Cocaine use and alcohol reportedly contributed to Brynn Hartman's decision to shoot her husband, actor Phil Hartman, at point-blank range with his own Smith & Wesson .38 as he slept in the bed they shared in their Encino, Calif. home. She shot him twice in the head and once on his side.
Hartman, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live, NewsRadio, and for voicing several characters on The Simpsons, had reportedly threatened to divorce his wife of 11 years, during an argument over her drug use. Along with her drug problems, which resulted in two stints in rehab, Brynn also suffered from depression. She was taking the antidepressant drug, Zoloft, at the time of the shooting.
Shortly after admitting to a friend that she killed her husband in the early morning hours of May 28, 1998, Brynn climbed into the couple's bed where Phil's dead body still lay and sitting up against the headboard she put the gun in her mouth and fired her own fatal shot. When police arrived, they found Brynn's dead body slumped over that of her husband, orphaning the couple's two children. In 1999, Hartman's estate filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Pfizer, the manufacturer of the antidepressant drug that Brynn was taking, as well as her psychiatrist. Pfizer settled.
Hartman, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live, NewsRadio, and for voicing several characters on The Simpsons, had reportedly threatened to divorce his wife of 11 years, during an argument over her drug use. Along with her drug problems, which resulted in two stints in rehab, Brynn also suffered from depression. She was taking the antidepressant drug, Zoloft, at the time of the shooting.
Shortly after admitting to a friend that she killed her husband in the early morning hours of May 28, 1998, Brynn climbed into the couple's bed where Phil's dead body still lay and sitting up against the headboard she put the gun in her mouth and fired her own fatal shot. When police arrived, they found Brynn's dead body slumped over that of her husband, orphaning the couple's two children. In 1999, Hartman's estate filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Pfizer, the manufacturer of the antidepressant drug that Brynn was taking, as well as her psychiatrist. Pfizer settled.