Claus von Bulow has died.
Claus von Bulow, the Danish-born socialite who was convicted in 1982 and then acquitted three years later on two counts of attempting to murder his American heiress wife, Sunny, with injections of insulin, has died at his home in London. He was 92.
Von Bulow, whose by-then ex-wife died in 2008 in a nursing home on the Upper East Side of New York City after nearly 28 years in a coma, died Saturday, Bloomberg reported, citing the New York Times. No cause of death was given.
The high-profile Von Bulow case — dubbed the “case of the sleeping heiress” — has been called one of the most sensational courtroom dramas in modern U.S. history, attracting worldwide attention and spawning several books and a movie.
I recall this case, but it didn’t resonate with me until I was a medical student a few years later, and instructors would obliquely reference this case when talking about the concept of iatrogenesis.