The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial by Laura James

Author:Laura James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

NELLIE MAY

MADISON

THE VICTIM: Eric B. Madison

WHEN: March 24, 1934

WHERE: Burbank, California

DEFENSE COUNSEL: Joseph Ryan and Frank Ryan

THE CASE

Nellie May Madison shot her husband five times in the back and head while he was sleeping. This is not easy to explain, even for an attractive woman. The doctrine of self-defense has always required an “imminent” danger. When a beaten woman decides to get her man before he gets her, she often preemptively strikes while he is incapacitated. Unfortunately for Mrs. Madison, the law has always shaken a finger at slaying a sleeping drunk.

She was an unusual woman, and this was counted against her. Nellie May began her marital adventures at thirteen. She was married five times—this was when divorce rates were in the single digits. Despite all those husbands, she never had children. Then she bought a handgun and made herself a widow. Witnesses originally thought the gunshots came from the adjacent Warner Brothers studio.

Despite the Hollywood backdrop, Nellie May missed her cues. She had natural beauty going for her, but she played it all wrong. She did not contact the police after the killing; she fled and let her landlady find his body. The all-points bulletin told police to watch out for a “beautiful black-haired woman.” The police found her two days later, hiding in a closet. She was stoic about her arrest. She did not weep into her handkerchief for a press pool waiting for a sob story. Indeed, she refused to say anything at all about the murder. An investigator called her “the coolest woman I have ever questioned in all my years.” If she had a defense, she said nothing of it. Public opinion went against her. Reporters dubbed her “a real-life Roxie Hart,” “a sphinx woman,” a femme fatale. The prosecutor announced he would seek the death penalty.1

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