Is 12 Desperate Hours Based on a True Story? – The upcoming Lifetime thriller “12 Desperate Hours” will premiere on February 25, 2023. It portrays the terrifying tale of a criminal and a mother’s effort to preserve her family. In the upcoming film directed by actress Gina Gershon, Samantha Mathis will play the lead role. In addition, Harrison Thomas and David Conrad will play important supporting parts.
The hybrid biography and autobiography of serial killer Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, earned Ann Rule notoriety in the true-crime genre once it was published as a best-seller. Rule and Bundy once worked together at a suicide prevention crisis center. She went on to write a spate of true-crime books and even some crime fiction.
Now, one of her novels will be adapted by the network Lifetime for television. In the film 12 Desperate Hours, Val (Samantha Mathis) is a kidnap victim. She is forced to serve as the serial killer’s driver. What kind of book does this snippet pertain to? Are the events shown in 12 Desperate Hours based on real-life occurrences? Sure, let’s dig in.
Is Lifetime’s ’12 Desperate Hours’ Based on a True Story?
Yes, ’12 Desperate Hours’ is in fact based on a true story. In an interview 12 Desperate Hours’ director Gina Gershon reveal that it is true story of crime did by Gary Lee Quinlivan.
She told the reporters that the plot revolves around a mother and her young children who become hostages after a man bursts into their home after committing a murder earlier that day. Rule’s Last Dance, Last Chance, and Other True Cases, Volume 8 of Crime Files, is filled with heartbreaking stories such as this one.
Murder is the tragic climax of a vicious cycle that begins with heartache and envy. Even though it lasted only two days (19–20 December 1963), its consequences could be felt for decades. Joan Marlatt and her then-boyfriend Gary Lee Quinlivan split up in the state of Washington in 1963, according to court documents published on Justia. After being “subjected to physical assault” by Quinlivan, as described by Marlatt, she returned to live with her mother, Gladys Bodine.
Although she had made it plain that she had no interest in seeing Quinlivan, he continued to contact her. Quinlivan visited Bodine’s apartment on the 19th of December in hopes of meeting Marlatt. Although he admitted using physical force on Bodine, he said she was still breathing when he left. The following morning, she was found strangled to death.
Quinlivan informed the King County Sheriff’s Office that he visited Mrs. Marlatt in Kent on December 20 and requested his “friend Fritz Donahue to drive him and his personal belongings, which included a handgun.” After growing disoriented, Quinlivan and his partner stopped so he could use the lavatory, at which point he slipped and fell in the mud.
Donahue was reportedly fatally shot after the revolver was discharged. According to the autopsy report, Donahue “died of a gunshot wound to the head, with the wound on a horizontal plane.” This is consistent with the gun being held at shoulder height and directly fired at the victim. Quinlivan ran into the woods and ultimately reemerged near Patricia Jean Jaque’s residence. After he persuaded her to drive Quinlivan to Tacoma, they were “apprehended by law enforcement authorities.”
Where is Gary Lee Quinlivan Today?
Later, Quinlivan would be found guilty of kidnapping in the first degree, murder in the first degree, and murder in the second degree. In addition to pleading “not guilty” to the charges, he pled “not guilty by reason of insanity,” according to documents on Justia. From June 1964, when he was deemed incompetent to face trial, to July 1968, Quinlivan remained a patient at Eastern State Hospital. He was again deemed legally incompetent.
After another three years of waiting, his trial began in January 1971, and he was found guilty shortly after that. According to court documents, the defendant was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Mrs. Bodine, first-degree murder in the killing of Fritz Donahue, for which the death penalty was imposed, and first-degree kidnapping in the abduction of Mrs. Jaque.
August 1972, according to court documents in the case of Leagle, the conviction was overturned following a single appeal. Quinlivan pled guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences during his retrial in April 1973. In September 1973, however, the “Board of Prison Terms and Paroles established a 25-year minimum discretionary time a petitioner to serve before becoming eligible for release.”
Because of his attorney’s efforts, the nine and a half years he spent in Eastern State Hospital and Washington State Prison before receiving his life sentence were included in the 25 years he needed to serve. Once this occurred, all traces of Quinlivan on the Internet vanished. Cassie King, who works in the correspondence unit of the Washington State Department of Corrections, was contacted by SpikyTV to obtain additional information.
The findings indicate that Quinlivan was paroled into King County in 1985. When he was released, he was jailed at the Monroe Correctional Complex. “According to our data, he was outside of our jurisdiction in 1991,” she stated. In 1991, he probably completed his six years of parole supervision.
According to his obituary, Gary Lee Quinlivan, age 77, was discovered to have passed away on August 21, 2011, in Renton, Washington. A phone call to the funeral home confirmed his interment in the Evergreen Washelli Funeral Home & Cemetery columbarium. As the obituary also stated Quinlivan’s birthdate of July 24, 1935, we returned to Washington State Prison to ensure this was his birthday. Thus, he has passed away, to cut a long story short.
This Saturday, February 25, at 8 p.m. EST, Lifetime will premiere 12 Desperate Hours.
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