Doris Duke-Murderer

An interesting read about how Doris Duke got away with murder.

Doesn’t have the same ring as “Paul Lynd... murderer??” But interesting story

Interesting read. Doris Duke was a very insecure and sad person, made that way by wealth and people using her. She was clearly a damaged and very hurt person. If she killed him with intent i wonder if she was in her right mind? Drugs, alcohol, manic depressive rage? She was a vindictive old bitch but was she really a murderer? Her usual revenge seemed to take place in court. Spose we will never know.

Looks like Ryan Murphy has his next show.

I believe it was pure spite, r2. Were it not, she would have settled the court case, I believe.

I also believe because the victim was a gay man, there was less outrage at his death than there would have been were he a straight man with children.

Then as now, the ultra-rich were functionally above the law.

Nothing to see here people. Fake news, fake news

Karma got her in the end though

What a sad story. He sounds like he had a great life that was going to be even better once he left her employ.

Now I want to watch The Sandpiper again.

She perjured herself in her testimony, and clearly, the evidence showed he jumped onto the hood of the car, rather than being pinned between the car and gates. She pumped millions of dollars into the local historical society and police department shortly after. Ugly cunt.

Karma: She was murdered by her gay butler, Bernard Lafferty, whom she had earlier named executor of her $1.2 billion estate. There were multiple lawsuits and he was eventually paid millions to go away. The sordid true details of her death were whitewashed/covered up and are hard to find now.

"It's time for Doris to die now."

Interesting article. What a sad, troubled life she lived in spite of her riches.

She killed him, sure, but only Doris Duke knew if it was with intention- murder.

Of course Doris Duke killed Eduardo Tirella ; but there was no way in 1960's Newport or even RI that a woman of her social rank and wealth was ever going to be arrested much less tried. Just ask Ann Woodward......

What is even sadder is how so much of Newport (including LE and local district attorney among others) , who Doris Duke normally treated as if they didn't count, took up for her

Eduardo Tirella was killed at least three times; once by Doris Duke, then his memory by same and local Newport society, finally RI courts who deemed his life not worth much.

She killed a gay man and a gay man killed her

George V wasn't the only famous person put down by morphine; Doris Duke got hers via IV drip, but never the less intent was same...

None of her grand estate were very attractive.

R10

Lafferty received a flat 4.5 million plus annual salary of $500k to "go away". He probably spent half or more of those millions charging things to first Doris Duke's CCs, then billing the estate. He also got interest free loans from US Trust IIRC.

In any event Mr. Lafferty didn't live long to enjoy is loot; estate was settled in 1995 (IIRC), and he died in 1996.

This being DL it's time to bring things on home....

In another thread there is talk about David and Victoria Beckam's son Brooklyn is engaged to marry a Miss. Nicola Peltz.

Miss Peltz is daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz. Her mother's sister however is Charlene Gail Heffner (aka Chandi Duke Heffner) the Hare Krishna young woman who was adopted by Doris Duke and after fighting a battle with her late adopted mother's estate received $65 million settlement.

Fascinating read. I’d never heard of this case. Thanks OP!

Was she related to John Wayne?

r22 No Rose, but she was related to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Duke Ellington

Thank you for posting - though I’ve read this before, I love VF’s long crime articles and just reread Trail of a Killer about Andrew Cunanan.

She was rich, donated a shitload of money to aids research, loved huge penises, and was played by Lauren Bacall in a TV movie. I’m surprised datalounge talks about anything else!

I loved the Lauren Bacall movie about Duke

I love that movie too. I don't think it got good reviews though, and Lauren, who should have at least been nominated for an Emmy (along with Richard Chamberlain as Bernard, Kathleen Quinlan as her nasty bitch of a mother and Brian Dennehy as Louis Bromfield, whom Bacall knew in real life!), but was not. One very funny scene has Bacall (then 75) telling off her aging mother (Quinlan, who was 45), then tossing Quinlan's ancient fur coat onto a pile of burning leaves in the cemetery after she dies.

Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton were frenemies who though close as teenagers drifted into an intense rivalry as grown women. They even shared the same husband; Dominican Playboy, Porfirio “Rubi” Rubirosa who Barbara Hutton married within a year after Doris Duke divorced.

In the end suppose DD has the last laugh; she outlived Barbara Hutton by about twenty years, and died a wealthy woman. Barbara Hutton died virtually penniless far as cash in bank was concerned, but managed to hold to her fabulous jewelry collection which contained pieces once owned by a Romanov duchess.

Barbara Hutton's jewels...

Anyone who has driven an automobile knows Barbara Hutton's version of events couldn't be true.

Since the 1960's (if not before) for most makes of automobiles one must depress a button or lever to release emergency brake that goes up or down. The old fashioned pedal types on floor obviously are different, but this model car did not have that sort of emergency brake.

