Sandra Stevens

In November, 1973 Sandra Stevens (born Mary Ivonne Axelson) visited her mother noted playwright and author Mary McDougal Axelson in a Coral Gables Florida hospital where mother was a patient suffering from leukemia. Sandra made international headlines by severely beating her mother in the hospital bed and leaving. The mother died the next day from results of the beating. Sandra was charged with 2nd Degree murder and tried in 1975 - only to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Mother Mary McDougal Axelson had written the play 'Life Begins' which Fox made into the blockbuster 1932 movie starring Loretta Young.