(Photo courtesy of Creative Commons).

“I don’t know who’s idea it was, but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening,” she said. “We had terrible phone calls, hate mail, just beyond anything. I said, ‘I just can’t go on anymore.’ That’s when I packed up some things to send to my sons and my grandchildren.”

Madoff said she believes they took the prescription sleeping drug Ambien and she couldn’t remember how many they took.

“I had some lovely antique things and things that I thought [my children and grandchildren] might want,” she said. “I mailed them. It was Christmas Eve, that added to the whole depression. We took pills and woke up the next day. It was very impulsive and I’m glad we woke up.”

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Reach executive producer Agnus-Dei Farrant here.