The Burning Bed

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The Burning Bed is a non-fiction book by Faith McNulty about a battered Dansville, Michigan housewife, Francine Hughes, who was prosecuted for the murder of her husband on March 9, 1977 to stop thirteen years of domestic abuse. She killed him by setting him on fire while he slept.

Hughes told her children to put on their coats and wait in the car. She then started a fire with gasoline and a match. The house burst into flames as she and the children drove to the police station to confess.

Hughes was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.

The book was made into a television movie starring Farrah Fawcett, which aired on the NBC network in 1984.

There is also a folk song telling the same story called The Ballad of Francine Hughes.