Just wow! Reading through a book on #BettyBroderick and am just astonished at the various experts involved.
In 1987, Betty Betty was court-ordered to visit marriage and family therapist Dr. Ruth Roth.
Ruth Roth has been mediating divorce and custody disputes for the San Diego courts since 1976, first in the county conciliation courts then in private practice.
She is a familiar, well-regarded "expert" in the San Diego family courts. What she says usually goes.”
Roth said at the first session, Betty threatened to kill Dan.
Roth promptly called Dan Broderick, to warn him that "I have every reason to believe you may be in danger, that Elisabeth wants to do great bodily harm to you."
In California, this extraordinary breach of doctor-patient confidentiality is called a Tarasoff warning. It is not only ethically permissible but also legally advisable in instances where the doctor might later be held liable for a preventable crime.
The warning is named after the victim of a psychotic killer whose therapist was later successfully sued for negligence in failing to alert the victim or her family to the potential danger.
Before Betty knew that Ruth Roth was confiding in Dan Broderick, she returned for a second session—and repeated the same threat almost verbatim, according to Roth. "I'm not going to be the single parent of four children. He'll die first ...”
Roth issued her second Tarasoff warning to Dan that week. But, Dan didn't seem to take it seriously. "He just shined it on," said Roth—who was, by now, having regular telephone conversations with Dan, discussing ways to best handle Betty and protect the children from her.”
This is just astonishing.
And there’s more...
On her third meeting with Roth, Betty quit. "She said, 'I'm not coming back, because you're too good,'" Roth testified. "She said, 'You make me forget how much I hate him'."”
“I said that because....I was trying to be nice, I didn't have the guts to just tell her the truth”
“ and the truth was I couldn't stand her. She was pushy and arrogant, and she spent forty of her fifty-minute periods talking about herself, telling me how wonderful she was."”
— Until the Twelfth of Never: Should Betty Broderick ever be free? by Bella Stumbo
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