Hedda Nussbaum

Hedda Nussbaum (born 1942) is an American woman who was caretaker for a six-year-old girl who died of physical abuse in 1987. The death of the girl, Lisa Steinberg, sparked a lengthy and controversial trial and media frenzy. The legal case was one of the first to be televised "gavel to gavel." Supporters characterized Nussbaum as a victim of horrific domestic abuse at the hands of her live-in partner, Joel Steinberg. Critics suggested she was a consensual partner in a sado-masochistic relationship and an unprosecuted co-conspirator in the young girl's death.

Before meeting Joel Steinberg in 1975, Nussbaum had been an editor and author of children's books at Random House publishers, and before that at Appleton Century Crofts. Steinberg was a defense attorney who sometimes handled adoption cases. Beginning in 1976, Nussbaum and Steinberg lived together in a brownstone apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village. Her 1977 book, Plants Do Amazing Things, was dedicated, in part, "to Joel, my everyday inspiration."

Due to Nussbaum's occasionally obvious bruises and other injuries, friends and colleagues suspected that Nussbaum was the victim of domestic violence. Neighbors later stated to police they believed that Nussbaum and Steinberg were active participants in a "some kind of a sexual sadomasochistic game." Friends occasionally offered to help if Nussbaum was being abused, but she declined their offers of intervention or aid and refused to implicate Steinberg. After extended absences from work, Random House put Nussbaum on consulting editor status in 1982.

In 1981, under dubious legal circumstances, Nussbaum and Steinberg took custody of an infant girl they named Lisa. The girl's birth mother had paid Steinberg a $500.00 legal fee to place the child with a Roman Catholic family; both Steinberg and Nussbaum were Jewish. Under similar circumstances, Nussbaum and Steinberg later took in a toddler they named Mitchell. Nussbaum and Steinberg never legally adopted either child.

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