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. After thirteen years of domestic abuse, she set her husband aflame while he slept on March 9, 1977. The location of the house that was burned down is still visible in Dansville to this day.

Hughes told her children to put on their coats and wait in the car. She then started a fire with gasoline poured around her sleeping husband's bed. The house burst into flames as she and the children drove to the local police station to confess.

After trial in Lansing, Hughes was found not guilty by reason of insanity by a jury of her peers.

The book by Faith McMulty was made into a TV movie starring Farrah Fawcett and directed by Robert Greenwald, which aired on the NBC network in 1984. Lyn Hardy, a folk singer, wrote a song, entitled The Ballad of Francine Hughes about the same event, it subsequently went platinum.