The Attempted Murder of Sunny von Bülow (Crime Documentary)
- 5 years ago
Claus von Bülow is a British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow in 1979 which had left her in a coma from which she later recovered but that conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty at his second trial. In the same trial, he was also accused of the attempted murder of his wife by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 which left her in a persistent vegetative state for the rest of her life, but that conviction in the first trial was also reversed and he was found not guilty at his second trial.
In 1982, Bülow was arrested and tried for the attempted murders of Sunny on two occasions on two consecutive years. The main medical and scientific evidence against him was that Sunny had low blood sugar, common in many conditions, but a blood test showed a high insulin level. The test was not repeated. A needle was used as evidence against Bülow in court, with the prosecution alleging that he had used it and a vial of insulin to try to kill his wife. The discovery of these items became the focal point of Bülow's appeal.
At the trial in Newport, Bülow was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison; he appealed, hiring Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz to represent him. Dershowitz served as a consultant to the defense team led by Thomas Puccio, a former federal prosecutor. Dershowitz's campaign to acquit Bülow was assisted by Jim Cramer and future New York Attorney General and Governor Eliot Spitzer who were then Harvard Law School students. Dershowitz and his team focused on the discovery of the bag containing the syringes and insulin. Sunny's family had hired a private investigator to look into her coma. The private investigator, Edwin Lambert (an associate of the Bülows' lawyer Richard Kuh), was told by several family members and a maid that Claus had recently been seen locking a closet in the Newport home that previously was always kept open. The family hired a locksmith to drive to the mansion, with the intention of picking the closet lock to find what the closet contained. They had lied to the locksmith and told him that one of them owned the house.[citation needed] When the three arrived, the locksmith insisted they try again to find the key, and after some searching, Kuh found a key in Claus von Bülow's desk that unlocked the closet.[citation needed] At this point, according to the three men in the original interviews, the locksmith was paid for the trip and left before the closet was actually opened, although the men would later recant that version and insist that the locksmith was present when they entered the closet.[citation needed] It was in the closet that the main evidence against Claus von Bülow was found.[citation needed] In 1984, the two convictions from the first trial were reversed by the Rhode Island Supreme Court. In 1985, after a second trial, Bülow was found not guilty on all charges.
In 1982, Bülow was arrested and tried for the attempted murders of Sunny on two occasions on two consecutive years. The main medical and scientific evidence against him was that Sunny had low blood sugar, common in many conditions, but a blood test showed a high insulin level. The test was not repeated. A needle was used as evidence against Bülow in court, with the prosecution alleging that he had used it and a vial of insulin to try to kill his wife. The discovery of these items became the focal point of Bülow's appeal.
At the trial in Newport, Bülow was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison; he appealed, hiring Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz to represent him. Dershowitz served as a consultant to the defense team led by Thomas Puccio, a former federal prosecutor. Dershowitz's campaign to acquit Bülow was assisted by Jim Cramer and future New York Attorney General and Governor Eliot Spitzer who were then Harvard Law School students. Dershowitz and his team focused on the discovery of the bag containing the syringes and insulin. Sunny's family had hired a private investigator to look into her coma. The private investigator, Edwin Lambert (an associate of the Bülows' lawyer Richard Kuh), was told by several family members and a maid that Claus had recently been seen locking a closet in the Newport home that previously was always kept open. The family hired a locksmith to drive to the mansion, with the intention of picking the closet lock to find what the closet contained. They had lied to the locksmith and told him that one of them owned the house.[citation needed] When the three arrived, the locksmith insisted they try again to find the key, and after some searching, Kuh found a key in Claus von Bülow's desk that unlocked the closet.[citation needed] At this point, according to the three men in the original interviews, the locksmith was paid for the trip and left before the closet was actually opened, although the men would later recant that version and insist that the locksmith was present when they entered the closet.[citation needed] It was in the closet that the main evidence against Claus von Bülow was found.[citation needed] In 1984, the two convictions from the first trial were reversed by the Rhode Island Supreme Court. In 1985, after a second trial, Bülow was found not guilty on all charges.