The Suspicious Case of Martha “Sunny” von Bülow (Rhode Island)

When a wealthy socialite was found face down and unresponsive on her bathroom floor, she soon slipped into her second coma in a year. This time, she would never wake up. Suspicion surrounded the cause of the woman’s condition from the very beginning and that suspicion eventually led to an arrest. 

Two trials and endless speculation from the public and media later, the question still stands; did someone attempt to end Sunny’s life in order to inherit her fortune, or was the suspect framed?

The First Coma

It was the day after Christmas, December 26, 1979 in Newport, Rhode Island and something was wrong with 47-year old Martha Sharp Crawford von Bülow. Martha (who went by the nickname Sunny) had declined over the course of the evening and was feeling weak and uncoordinated so her son, Alexander, helped Sunny to her bedroom to get some rest.

Around 9:30 the next morning, one of the von Bülow’s household staff members, a maid named Maria Schrallhammer, heard some concerning noises coming from Sunny’s bedroom. Sunny was moaning in her bed but Maria was unable to wake her up. Maria went to find Sunny’s husband, Claus von Bülow, and insisted that he call the doctor for his wife who appeared to be unresponsive. 

But Claus did not jump to call for help. Not at first. It wasn’t until 2 p.m. that afternoon when he finally phoned a physician. The doctor wasn’t available at the moment, so Claus left a message. When the doctor called back about an hour later, Claus explained that his wife had been struggling with alcohol use disorder and she had been drinking the night before. Though she was unresponsive now, Claus said that Sunny was up and out of bed earlier that morning. He told the doctor that Sunny was probably just sleeping off the previous night’s indulgences.

According to court filings, the doctor did not respond to the von Bülow house until around 6 p.m. that evening. Sunny’s condition had taken a severe turn for the worst so Claus called the doctor in a panic and the physician made it there just in time. Sunny was vomiting and gasping for breath before she stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest. The doctor was able to revive her but she was rushed to Newport Hospital in a comatose state.

Sunny had suffered cardio-respiratory arrest due to massive aspiration of gastric contents, and she was near death when she arrived at the emergency unit. Doctors also discovered that her blood-sugar was exceptionally and inexplicably low. She was administered large doses of sugar, but her levels stayed low for hours. Thankfully, after a full 24 hours of treatment at the hospital, Sunny finally regained consciousness. 

Doctors delivered a diagnosis of broncho-pneumonia and hypoglycemia of undetermined etiology, meaning there was not an obvious or identifiable cause of the low blood sugar level. With that, Sunny was advised to be mindful of her sugar intake and avoid alcohol, and to be careful not to go long stretches of time without eating. 

The incident was traumatic for Sunny and for her family…And it was also odd. According to the von Bülow maid, Maria, some of what Claus told the doctor on the phone that day wasn’t true. Sunny hadn’t been up and about earlier in the morning. As far as Maria remembered, Sunny hadn’t been drinking alcohol the night before either. If he really did lie as Maria alleged, why?

Why indeed…To unpack the layers of this case, we need to first understand the life and circumstances of the wealthy, internationally-known heiress, Sunny von Bülow.

About Sunny von Bülow

Martha Sharp Crawford von Bülow was a presence. She was tall and blonde and elegant, and according to CBS News, she earned the nickname Sunny for her sunny disposition. She was born in 1932 aboard her father’s private train car to Annie-Laurie Crawford Aitken, who came from wealth of her own, and George Crawford, who built the Columbia Gas & Electric Co. in Pittsburgh. The utilities magnate died when Sunny was just 4-years old, and as reported by Doyle McManus for The LA Times, George left his only child a $75 million estate.

Sunny was raised by her mother in New York City and attended the finest boarding schools before coming out to society as a debutante in 1951. Several years later, while touring Europe with her mother, she met Austrian Prince Alfred von Auersperg. They married in 1957 and had two children together: Prince Alexander Georg von Auersperg and Princess Annie-Laurie von Auersperg, who went by Ala. The couple divorced after eight years of marriage and Sunny moved back to New York with the children.

The following year, on June 6, 1966, Sunny married a Danish-born aristocrat named Claus von Bülow. Claus studied law at the University of Cambridge and worked as a lawyer in London before becoming an aide to billionaire J. Paul Getty, who founded Getty Oil Company. Claus quit his job once he married Sunny, and they lived off of her estate.  A year into their marriage, Claus and Sunny welcomed their daughter, Cosima von Bülow.

The family of five lived between two homes which were paid for and furnished with millions of dollars worth of art, antiques and decor by Sunny. There was the 14-room Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park in Manhattan and then there was Clarendon Court, a 20-room oceanside mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. 

According to reporting by Bethany Brunelle for the Providence Journal, Sunny bought the mansion for $250,000 in 1970 and spent $600,000 in renovations. Most recently in 2021, it sold for $30 million, potentially the highest ever residential property sale in the state of Rhode Island.

The mansion was designed by the famous architect Horace Trumbauer in 1904. It features a carriage house and three separate guest quarters. The whole estate sits on over seven acres of land with landscaped lawns, a cobblestone courtyard, and panoramic ocean views overlooking Newport’s Cliff Walk. High stone walls and an iron gate surround the entire property, which sits on Bellevue Avenue, also known as “millionaires row.”

If you’ve listened to the Dark Downeast episode about the suspicious death of Eduardo Tirella, you’re already acquainted with Bellevue Avenue and another of its infamous former residents, Doris Duke.

It’s hard to say for certain what happened behind the iron gates of Clarendon Court, because there are so many contradictory stories gleaned from the pages of endless court filings and testimony. What we do know to be fact is that on the morning of December 21, 1980, a year after the first medical incident that briefly put Sunny into a coma, Sunny was once again found unresponsive on her bathroom floor.

Sunny von Bülow’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.