The Madoffs Failed to Commit Suicide, Unfortunately
Bernard Madoff's wife Ruth has told 60 Minutes, in the only interview she's ever given since her life unraveled, that she and Bernie tried to kill themselves on Christmas Eve 2008.
Madoff was out on bail at the time, holed up in his Upper East Side apartment as the hordes gathered below to call for his head. "I don't know whose idea it was," Madoff told Morly Safer, "but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening. We had terrible phone calls. Hate mail, just beyond anything and I said '...I just can't go on anymore.'"
Hate mail! How inconvenient for her. Madoff gathered some of her valuables and sentimental belongings and mailed them to her sons—in violation of a court order—before she and Bernie shuffled off this mortal coil. How did they do the deed? "Ruth and Bernard Madoff took a bunch of pills, some of them Ambien and possibly some Klonopin, Ruth recalls. She did not drink alcohol with them for fear of vomiting."
Ambien! And maybe a Klonopin? For most of Madoff's neighbors, taking a fistful of Ambien and some Klonopin but not drinking is called "taking it easy for the night," not "trying to kill yourself."
They woke up the next morning. Unfortunately their son Mark was more committed.
