Is Lifetime's '12 Desperate Hours' Based on a True Story? We're Desperate for Answers

Lifetime is ripping a story directly from the pages of an Ann Rule e-book with '12 Desperate Hours.' Is it based on a true story? Here's what we all know.

Ann Rule solidified her status as a true-crime creator when she penned the now famous The Stranger Beside Me, which is both a biographical and autobiographical e book about serial killer Ted Bundy. Once upon a time Rule worked at a disaster center with Bundy that centered on suicide prevention. From there she would go on to write down countless true-crime books and some crime fiction as well.

Now, Lifetime has decided to pluck a story from one among her books and is giving it a polished retelling on the small display screen. In 12 Desperate Hours, we meet Val (performed by means of Samantha Mathis) who is abducted and compelled to play chauffeur to a killer. This begs the query: Is this story from certainly one of Rule's fiction or nonfiction books? Is 12 Desperate Hours based on a true story? Let's get into it.

Is '12 Desperate Hours' based on a true story?

Director Gina Gershon (Riverdale) instructed KTLA that, yes, 12 Desperate Hours is in reality based on a true story.

"It follows a mother and her young children who are held hostage when a man forces his way into her house after committing murder earlier that day," she informed the opening.

This story is in Rule's anthology Last Dance, Last Chance and Other True Cases: Crime Files Vol. 8 and is somewhat the provoking page turner.

It begins with heartbreak and jealousy, then ends with murder. While it spanned only two days (Dec. 19–20,1963), the ramifications were felt for a long time. In Washington state in 1963, Joan Marlatt used to be ending issues together with her then-boyfriend Gary Lee Quinlivan, consistent with filings in Justia. According to Marlatt, Quinlivan "refused to work and subjected her to physical abuse," so she moved back in along with her mother, Gladys Bodine.

Quinlivan did not take this neatly and persisted to succeed in out to her even if she used to be no longer concerned with seeing him. On Dec. 19 Quinlivan went to Bodine's house with the intention of talking wih Marlatt. He admitted to the usage of some physical pressure whilst speaking with Bodine however claimed she was once nonetheless alive when he left. The subsequent day she used to be found dead by way of strangulation.

In a statement made to King County Sheriff's workplace, Quinlivan said on Dec. 20 he requested his "friend Fritz Donahue to drive him, together with his personal belongings which included a rifle, to see Mrs. Marlatt in Kent." Quinlivan claimed the two stopped upon getting misplaced so he may relieve himself, at which level he slipped within the mud.

The gun then allegedly went off, killing Donahue. The post-mortem published that Donahue "died of a gunshot wound in the head, with the wound in a horizontal plane facts which are consistent with the gun being held at shoulder level and directly fired at the victim." At this point Quinlivan ran into the woods and emerged by means of the house of Patricia Jean Jaque. He pressured her to force Quinlivan to Tacoma but the two have been "apprehended by law enforcement personnel."

Where is Gary Lee Quinlivan now?

Quinlivan would ultimately be convicted of homicide in the second one stage, homicide within the first stage, and kidnapping in the first degree. He "pled not guilty to these charges and also entered a special plea of not guilty by reason of insanity," in keeping with the Justia filings. In June 1964 Quinlivan was once deemed incapable of standing trial and used to be sent to Eastern State Hospital the place he remained until July 1968. Once again he used to be found not worthy to stand trial.

Three years later in January 1971 he in any case went to trial the place he was once discovered in charge. "The defendant was found guilty of murder in the second degree in the death of Mrs. Bodine; of murder in the first degree in the death of Fritz Donahue, and the death penalty was imposed; and of kidnapping in the first degree in the abduction of Mrs. Jaque," per the filings.

It was once appealed once and the conviction was overturned in August 1972, in step with filings in Leagle. The retrial passed off April 1973 the place Quinlivan "pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to two concurrent life imprisonment terms." However, in September 1973 the "Board of Prison Terms and Paroles established a 25-year discretionary minimum term for petitioner to serve before becoming eligible for parole."

His lawyer used to be ready to argue that the nine and a half years he served in Eastern State Hospital and Washington State Penitentiary previous to receiving his existence sentences may well be put against his 25 year minimal, and it worked. After that, Quinlivan disappears from online records. so we here at Distractify reached out to Cassie King of the Washington State Department of Corrections Correspondence Unit for some answers.

According to their data, Quinlivan used to be paroled out to King County in 1985. At the time of his unencumber, he was on the Monroe Correctional Complex. "What our database shows is that he was off our jurisdiction in 1991," she instructed us. In all probability he was on supervised parole for six years and was totally executed via 1991.

We were ready to search out an obituary for a Gary Lee Quinlivan who died Aug. 21, 2011, in Renton, Wash., at the age of 77. We spoke with Evergreen Washelli Funeral Home & Cemetery who confirmed he is interned at their columbarium. This obituary additionally listed a birthdate of July 24, 1935, so we went again to Washington State Penitentiary and had been in a position to determine that was once Quinlivan's birthday. Long story short, he is deceased.

12 Desperate Hours premieres Saturday, Feb. 25, at 8 p.m. EST on Lifetime.

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