I Killed Sunny von Bulow

AP Photo Forget about Claus—26 years after the first von Bulow trial, the author still feels guilty about how she covered the case.

Back when I was a girl reporter at the Associated Press, a mere 24 and full of what used to be called spit and vinegar, I was assigned to cover the first Claus von Bulow trial in Newport with the Boston bureau’s entourage. It was a plum assignment, and I will never forget how I donned a frilly pink dress when I set off the first day, as if I was attending a garden party. I wasn’t all wrong. The scene at the courthouse was part bash and part melee, with media types from around the world flocking in to record the crimes of the rich and famous with predictably giddy schadenfreude.

Each day, I sat dutifully in the press box, reporter’s notebook clutched tightly in my hand, furiously scribbling notes. Then, at every break, I would rush with the rest of the pack to a line of pay phones to call in my wry observations. Claus’ grimacing façade, the pained expressions of Sunny’s children, the posturing of the high-priced lawyers. It was gorgeous theater.

Doesn’t every one of us have a Sunny in our lives? Doesn’t every one of us have a still-just-barely-there reminder that time moves on, but our biggest personal tragedies never leave us?

At the end of each session, I would speed home in my little Toyota Tercel to the home base, where the editors were frantically moving our text to hungry newspapers near and far. We all felt very important, and I loved the rush of bursting in the door of the bureau to the admiring looks of staff members who were stuck inside, processing what those of us on the front lines were actually living real time.

One day, though, I returned to work only to be greeted with deadly silence. The usually effusive copy desk editor caught my eye, then furtively looked away. A photo desk technician, a 20-something I counted as a pal, also looked my way, face aghast, then dashed off. I immediately sensed something was very wrong.

And it was. Within moments, the bureau chief summoned me into his glassed-in office, and pointed for me to sit down. His normally placid face was pained, his jaw line rigid. He was fuming.

“You killed Sunny von Bulow,” he said tersely.

“What?” I cried.

“You killed her—look.” He held up a scroll of yellow paper, the kind that came right off the AP machine, and waved it at me. I could see my byline with its story beneath. Seething, he then read the first line, carefully enunciating words I knew I had called in only hours earlier.

I listened—stricken—but still didn’t get the problem.

“…Claus von Bulow’s murder trial,” my boss repeated several times to make his point. “Murder trial. Murder trial. Murder trial.”

“Yes?” I said, utterly perplexed.

“It’s attempted murder! For God’s sake, Suzy,” my boss said, lifting out of his seat. “The poor woman’s not dead.”