Betty was serving two consecutive sentences for the 1989 killings of her ex-husband and his new wife at the time of her death

Betty Broderick

Betty Broderick’s son, Daniel Broderick, is sharing new details about the death of his mother, who died in prison at the age of 78 while serving a life sentence for killing her ex-husband and his new wife in 1989.

In a statement to TMZ, Daniel said that his mother had suffered a number of septic infections before her death. He said she also had a serious fall at the California Institution for Women, where she was in custody, approximately three weeks before her death, which resulted in broken ribs.

According to Daniel, Betty was on life support at the time of her death — which her son said occurred in an ICU off prison grounds — and unable to communicate.

Betty Broderick Mugshot

He told TMZ that Betty was surrounded by all four of her children when she died.

In a statement to PEOPLE, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) spokesperson confirmed that Betty “was transported from the California Institution for Women to an outside medical facility for a higher level of care” on April 18.

The spokesperson additionally said she was pronounced dead on May 8 at 3:40 a.m. local time, and that a medical doctor determined her initial cause of death to be natural causes.

The San Bernardino County Coroner will officially rule on her cause of death at a later time, per the CDCR.

Dan Broderick Jr. and Kim Broderick.

The spokesperson added that CDCR “is limited in the information it can share” due to medical privacy and information laws.

Betty, whose full name was Elizabeth A. Broderick, gained national notoriety after killing her husband, Dan Broderick, and his new wife, Linda Kolkena, on Nov. 5, 1989.

Betty and Dan wed in 1969 and shared four children.

In the early 1980s, Dan began an affair with Linda, a former flight attendant whom he had hired to work as his legal assistant amid marital woes with Betty.

Betty Broderick

Betty Broderick during a preliminary hearing in 1990.
Howard Lipin/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty
Though he denied the affair following Betty’s initial suspicions, Dan eventually left Betty and filed for divorce in 1985. The two battled over the sale of their family home and custody of their children.

Dan and Linda married in 1989, and Betty shot and killed the couple in their bed later that year.

Betty was eventually convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and sentenced in 1991 to two consecutive terms of 15 years to life with the possibility of parole, plus two years for illegal use of a firearm.

In 2017, San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Richard Sachs said Betty was “completely unrepentant” and described her as “defiant.”

However, Betty claimed that she met the requirements for parole and should have been released years before.

“I have no one to speak for me. This was a case of domestic abuse: a pattern of coercive control that lasted throughout our marriage until the day I killed them,” Betty alleged in a letter to Murder Made Me Famous producers. “Now, I am only a political prisoner. They have no reason to deny my parole.”

Betty was scheduled to be up for parole again in 2032. She would have been 84 years old.