Hedda Nausbaum

She Had to Be Joel's 

Pygmalion 

By Lynn A. Granata

Why? You may ask would a supposedly bright, articulate, and attractive young woman like Hedda Nausbaum continue to remain in an abusive relationship with a man?

At first, things weren't out of the ordinary for Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nausbaum. They appeared to be the perfect match within their own circle of friends. The two came together in 1975. Hedda met him at a party thrown by their mutual friends. Joel was a criminal defense lawyer and Hedda was a children's book publisher for Random House.

Galieto sculpting "Pymalion."

The two hit it off nicely. They moved in together into a fashionable Greenwich Village brownstone. Joel was Hedda's coach, mentor, boyfriend and therapist all rolled into one. They would go out to business meetings together, and Joel would "critique" Hedda's performance afterward. Hedda's own account of his critiquing was described as "therapeutic."

As time passed, Joel's quirks started becoming more annoying and noticeable.  Steinberg would stay out late many times and picked up some very unsavory characters for clients. There were plenty of drug dealer clients who gravitated toward Attorney Joel Steinberg. 

Free basing cocaine became a regular habit at the Steinberg/Nausbaum residence. Joel and Hedda literally took up FreebaseCoke 101. Later came BDSM. With these two interesting pass times, it was no secret that Steinberg was becoming more psychotic. Nobody more than Hedda recognized this. One winter's day in 1978, Joel punched Hedda across the face with enough force to give her a left black eye. They had been together for 3 years by this time. Despite the act, she refused to hold him accountable.  Furthermore, she failed to leave Steinberg. 

Only after Nausbaum was taken into custody and gained celebrity status did she begin revealing Joel's horrific abuse to the press. Nausbaum claimed that she tried to leave him six times, but always went back. She made allegations of him giving her a more severe beating than before she left each and every time. It's been known that abusers do get more volatile when their victim "tries" to seek refuge by leaving. The abuse escalates and many times these men who beat their girlfriends go too far and kill these women.

However, after Hedda's last unsuccessful attempt at leaving Joel failed did she realize that "she needed him more than ever." Hedda hoped that Joel could keep his promise and "sculpt her into Pygmalion."

Steinberg refused to marry Nausbaum. She didn't care though, "being in any relationship, even a bad one was better than none at all." The couple remained in a tenants in common status until 1987, when they were both taken into custody.

Between 1979-81, Steinberg and Nausbaum began getting serious about starting a family. However, after many, many attempts at trying to conceive and failing, they then started considering adopting children.

The two probably realized they were both unfit as adults, let alone parents in order to legally adopt a child. To be continued...

Hedda Nausbaum and Joel Steinberg

A Dysfunctional Couple Who

Destroyed 2 Young Lives

by Lynn A. Granata

It was almost 29 years ago that an illegally adopted 6 year old girl was beaten to death. On November 2, 1987, police were summoned to a large Gothic style apartment located in New York City's stylish Greenwich Village.

The sight of Hedda Nausbaum (left) left it's mark on humanity, Joel Steinberg (right) made Hedda's appearance
an atrocity which took years in the making.  Photo courtesy of API (November 2, 1987).

 This place was just not any old place, but a place where story book legend Mark Twain lived.

At the exact same apartment, police knocked on the door at 6:30 am. The large oak doors slowly creaked open, behind it within the unveiled darkness an elderly woman answered it. The small hunched over dark- haired woman with hints of grey strands, appeared much older than her normal age.

She had old injuries healing over new injuries on her pain ridden contorted face. She was frail and emaciated. Behind her was the wafting wailing sound of a man's raspy voice hollering maniacally "Hedda, "she's stopped breathing!"

As law enforcement forced their way through the heavy oak doors and into the squalid apartment what they found was the most heart breaking scene ever.

Inside the apartment, was a disheveled couple wielding the limp, battered, bruised, and unconscious body of a small female child. In the next room, an 18 month old male child was found tethered to a playpen lying in dirt. He was rescued unharmed. And taken by police to Child Protective Custody.

The rescue crew quickly sprang into action and started giving the child, whose name is Lisa Steinberg CPR. The little girl was bruised and had overt signs of regular beatings showing on her pale skin. Old bruises healing over new ones donned her back, trunk, arms and legs.

Lisa was rushed to St.Vincent's Hospital. She had a large fist sized bruise over her right forehead. Upon further examination by medical professionals, she also had numerous other bumps and bruises about her head. She was unable to breathe on her own and was placed on a respirator.

It was later determined that she had a subdural hematoma exerting too much pressure on her brain. Lisa was technically declared brain dead and taken off life support and died 3 days later.

The police questioned the two unkempt mentally incoherent adults at the New York Police station. Upon further investigation, the police obtained enough evidence to arrest them both on aggravated felony assault and murder of a minor.

I will discuss this case in more depth in later blogs. The new blog is just to give you an introduction into the case and players involved for now. This is a very long and complex saga. And requires more than one posting. To be continued...