Heiress Sunny von Bulow Dies After 27 Year Coma

Martha (Sunny) von Bulow died today in a Manhattan nursing home at age 76, just under 28 years after she slipped into a coma that would lead to a dramatic series of events. A multimillionaire born into parents who had a shoe fortune and ran an electric company respectively, the events leading up to her coma triggered charges against her second husband for attempted murder and would create the setting for trials that were media spectacles in the '80s when Claus von Bulow was convicted and but later acquitted in a retrial for poisoning his wife. Those trials along with the battle among her stepchildren over Mrs. von Bulow's riches would inspire the movie Reversal of Fortune (where defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz's protege Eliot Spitzer is portrayed by Desperate Housewives' Felicity Huffman!) Mrs. von Bulow attended the Chapin School in Manhattan many years ago and is survived by three daughters, a son and five grandchildren.

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By Billy Parker in News on December 6, 2008 5:41 PM

Comments [rss]

Clarice City

no...that one is probably too stupid even for them.

Clarice City

Sunset for Ms. Von Bulow. I will sue the Post if they try to take that one from me

Snoopy

Not to change the subject or anything like that, but is there an update on that 12 year old that went missing a week or so ago?

Mr Mel

Fidel Castro outlives them all.

NannyState

My theory is that Sunny was in on the plot from the get go. She was on the lam in that coma.

handsomedevil

Through a funny stroke of luck I've got her death mask. I'll let you see it for $20.

Snoopy

Pix of what dooWop?

Snoopy

If you people had only gone to Chapin you would have known which parent had the shoe and which one had the utilities fortune respectively.

I must find a forum where such obvious information is more readily known.

rubyredhead

"A multimillionaire born into parents who had a shoe fortune and ran an electric company respectively"

respectively? It doesn't say which parent was responsible for what, so therefore "respectively" holds no purpose in this sentence and is thus ambiguous and unnecessary.

i agree.

Snoopy

OK here's the respective update. Her old man got his money in utilities her mudder got it from the shoe business. Neither parent went to Chapin.

zaj

And so ends the '28year-old running gag' about what do you give Sunny von Bulow the woman who had everything - why insulin of course!!!

Snoopy

It's quite obvious. The first parent had the shoe business and the second had the electric company. Or they had the shoe company and then started an electric company. Does it matter? What matters is that Sunny went to Chapin. Do you know who else went to Chapin? Do you know what the tuition is at Chapin? Do you realize there's no boy's room at Chapin?

Tamar Weinberg

"A multimillionaire born into parents who had a shoe fortune and ran an electric company respectively"

respectively? It doesn't say which parent was responsible for what, so therefore "respectively" holds no purpose in this sentence and is thus ambiguous and unnecessary.

roomtobreathe

Wait... Felicity Huffman played Eliot Spitzer?

Snoopy

I bet that stay cost some serious bucks. Let's see $100 a day times... is close to a million dollars. oops it was in Manhattan so I guess I left off at least one decimal point.

May she rest in peace.

Why the mention of the Chapin School?