In a new interview with 60 Minutes airing this Sunday, Ruth Madoff claims that she and disgraced husband Bernie Madoff attempted to commit suicide together, shortly after his massive Ponzi scheme was revealed. In the first interview she has given about the Madoff crimes, Ruth told Morley Safer, "I don't know whose idea it was, 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.'"
Ruth claims that the couple downed "a bunch of pills" on Christmas Eve 2008, some of them Ambien and some possibly Klonopin. Ruth didn't drink alcohol for fear of vomiting: "I took what we had, he took more...[The fact it was Christmas Eve] added to the whole depression." But the pills didn't work, and the two were fine the next day: "We took pills and woke up the next day...It was very impulsive and I am glad we woke up," she says.
Ruth says the plan had been thought out, since she did send a package to their son Andrew, who was also interviewed for the segment, breaching a court order before making the suicide pact. In the package were sentimental items, including jewelry. Three years later, Andrew asked his mother why she had sent him the jewelry: "And she told me that she and my father had planned to kill themselves...they put that package together beforehand and sent it out," he tells Safer.
According to CBS, during the segment the Madoffs talk about the how and where Bernie Madoff confessed his crimes to them, as well as their reaction and the subsequent family strife of the past three years. Since then, son Mark Madoff did kill himself by hanging himself in December 2009. Bernie was sentenced to 150 years in jail for being "extraordinarily evil," he still thinks he's a good person, and he is quite popular in prison.
