London: Late actress Marilyn Monroe is said to have spent her last night alive at Frank Sinatra's lodge with a mafia boss, who she was allegedly in love with.
Monroe, who died on August 5, 1962 at the age of 36, had spent the evening with mafia boss Sam Giancana after taking Sinatra's private jet to Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
At the lodge, the gangster apparently tried to persuade her not to go public about her affair with President John F Kennedy.
She flew home to Los Angeles early the following morning and was found dead that night. Later a coroner ruled that the death was a "probable" suicide.
This is the first time that any mention has been made about the trip, and if true it could rewrite the final moments of Monroe's life and raise fresh questions about her death.
Monroe's hair and make-up stylist, George Masters, had made the claims in recordings a month before his death in 1998.
His nephew, Jeff Platts, found the cassette tapes, and they have now been made public.
"The night before she died, the last time I saw her, was in Lake Tahoe at the Cal-Neva Lodge," the Daily Mail quoted Masters as saying in a frail voice.
"She was there with Sam Giancana, who was the head of the Mafia," he said.
Monroe and Masters apparently flew back to Los Angeles where he dropped her off at her home around 9am on Sunday August 5 1962.
It has been documented that Monroe was at Sinatra's lodge two weekends before her death, but now it appears that she was called back for a one-to-one chat with Giancana.
Following Monroe's death a host of conspiracy theories emerged, but on the tapes Masters is clear about the reason why she died.
"It was because of the Kennedys. I really think the FBI did it," he is heard saying in the recordings.
Masters also appears to confirm the theory that Monroe was moved around before she died.
"Did you know she was pronounced dead, and then they brought her back to the house, and she was still alive, and they took her back to the hospital, and brought her back home, and then the coroners came over, and they found her dead in another bed - somebody moved her," he stated.
The findings were reported in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.
