Von Bulow was embroiled in one of America's most notorious criminal cases after he was indicted in the attempted murder of his wife, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, on successive Christmas vacations in 1979 and 1980 at their seaside mansion in Newport. The heiress, who slipped into comas on both occasions, spent almost 28 years in a vegetative state after the second incident, which two of her children claimed had been deliberately caused by Claus von Bulow.