Shirley Gibbs Russell was an African American U.S. Marine Corps captain who was murdered in 1989 by her husband, Robert P. Russell. Her story inspired the 1997 movie Perfect Crime , starring Mitzi Kapture and Jasmine Guy. In the film, Mitzi Kapture plays a military investigator who has a hard time convicting an officer of killing his wife due to the absence of a body. Few people knew the movie was based on Shirley Gibbs Russell, they changed her name in the movie, and there were no pics online. I brought you the story in 2004, 2008, and again in 2014. I remembered seeing the crime on an early documentary episode and realized it matched the movie. Perfect Crime  Robert and Shirley met in August 1985 while stationed at the Marine Corps base in Parris Island, South Carolina. Robert Russell was already married to Pamela Russell. They divorced a few months later, and Russell moved to another military base in Mississippi. He began seeing Shirley Russell, as well as other women. After two...

On November 7, 2015, Tiffany Bailey was murdered by her live-in boyfriend, Deunta Grier, also known as Deuntay Grier. Atlanta investigators were called to Apt. 4 on Cleveland Avenue at the Pavilion Place Apartments in Southwest Atlanta, Georgia. When they arrived, the door was ajar, a baby was on the couch, and Tiffany Bailey was lying face-up on the kitchen floor. Paramedics noted that the victim was still alive but unresponsive. Tiffany Bailey’s other children were also inside the home, along with her live-in boyfriend, Deunta “Gunz” Grier, 25. Investigators observed her boyfriend, Deunta Grier (Deuntay Grier), pacing back and forth frantically as he talked to someone on the phone. When police asked him what happened, his story was that two guys had knocked on his front door and shot at them. One of the guys, he said, was a light-skinned teen with freckles and a blonde patch in his hair. According to Deunta, when he saw the shooter raising the gun, he ducked or stepped out of the way...

If you watched television in November 1991, you probably remember the CBS two-part drama In a Child’s Name, starring Valerie Bertinelli and Michael Ontkean. The woman behind the movie was based on the real-life murder of 25-year-old Teresa Benigno Taylor, killed by her husband, Kenneth Z. Taylor, a dentist from New Jersey. They changed a few of the names in the film. Peter Maas’ true crime book inspired it . Some of you are Lifetime movie babies, while some of us old-timers remember when these movies premiered on network television. Back then, those movies were a big deal. In A Child’s Name is the kind of movie you’d remember decades later. I blogged about the story in 2003, back when most general audiences had to buy true crime books to learn the real stories or watch it on the news. That one gripping scene, what I call the barbell-luminol glow scene, was just horrific. And I think it made every woman shake with fear. That part of the movie stayed with me, and it brought back a very...

In Broad Daylight was probably inspired by the true story of Bethany Arceneaux, a 29-year-old Louisiana kidnapping victim, who was abducted by her boyfriend, Scott Thomas, and rescued by her family, according to ABC News . I originally matched the case to the movie and told you about it when the movie first aired some years ago.  The movie is about a crazy ex-boyfriend who abducts a young mother in broad daylight. Her family goes into panic mode and sets out to find and rescue her. The question is: will they rescue her in time, or will he kill her? True Story That Possibly Inspired In Broad Daylight The real story happened in 2013. Bethany was 29 when she was abducted from the parking lot of a daycare center while picking up her 2-year-old child. Scott Thomas, her boyfriend and the father of her child, took her into the woods and held her against her will in an abandoned house. The car Scott Thomas was driving was eventually located. But the police couldn’t find her. Bethany’s fami...

Deadly Dispatch inspired by actual events Deadly Dispatch, TV One’s latest true-story movie, might take inspiration from the Beatrice Camper and Terry Lee Camper taxi-cab murder case in Peekskill, New York. The characters’ names in Deadly Dispatch have been changed. In the real story, John Murray, 60, shot and killed popular taxi-cab owner and driver Terrence “Terry” Lee Camper, 53, as part of a plot to collect life-insurance proceeds. Terry Camper’s wife, Beatrice Camper, was the mastermind behind the murder and was having an affair with the ex-convict.  Deadly Dispatch movie Well-liked business owner Shawn is found dead in his taxi, and police think it’s a robbery gone wrong. But his childhood best friend, Tiffany, believes he was murdered, and she has her eyes on Shawn’s wife, a greedy salon owner with a deadly secret. The True Story In October 2012, a mail carrier happened upon a scene on Pine Street. The body of a large Black man was found slumped over in his taxi. Everyone kn...

It was Catherine and Jim Stroup’s story that inspired the movie To Love, Honor, and Betray. Catherine Stroup was murdered by the Leach brothers, two men hired by her son-in-law, Michael Seawright. The movie, To Love, Honor, and Betray, first aired on CBS on Wednesday, May 12, 1999, and it aired for years on Lifetime. The names of the real people and the real locations were changed in the TV film. The real woman died in 1983. Plot: To Love, Honor, and Betray Movie When a nurse finds out that her father is a womanizer and her mother ends up dead, she suspects the killer is her father. Her testimony helps put him away, until further evidence suggests her husband orchestrated the murder. (Starring James Brolin, Crystal Bernard, David Cubitt, and Dee Wallace Stone.) Some notes on the real Jim Stroup and an interview I had with him ten years ago The last time I spoke with Jim Stroup, he told me he was old, but he “remembers it all.” I began by asking how he liked the movie, To Love, Honor, a...

Guilt by Association is a movie based on true events. The mandatory minimum sentencing movie debuted on Court TV and starred Mercedes Ruehl. The real names were changed. The Kemba Smith and Amy Pofahl cases were most likely used as a model for the movie. It is about a single mom named Susan Walker who gets caught up in a drug bust because of her drug-dealing boyfriend. The woman, who unknowingly helps her boyfriend, is sentenced to a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for her small involvement. Walker fights to prove her innocence and to regain control of her life. Guilt by Association is said to be " based on true events ." The movie is similar to the Kemba Smith and Amy Pofahl cases that were featured on Court TV in the 1990s. Both women, who were given a 24-year mandatory minimum sentence, fought their cases and were eventually released. The movie sought to expose the flaws in mandatory sentencing. This movie is not to be confused with "Guilty by Association" st...