Posted on 12/06/2008 12:34:30 PM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK—Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, the heiress who spent the last 28 years of her life in oblivion after what prosecutors alleged in a pair of sensational trials were two murder attempts by her husband, died Saturday at age 76.
She died at a nursing home in New York, her children said in a statement issued by family spokeswoman Maureen Connelly.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
The first case in which Alan Dershowitz distinguished his repulsive self.
Did Claus do it or not...?
Another O.J.??
I’d say, “I’m sorry,” but that doesn’t seem quite right. I’m sorry she was in a coma all those years, when she might have been with her children.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/bulow/1.html
Sunny
On the surface, Martha “Sunny” Crawford von Bülow seemed to have it all.
She was attractive. Photographs of her when she was young show a woman who looks remarkably like Grace Kelly. She was rich, having inherited a fortune conservatively valued at $75 million. And she once held the title of Princess von Auersperg because of her first marriage to Alfred, Prince von Auersperg. She had three loving children, two by Prince Alfie - Alexander and Annie Laurie, nicknamed Ala - and another daughter, Cosima, by her second husband, Claus. They were all as handsome as their mother and had the poise, personality and intelligence to match their immense fortune.
Sunny lived in a world where servants were on hand 24 hours a day to meet their mistress’s every whim. But she was not exactly the “idle rich.” Sunny was busy when she wanted to be. She was active in Newport, R.I., and New York society, serving on volunteer boards, hosting and attending charity fundraisers and tending to the activities required to maintain her fortune. She had trusts to monitor, business deals to approve, and general interactions with the staff who managed her holdings.
But Sunny was not happy. She often thought about death and suffered from agonizing bouts of depression that made her almost an invalid. No one will ever know if this depression drove her to attempt suicide or if, as many contend, she was the victim of her husband’s crime. All we know for certain is that on December 21, 1980, Sunny von Bülow slipped into an irreversible coma. The rest is mystery.
Of course he did it.
Wikipedia sez:
In 1982, Claus von Bülow was tried for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny von Bülow (née Martha Sharp Crawford), which allegedly occurred at her estate, Clarendon Court, in Newport, Rhode Island.
At the trial in Newport, von Bülow was found guilty and sentenced to thirty years in prison; he appealed, hiring Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz to represent him.
Professor Dershowitz and associates rendered doubtful the first trial’s most damning evidence and testimony; in 1984 the conviction was reversed; in 1985, after a second trial, von Bülow was found not guilty on all charges.
At the second trial the defence called eight medical experts, all world-class university professors, who testified that Sunny’s two comas were not caused by insulin, but by a combination of ingested (not injected) drugs, alcohol, and chronic health conditions.
Other experts testified that the hypodermic needle tainted with insulin on the outside (but not inside) would have been dipped in insulin but not injected (Injecting it in flesh would have wiped it clean). Evidence also showed that Sunny’s hospital admission three weeks before the final coma showed she had ingested at least 73 aspirin tablets, a quantity that could only have been self-administered, and which indicated her state of mind.
Sunny’s family remained convinced of Claus’s guilt. For having sided with her father, Cosima von Bülow was disinherited by her maternal grandmother, Annie Laurie (Crawford) Aitken. Von Bülow’s two stepchildren from Sunny’s previous marriage sued him for $56 million. As a result, von Bülow renounced his claim to Sunny’s $75 million personal fortune in exchange for Cosima’s reinstatement as joint heiress to the Crawford fortune.
Currently, Claus von Bülow lives in London, writing art and theatre reviews.
This story always makes me sleepy.
Is this the same Alan Dershowitz said we fight terrorism with torture?
where’s the movie?
JERRY: That’s not too bad. It’s not like a Sunny von Bulow comma. The doctor said he should snap out of it anytime.
Go Harvard !
May she rest in peace. Apparantly she has been doing so, for 28 years!
I’ve especially despised Dershoschmuck ever since he was part of OJ’s murder trial team......just as I almost puke everytime I see that ad with Robert Scheisterpiro’s mug touting his Legalzoom thingie.
There was Reversal of Fortune of course
based on the case. At the end,
Claus von Bulow is in a store and the clerk asks if he wants anything else.
“Oh, and a dose of insulin....Just kidding.” (and he smiles)
Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjpxkaSzMpI&feature=related
The husband was guilty:
Claus von Bulow’s main accusers were his wife’s children by a previous marriage, Princess Annie Laurie von Auersperg Kniessl and Prince Alexander von Auersperg. They renewed the charges against their stepfather in a civil lawsuit a month after his acquittal.
Two years later, Claus von Bulow agreed to give up any claims to his wife’s estimated $25 million-to-$40 million fortune and to the $120,000-a-year income of a trust she set up for him. He also agreed to divorce her, leave the country and never profit from their story.
Claus Von Bulow was accused of injecting his wife with insulin first in December of 1979, causing a coma from which she revived. Prosecutors said he tried again a year later, on Dec. 21, 1980, and the 49-year-old heiress fell into an irreversible coma.
Her world was reduced to a private, guarded room in the Harkness Pavilion and later the McKeen Pavilion of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. She died at the Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home, her family said.
Her doctor testified that the cost of maintaining her was $375,000 the first year, 1981.
No figures were available for the years that followed, but by the early 1990s room charges were up to about $1,500 a day — $547,000 a year — plus $200,000 to $300,000 for round-the-clock private nursing.
She was born Martha Sharp Crawford in Pittsburgh on Sept. 1, 1931, daughter of utilities tycoon George Crawford, who died when she was 4.
“Sunny,” nicknamed for her disposition, was raised by her mother in New York City.
While touring Europe with her mother, she met Prince Alfred von Auersperg, who was younger, penniless and working as the tennis pro at an Austrian resort catering to rich Americans. They were married in 1957 and divorced eight years later after she returned alone to New York with their young son and daughter.
On June 6, 1966, she married von Bulow, who then quit his job as an aide to oilman J. Paul Getty.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,463067,00.html
He was a money chaser. So is his defense lawyer.
This may be some 'expert's' opinion, but my personal experience with insulin is that there is often a drop left after the needle is removed. Even if I leave the needle in the site for 10 seconds, I can get some remainder on the needle.
I wonder if, in the ideal situation where people are using a needle and then disposing it, rather than in real life where diabetics use a needle several times (they ain't free) the 'expert' just never noticed that there was still insulin left on the needle after the shot is given.
I've been fascinated by this story for a long time. Considering the evidence of depression and other issues, I'm not ready to convict von Bulow.
RIP Sunny. You deserved better.
"Starring as Dershowitz is Ron Silver in an uneven performance that at times made me think of Gabe Kaplan doing a young and uncomedic Groucho Marx."
LOL!
I agree, I testified in the first trial and I can assure you that nothing good came out of any of it. Yes I said I testified. I worked in the Hospital when Sunny was brought in the first time Dec 1979, she recoverd that time. And, no, I don’t know if he was guilty or not I suspect that he was. I can’t beleve it’s been 28 years. It doesn’t seem that long ago.
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