Most police movies show the crime and how the suspect is caught and punished but generally ignore the victim's plight.
"Aftermath: The Other Side of Murder" is a made-for-television film that aims to reverse that by telling some of the story of an Ogden family caught up in the 1974 Hi Fi Shop torture slayings."The reason, the only reason they're going to do this is to show the victim's side," said Dr. Byron Naisbitt, whose wife was one of three people killed during the April 22, 1974, robbery of the stereo shop. His teenage son, Courtney, and another man were gravely wounded.
Although police quickly caught the killers, that did little to help the victims or their families.
The fictionalized account looks at one aspect of the Hi Fi Shop case, focusing on Naisbitt's family.
The docudrama, scheduled to air March 10 on Channel 5, "was all right with me, and the family agreed, as long as they stayed within the confines of the book," said Naisbitt, referring to Gary Kinder's book about the crime, "Victim."
Interscope Productions took "a little section" from Kinder's book dealing with how Courtney Naisbitt dealt with the aftermath of the crime, the family support he received and how the family came together and reacted - how a family "deals with this sort of thing," said Naisbitt, an Ogden obstetrician and gynecologist.
"Aftermath" stars Richard Chamberlain as Ross Colburn, a fictitious Ogden obstetrician, and Michael Learned as his wife, Irene Colburn.
In the movie, after a violent robbery in which Irene Colburn is killed and Terry Colburn, the youngest of three sons, is left to die, the family keeps a constant vigil in Terry's hospital room where he has slipped into a coma, producer Helena Hacker said.
Doctors say Terry has been injured beyond hope, but Ross Colburn remains steadfast in his belief that his son will survive.
The son regains consciousness but is wheelchair-bound from complications and has amnesia. Colburn tells Terry that Terry and his mother were in an automobile accident.
In real life, Naisbitt's son was told the truth, the doctor said.
In the film, Terry eventually is told the truth and is overcome with denial, fury and grief, Hacker said. But family members help Terry resolve his grief and promise to be there for him as he deals with his feelings.
Chamberlain starred in the TV miniseries "Shogun," "The Thorn Birds" and "The Bourne Identity."
Learned won three Emmy best actress awards for her role as Olivia Walton in the TV series "The Waltons" and a fourth Emmy for her lead role in the television series "Nurse." She now is working in a new series, "Living Dolls."
Naisbitt said he was not involved in cast selections and was not asked to consult on the production, adding, "They didn't even want me to look at the script."
He did, however, get to read the screenplay. The script follows the book, he said, but how much they varied from that in the movie, "I don't know."