The Trials of Claus von Bülow: Science on Trial — Ep. 4 | MK Confidential

The Megyn Kelly Show

In 1985, Claus von Bülow faces a retrial for the attempted murder of his comatose wife, Sunny von Bülow, with a new defense strategy focusing on medical

Key takeaways

• The defense challenges the reliability of the lab's insulin readings, which varied drastically, suggesting the evidence was not conclusive.
• The defense argues that the insulin residue on the needle indicates it was dipped, not injected, based on experiments with soda and turkey skewers.

Main topics

• Medical evidence and its reliability in criminal trials
• The role of forensic science in legal proceedings

Notable quotes

I admit to great fatigue and suffering during the last three years. moments when I just wished it would go away. So there's a dichotomy, but I want to get exonerated.

Conclusion

The retrial of Claus von Bülow underscores the complexities of medical evidence in legal cases and

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) It is the spring of 1985. In a hospital bed in New York, a woman named Sunny von Bulow has been unconscious for more than four years, and she is never going to wake up. 90 miles away in Rhode Island, the man a jury once said put her in that coma, is preparing to stand trial for a second time. She will never wake up. She will never wake up. She'll never open her eyes again or recognize anybody. She'll never talk to her children. She'll never see her grandchildren. Three years ago, a Rhode Island jury found Klaus von Bülow guilty of trying to murder his wife. A year ago, a higher court threw out that verdict. Klaus, now free on bail, his first conviction erased, wants one thing and says so to anyone with a camera. Here he talks to Kiro eyewitness news. I admit to great fatigue and suffering during the last three years. moments when I just wished it would go away. So there's a dichotomy, but I want to get exonerated. Exonerated is the word he keeps using, not released on a technicality, but rather cleared by a jury. Now Klaus is back where he started, facing the same two counts of attempted murder, but with a new direction for the defense, courtesy of the Dershowitz team, in a new courthouse in Providence, with a jury that has never heard the case. If this jury convicts, the appeal that freed him will have bought him nothing, and he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. This time, the defense will not just argue that the state cannot prove its case, but that there was never any crime at all. I'm Megan Kelly, and this is M.K. Confidential. AI can clone your voice, forge your signature, even create fake documents that fool experts. and criminals are using these tools right now to potentially steal from you. How? It's called title fraud. Your property records are public by law, your name, your address, even your signature. It's all sitting in a database anyone can access. A cyber scammer can pull your records, use AI to forge a transfer document, file it with your county and on paper, they're the new legal owner of your property. Then they can borrow against your equity or even sell your property long. before you realize anything's even wrong. But let me tell you about home title lock. They monitor your properties title 24-7, alert you of any changes, and if you are a victim, their team of restoration experts will spend up to $1 million bucks restoring your title. So when's the last time you checked your title records? You can do it today. Use my promo code Megan at hometidalock.com to get a free title history report, plus a free trial of million-dollar triple lock protection, so you can make sure you're not already a victim. That's Hometitlelock.com, promo code Megan, or use the link in our description. For the retrial, Klaus von Bülow has a new lead lawyer, and he is nothing like the elegant defendant he represents. His name is Thomas Puccio. He made his reputation as a federal prosecutor who ran the FBI sting operation, Ab-scam, in which agents posed as wealthy Arab businessmen to expose political corruption and put multiple congressmen in prison. He is not a society lawyer. He is blunt and combative, a street fighter. Puccio takes over the courtroom, and Alan Dershowitz, who won the appeal, moves into the background. Puccio's strategy is the opposite of the first trial, the one that had been about money, a mistress, and an oceanfront mansion. Puccio strips all of it away and tries the case as a single question, of medicine. What actually put Sunny von Buello into a coma? And as before, Klaus von Bülow will not take the stand. But moving into the background is not the same as stepping away. Years later, Dershowitz would describe just how much of the second trial ran on the work he and his students had already done. The whole retrial was based on our work. In fact, my two main research assistants from the law school, Joanne Crispy, and a guy from the medical school, they sat with the trial lawyer and fed him all the information. So I was very centrally involved in the trial. I spoke to the legal team every single day. And out of the courtroom, another figure is fighting for Klaus von Bülow and fighting the loudest. Her name is Andrea Reynolds. She's Hungarian-born and glamorous, and still married to her television producer husband. Andrea has known Klaus and Sonny socially for years, but she and Klaus did not become lovers until after his first trial had ended. That timing matters. The mistress, the state built its motive around at the first trial, was a different woman, the actress Alexandra Isles. Reynolds entered the story only afterward, So the companion, the cameras now catch at Klaus's side, was never part of the love and money case, Rhode Island prosecutors had presented to a jury. Andrea Reynolds is not subtle. She courts the reporters covering the case, dines with them, drives them around, and calls their editors when the coverage displeases her. Barred from the courtroom, she watches the live feed from inside the CNN truck and slowly takes over the booth until the network finally asks her. to leave. It is Reynolds who decides Klaus needs a warmer face for the retrial, that the cold, aristocratic image the first jury saw was part of why they convicted him. She runs the campaign to clear his name like a military operation. Andrea's own husband, watching all of it from the outside, offers the driest verdict of the whole affair. If Klaus has to marry Andrea, he will wish he had been convicted.