Francine Hughes and "The Burning Bed"
I was twelve years old in 1984 when the movie “The Burning Bed” aired on television. It was based on the book of the same name by Faith McNulty. The Burning Bed was the story of Francine Hughes, a woman who had spent more than a decade being abused by her husband with little help from authorities. On the night of March 9, 1977 in Dansville Michigan Francine told her three children that were home to put on their coats and wait for her in the car. Once they were gone Francine poured gasoline around the bed in which her ex-husband, James “Mickey” Hughes, laid passed out from his latest drunken bender. Francine then lit a match, set the bed on fire and met her children in the car. She watched for a few minutes as her home began to burn and then she drove herself to the local police department and confessed to what she had done. In fact, by all accounts she was confessing before the fire department would even get to the scene and attempt to put the fire out. Once it was the...