von Bulow

[terrie]

Well... since I am gainfully unemployed, I have been looking at some crime cases that are unresolved or very controversial. Yesterday, I watched Reversal of Fortune about the von Bulow case. I was in high school at the time, and remember the way it astounded everyone.

At the time, I thought Claus von Bulow did not try to murder his wife, Sunny. I still think so... but I do think he had the opportunity and responsibility to save her/get her help (I think she was suicidally depressed and took alot of different drugs). Maybe he intentionally let her lay there and get worse. I am not sure how the law saw that in 1979. Surely, his actions were suspicious... if not felonious.

I know there is a great deal more to the case than the film represents. Claus (whose last name wasn't really von Bulow--although Bulow was a family name)is an extraordinarily odd man. According to Crime Library (I cannot find my book on the case) his mother died when he was young, and he is said to have told the police he stayed in the apartment with her body for four days. He seemed to have a love/hate pattern with women in his life. Before he married Sunny, he was a whirlwind...one of those people who can't sit still. He immersed himself in work (and his joblessness was a big bone of contention during their marriage). Sunny calmed him down somewhat. I do think he loved Sunny, to the best of his ability. He appears to me to be severely emotionally handicapped.

Alot of people thought that Sunny (Martha) was mentally slow, but she really was just painfully shy. She appears to have been very depressed for a long time, even plagued with thoughts of death at times. Her father died when she was a young girl, and that is bound to leave emotional scars. I believe she was an alcoholic/addict and her life had gotten completely unmanageable.

It always amazes me (because I still have the foolish notion that enough money can make anyone happy) that people with *everything* could be so very miserable and in such pain. That money could have brought them such joy--- instead of narcotics and affairs and suspicion and chaos.

[1bigsteve]

I have a book on this case but I have not yet read it. I remember the trial. I don't have an opinion yet on who did what but I will read it one day. The look on that actress's face as she testified, like a deer caught in the headlights.

True, Terrie. You are right on. I think many people use money as a substitute for clean living. They don't realize that money is a tool, like a saw or hammer, and not an end to itself. To be happy we need to live by better standards. Money doesn't, in itself, bring happiness. Never has. But, on the other hand, neither does poverty. I've heard countless people say something to the effect that "poor people are happy people." I dare them to go into any slum and ask anyone suffering from a massive tooth ache, who has no money and no insurance to get it fixed, how "happy" they are. We don't need gobs of money to be happy but selling our house, selling our car, living in the ditch and eating grass won't bring happiness either (I've known a few who have tried).

But, on the lighter side I get a kick out of what Joan Rivers has said:

"Money is not the key to happiness, but with enough money you can have a key made." -Joan Rivers

"People who say money can't buy happiness don't know where to shop." -Joan Rivers




-1bigsteve (o: