She was poor, and saved up enough money to get eye surgery for her son, so he wouldn't go blind like her. The guy who owned the house she was staying in was in debt, found the money, and said she would have to kill him to get the money back. He gave her the gun, and made her shoot, and she couldn't see well enough to kill him, so she had to kill him with the safe, and his wife came in mid kill, and he yelled like he didn't make her kill him, so after he died, she ran off, and the wife called the police. She went to her play rehearsal a few days later, and got arrested at the theater.
Her friends got a lawyer for her that agreed to represent her for a discount, so she would get life in prison, not death. But it was the same price as the surgery for her son, so she chose to get the death penalty so her son could get surgery, and see again. When she was scheduled to hang in prison (it's 1964) she was singing, then they abruptly drop the door in the floor, and she gets hung.