that "it was all over" for her because she had called the police. Francine again attempted to make dinner for herself and the children, but Mickey swept the food onto the floor. He forced Francine to the floor by bending her arm behind her back and made her clean the mess with her hands. When she was finished, he dumped out the trash can on the floor and forced her to clean it again. Finally, he forced her to agree to quit secretarial school and burn her textbooks. After he forced Francine to cook his dinner, he raped her. She suffered through this last assault until he finally fell into a drunken slumber. She decided to wait for her youngest child, Dana, to return home. When he did not return after some time, Francine decided to burn the house down to prevent her from returning to her life with Mickey again. She told the three children to put on their coats and wait in the car. She then poured gasoline around Mickey's bed and lit the gasoline. The resulting fire consumed the home. In the meantime, with her children in the car, Francine drove to the police station so she could confess to the killing. After a trial in Lansing, Michigan, Francine was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Both the prosecution and the defense agreed that Francine's plight was sympathetic. However, no jurors have ever confirmed publicly whether that was a factor in their decision. Her mother later said "you did what was best for your husband." Later years In 1980, Hughes married Robert Wilson, a country musician, and became a nurse. She was an LPN and worked at several nursing homes. After retiring, she sat with the elderly and taught a nursing class. She died in Leighton, Alabama, on March 22, 2017, from complications of pneumonia that she developed in late 2016. She was 69. Cultural impact Hughes was the subject of a book titled The Burning Bed, which was the basis of a 1984 made-for-television movie with the same name, starring Farrah Fawcett. According to National Public Radio as broadcast on April 3, 2017, the song "Independence Day" written by Gretchen Peters and made popular by Martina McBride is about this event. Folk singer Lyn Hardy also created a song about these events entitled "The Ballad of Francine Hughes". See also List of homicides in