社会名流克劳斯·冯·比洛(1)

Claus von Bülow, socialite and protagonist of two sensational American trials, died on May 25th, aged 92. In every person's life, Claus von Bülow said once, there remained a big question mark. A shadow of doubt.

It remained even if they had been convicted of a crime, and even if they had been acquitted. He had been both. His glitter-laden trials, among the first to be televised, caused a sensation in America.

They left half the country thinking one thing, and half thinking another. He was convicted in 1982 of the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny, by injecting her with insulin.

In 1980 she had been found unconscious on the marble floor of the master bathroom of their mansion, Clarendon Court, in Newport, Rhode Island. Soon she was in a coma from which she did not emerge. She had low bloodsugar, and he knew too much insulin would kill her.

He had the motive: he wanted to leave her for his mistress, Alexandra Isles, a tv actress, but divorce would cut him off from Sunny's fortune. He also apparently had the means. A small black travel-bag had been found by Sunny's maid in his closet; it contained a bottle of insulin and a needle encrusted with it.

The maid also testified that Sunny had fallen ill before from too much insulin, and her husband had refused for four hours to call a doctor. He called his mistress then to say that he was watching his wife die. The evidence was overwhelming; he was given 30 years.