The Nation - News from May 30, 1985

Martha (Sunny) von Bulow was a self-destructive drug addict who once attempted suicide and brought on her own comas while depressed over her husband’s infidelity, Claus von Bulow’s defense said in its opening statement in court in Providence, R.I. Von Bulow’s attorney said he had not decided whether Von Bulow would take the stand. He did not testify at his first trial. Von Bulow is charged with injecting his wife with insulin, inducing her coma in 1979 and another coma a year later that doctors say is permanent.