I don't claim that she was murdered, but the case remains open. I don't think she committed suicide. It was either accidental or she was murdered.'
Critics of the official suicide theory claim Monroe was injected with the fatal drug dosage, but the police report stated that such injections would have caused puncture wounds and needle marks, which were not found during the autopsy.
Another section of the report was devoted Coroner Theodore J. Curphey's contention that Monroe was subject to abrupt mood changes and had a history of taking barbiturates.
'On these occasions, she had called for help and had been rescued,' Curphey said in the report. 'From the information collected about the events of the evening of Aug. 4, it is our opinion that the same pattern was repeated -- except for the rescue.'
Curphey said massive doses of Nembutol and chloral hydrate 'gulped within a minute or two' killed the glamor queen.
Chief Gates said the report shows Monroe's death was definitely a suicide.
'She committed suicide by barbiturates; that is the reality, and there is nothing very special about it except for the fact that she was Marilyn Monroe. It's not a pretty story,' Gates said. 'It's very tragic.'
Censored from the report were telephone numbers from Monroe's last phone bill,and death scene photos taken at her home in Los Angeles.
Gates said the deletions were made 'to protect people's privacy.'
