Michigan Woman Who Inspired ‘The Burning Bed’ Book, Movie Dies

The Michigan woman whose life of unrelenting torture and abuse inspired “The Burning Bed,” a best-selling book and television movie in the 1980s, has died. On March 9, 1977, Francine Hughes confessed to police in Ingham County that she had poured gasoline over the body of her sleeping ex-husband, James “Mickey” Hughes, and set him on fire.

Francine Wilson — she had remarried — died on March 22 in Leighton, Alabama. She was 69, and only her closest friends and family knew that she was the woman behind a high-profile case that galvanized feminists to lobby for stronger laws to protect battered women.

A mostly female jury acquitted Hughes of first-degree murder charges in the watershed case, finding her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. But it was her story as told in the Oct. 8, 1984, NBC movie starring Farrah Fawcett — America’s sweetheart after her leading role in the “Charlie’s Angels” television show — that changed America’s conversation about domestic violence.

Today, women can go to shelters, but there were none near her small town near Lansing for Hughes to find sanctuary. Under today’s laws, police often arrest batterers. That didn’t happen when Mickey Hughes was terrorizing his wife; unless they witnessed the assaults, police didn’t make arrests. Today, batterers are often ordered to treatment; back then, horrific violence was often dismissed as a marital quarrel. In 1977, Francine Hughes was convinced that if she didn’t kill her ex-husband, he would kill her.

About one-third of American television viewers watched, agape with horror, as Fawcett was beaten, bloodied and tossed around the room, bringing into their living rooms the terror Hughes and the couple’s four children endured for nearly 13 years.

The daughter of a Michigan farmworker who grew up in an abusive household, Francine Hughes divorced her husband in 1971, but he moved back into their Dansville house after he was injured in a near-fatal automobile accident. Even before the accident, Mickey Hughes didn’t honor the divorce, and continued to beat his ex-wife, she told People magazine in 1984.

“I really felt trapped after his accident. I don't know why I felt so obligated to that man, but I did. Then the real hell began ... I thought, well, maybe I could kill myself. But then I thought, if I kill myself, who is going to take care of the kids?” Hughes said at the time.

On the day Mickey Hughes died, he beat his ex-wife, forced her to burn the books for a secretarial class she was taking and threatened to disable her car with a sledgehammer so she couldn’t drive to school, she told People.

Two police officers had been at the house that day. Mickey Hughes threatened to kill his ex-wife and the officers, but wasn’t arrested.

More torment followed after the officers left. Mickey finally went to sleep. Watching him, “I was thinking about all the things that had happened to me…all the times he had hurt me…how he had hurt the kids,” Hughes told People. “I stood still for a moment, hesitating, and a voice urged me on. It whispered, ‘Do it! Do it! Do it!’ ”

Molly Wilson lived with Francine Hughes Wilson, her grandmother, her entire life and was adopted by her, the Lansing State Journal reported.

“She didn’t feel like it was something to be proud of,” Molly said. “She never felt justified. She never felt free. I think that’s kind of why she kept it low key, because I think she was ashamed and haunted by it.”

Kristi Holland, the daughter of Wilson’s best friend Gilda Stone, told al.com that Wilson didn’t fully appreciate that she had lifted the veil on domestic violence.

“She talked about it with my mother a little bit but it was something she wasn't really proud of,” Holland said. “She didn’t understand she changed things for battered women everywhere. She really deserved recognition but she never thought she did.”

Holland started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Wilson’s funeral. The initial $5,000 fundraising goal has been exceeded, but donations beyond that will be donated to organizations that shelter and give sanctuary to survivors of domestic violence.

On the page, Holland recalled Wilson as “revolutionary woman” whose ordeal “changed the laws in Michigan and in turn all over the country for battered women and the rights that defend them.”

In an update posted Friday, she wrote:

“All of your condolences and comments are absolutely overwhelming. We can feel them from your hearts to ours and it means so much to us, especially the family, to see and read them and to know how much Fran impacted so many of you. Please keep telling your stories as we need to let others know that we are not alone here. We can feel your love and support and I can tell each and every one that she was such an amazingly sweet and funny and great woman, and I wish each of you could have met her so you could see the light and the love that she shown to this world. You could not meet a sweeter lady, I promise you. The hope that her story brought to so many, myself included, is immeasurable. Thank you all so much and please know that out of the darkness, her light shone so bright and she was and always will be a beacon of hope for women everywhere who need to know and see that we are not alone.”

Photo via GoFundMe