Thus Barbara Hutton couldn't have just disengaged emergency brake by sliding over to drivers side. She would have had to make a conscious decision to release said brake.

It is really sickening how local Newport LE went straight to play book of "what to do when a wealthy white female commits a crime".

r30 Sweetie, it was Doris Duke, not Barbara Hutton

Gloria Vanderbilt did not kill that man!

R32, it was Consuelo Vanderbilt who ran that homosexual decorator over! Good heavens, the whole Doris Duke murder story is something even Truman Capote couldn't have dreamt up.

Truman Capote didn't dream things up. He just stabbed his friends in the back by writing their stories.

It wasn't Doris Duke, or Barbara Hutton, or Gloria or Consuelo Vanderbilt, it was Brooke Astor in a MG Convertible with Truman Capote in the passenger seat out the front of The Breakers.

Mrs. Astor's daughter-in-law tried to hasten her death by denying her medical care near the end while egging her husband on to steal money and valuables from her while she was incapacitated. Her friends realized what was going on and took the matter to court. Kenneth Lane was appointed her conservator and she lived a few more years well cared for. Her son went to jail.

^ Her friends and her grandson. He testified against his father.

Brooke Astor's son was a monster.

As for the murder, Sunny von Bulow couldn't have done it.

[quote]Brooke Astor's son was a monster.

And his wife was Lady MacBeth. She should have faced criminal charges too.

I was wrong above. Annette de la Renta, Oscar's wife, was appointed her guardian, not Kenneth J. Lane.

There was a L&O: Criminal Intent episode partly based on this.

To be fair, Brooke Astor was a... disengaged mother, at best. Doesn't mean she got what she deserved, but shipping your kid off at a young age to be raised by strangers and virtually ignoring him throughout his life increases the odds that he'll turn out to be a bit of a sociopath, at minimum. Too bad more people don't take the long view and realize that raising their children with a bit of love and nurturing will serve them well later on when they're old and the kids are in a position of power over them. Then maybe self-interest would motivate them to be engaged parents, at least.

Doris Day was a murderer?

"This episode is ripped from the headlines of the Brooke Astor story. Anthony D. Marshall was accused of mistreating his mother, afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, in 2006. Along with reducing her medications and not maintaining her quarters, rumors circulated that he was helping himself to her estate by giving himself raises, selling beloved paintings and giving unapproved money to theater productions. A petition for change of guardianship was filed by Mrs. Astor's grandson Phillip Marshall in July 2006, which was granted along with her removal to a hospital for recovery and finally transfer to one of her homes where she died in 2007. That same year criminal charges were filed against Anthony and an estate attorney, both resulting in guilty verdicts on October 8, 2009." _____________________________

Captain Danny Ross: I know she's supposed to be in fragile health, but pay a call on Lady Harrington; find out if she's really signing these papers, or if they're robbing her grave before she's even in it.

You can tour Doris’s Rough Point estate in Newport and see the gate for yourself. The don’t of course mention the incident on the guided tour.

Very few people realize Bunny Mellon was flying the plane before it crashed and killed KFK Jr and that Bessette harlot. Jackie On Assistance had told her good friend Bunny if anything happened to her, to get Carolyn out of the picture. So Bunny piloted the plane, conveniently ran out of gas, and then parachuted to safety as the couple crashed into the sea. The plan was for JFK Jr to parachute with her, but he was too coked up to comprehend the situation.

Yes. She tried to frame Daisy Bloom.

Doris was bitter because Eileen Slocum seduced her into dirty lesbian scissoring affair then dumped her and it was Eileen who had convinced Eddie to cut ties with Doris. Rubirosa had severely and permanently banged out Doris's snatch and, rejected by sapphic substitutes and her homosexual decorator, Doris snapped, it was simple too much.

R41

Brooke Astor was no different than many other mothers or even fathers of her class at that time. As with many other things American WASPS (or adjacent) took their social and other cues from British royalty and nobility. Packing one's sons (and often daughters) off to boarding school and or leaving them mostly in care of nannies, tutors and governesses was norm across the Atlantic, and soon became so in USA for certain famiies.

Besides the Astor family wasn't exactly any sort of prize winning model of family love and stability. Like the Vanderbilts and so many others were hot messes.

Then you have to keep in mind just as with royal and noble wives not every wealthy American woman had children out of "love". Often it was more about duty (needing to provide an heir), lack of reliable birth control, laws that made wives basically the property of their husbands.....

Bernard Lafferty's papers are at Duke University; but wonder who got the loot from his estate. He left no surviving family through there was a will which likely detailed how his estate was to be handled.

Besides that $4.5 million received a year before his death, there was also Mr. Lafferty's home including contents/personal property.

It's the "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" aspect of Tirella's murder that gives it that low camp je ne sais quoi.

"The story goes that when the staff would complain about the dogs damaging the furnishings inside the house, Duke would reply by reminding them that "they live here, you only work here"."

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