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" star...

Details about the real people and events portrayed in A Matter of Justice ( Final Justice ) were researched by Traciy Curry-Reyes and are based on court records and interviews she conducted between 1998 and 2013 with several key figures connected to the case, including Mary Brown, Rocky Jackson, the former attorney involved in the case, and family and friends of Dusty Brown, Chris Brown, and their daughter, Christi. The film used the real names of the people involved; however, the research presented here includes additional information, photographs, court-record details, and firsthand interviews that go beyond what was portrayed in the movie.  I remember the movie aired in two parts, and it was based on the 1982 murder of Chris Randall Brown, a Marine who was stationed in Hawaii, according to Variety . His murder went unsolved until police were able to trace the savage killing back to another Marine named Ralph “Rocky” Jackson. the real Kathy Dusty Brown and Ralph Rocky Jackson...

Sins of the Father is a TV One movie inspired by a true story. The producers don’t specify which one inspired Sins of the Father. But those who watch true crime will think it’s loosely based on the Pauletta Burleson and Tracy Burleson murder case out of Houston, Texas. Prosecutors say Tracy Burleson, a respected pastor, needed a hitman to kill his wife to collect the insurance money and live in luxury with his younger mistress, Tyonne Palmer. He also didn't want to simply walk away from his marriage and risk losing his position as pastor if his affair became public. Tracy Burleson chose his own son, William Fuller, 21, to carry out the wicked deed. Originally posted by Traciy Curry-Reyes in 2019 Sins of the Father is likely based on the Tracy Burleson murder case Another interesting detail found in the court files shows the life insurance policy was about $60,000, and testimony indicated Tracy promised William Fuller a portion of the money for carrying out the killing. The court re...

The Falicia Blakely movie, When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story , debuted on TV One. Inspired by an episode of For My Man , When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story dramatized the tragic tale of 18-year-old Falicia Blakely, an Atlanta dancer who shot and killed three men in Atlanta, Georgia, along with her accomplice, Ameshia Ervin, 15 years earlier. The thrilling true-story television movie was directed by Tasha Smith and written by Cas Sigers-Beedles. It starred Lil Mama as Falicia, Lance Gross as Dino, Tami Roman as Stacey, Tiffany Black as Pumpkin, Walter Fauntleroy as “Q,” and Kendrick Cross as Raymond. Originally Posted By: Traciy Curry-Reyes August 19, 2017 When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story Tease A young and inexperienced Falicia Blakely entered the world of exotic dancing and attracted the attention of a dangerous predator named Dino. Chronicling the turbulent and tumultuous relationship with her mom, When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story showed us the ...

Lawrence Horn, the killer dad who inspired the movie Deliberate Intent, is dead, according to a recent Investigation Discovery TV series. Lawrence Horn, also known as Lawrence Thomas ‘LT Horn, hired a man from Detroit to kill his quadriplegic son and his ex-wife in 1993. Here’s what many Investigation Discovery Channel viewers didn’t know—there is a true-story movie based on the Lawrence Horn murder case. Millie Horn According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Deliberate Intent aired on television for the first time on August 6, 2000. It premiered on the FX Channel before airing on Lifetime Television for the next several years. The movie was based on the book Deliberate Intent: A Lawyer Tells the True Story of Murder by the Book by First Amendment attorney Rod Smolla, which examined the Horn murders and the subsequent lawsuit against the publisher of the book Hit Man. Deliberate Intent was based on the 1999 book Deliberate Intent by Rod Smolla and starred Timothy Hutton as Rod S...

When CBS aired A Killer Among Friends, the character names were changed to Jenny, Jean, Ellen, and Carla. Over 24 years ago, I revealed the true story behind A Killer Among Friends, which was based on the Missy Avila murder case. Some of the information was lost when the original sites went down, but this post contains rare details I have never published on social media---including some of my original archived interview notes with Victor Amaya, information from former classmates, and historical court timelines. When I first researched the movie between 1998 and 2000, there was no digital record connecting it to the Missy Avila murder. While local California print journalists, like the Los Angeles Times , covered the original crime and murder trial, those newspaper articles were not accessible to most people across the U.S., and news outlets were not publishing them online back then. The Birmingham Public Library was my go-to place. After many hours of sifting through archived printed n...