Redwood Tomb
Married assistant DA falls for a free-spirited Santa Cruz artist who is unknowingly entangled with a charismatic serial killer. Neo noir based on a true crime in 1982. Adapted from my short story published in UK crime magazine, Close to the Bone https://www.close2thebone.co.uk/wp/saturday-night-off-2/
Royal tells Don he has instructions to search him and Lauren before bringing them to the cabin. As they are being patted down, Royal shoots them both in the head. Now, Royal's teenage accomplices, TINA and BILLIE join them. As instructed, they have dug graves and brought what they believe is quicklime to dissolve the bodies and make identification harder in this pre-DNA era.
Royal buries the bodies and takes the money. They all depart for the Santa Cruz Dream Inn on the beach, where Royal takes a suite and invites friends to party in a cocaine-fueled orgy.
OPEN ON the Santa Cruz County DA's office. The tabloids call Santa Cruz "The Murder Capital of the World." But young Ass't DA Denny Anders has yet to try a homicide, and he is seething with ambition.
His wife, FANCHON, has a growing alcohol problem,. After work, Denny sometimes rides the Big Dipper Roller Coaster on the Boardwalk, where a grown man can scream his lungs out.
When Denny is sent to interview a snitch, surfer NICK SWANSON, in the seedy Beach Flats neighborhood surrounding the Boardwalk, he meets Nick's roommate, beautiful young vagabond artist, AIMEE. He falls hard for her.
When Denny's wife, Fanchon, enters rehab for her drinking, his secret affair with Aimee deepens.
One evening, while Denny is on call, a sheriff reports to him that two mushroom hunters have unearthed a human skull up near Empire Grade Road. Denny drives out with the cops to secure the chain of evidence. The torsos are covered in a white "clayey" substance that turns out to be oyster shell gardening lime. Royal's teenage accomplices, told to buy quicklime, had bought the wrong kind. The bodies, rather than dissolving, are actually preserved.
Unbeknownst to Denny, his girlfriend Aimee sometimes mules cocaine for Royal. Aimee learns from Royal's girlfriend, Kathi Kent, that Royal committed the murders on Empire Grade. Kathi confides that Royal is insane from coke and has her followed everywhere.
Aimee decides to tell Denny that she knows who the murderer is, but she suddenly disappears—kidnapped by an accomplice of Royal who had followed Kathi to Aimee's home.
Meanwhile, acting on a hunch, the DA sends some sheriffs with a search warrant to the cabin on Empire Grade Road. They meet Royal's flirty teen accomplices but cannot turn up any evidence of the murder. Meanwhile, Aimee is lying tied up and gagged in a crawl space under the cabin just a few feet away.
Terrified, Kathi Kent cracks and tells her brother-in-law about the murders. He calls the FBI. Denny and a SWAT team burst into the Santa Cruz Dream Inn, where Royal has been on a nonstop cocaine bender.
Given the case to try, Denny convicts Royal with a brilliant strategy and closing argument. The appeal fails, and Royal is sent to death row.
Denny's relationship with Aimee is never revealed. His wife Fanchon has "graduated" from rehab, eager to resume her duties as wife and mother. As cameras go off, Denny is lauded a superstar prosecutor. And he's not even 30 yet!
Months later, Aimee's body is found in the crawl space. In the last scene, Nick Swanson the snitch commits suicide out of broken-hearted guilt at not protecting Aimee.
As a postscript, a nun from a nearby convent, counseling prisoners on death row, falls in love with Royal, leaves her convent and marries him.
Young Thomas Jane
Young Elisha Cuthbert
Sea of Love
Red Hill
Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/Linda-Boroff/e/B00NWE6J3I
I wrote the feature film, Murder in Fashion, about the shooting of designer Gianni Versace by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. The film played at theatres and festivals and was reviewed in the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/movies/22murder.html?_r=0
"Low budget but accurate and well constructed insight into a modern mystery" review by Richard von Lust L.
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!The Confession (Elevated Horror/Drama/Thriller)
A shy eight-year-old Catholic girl commits a petty crime to have a "sin" to confess to her priest, thus setting up a cascading series of horrifying events.
Radioland! (Coming of Age/Psychological/Comedy/Drama/Memoir
A naïve 12-year-old boy, falls in love with a fantasy, learns the truth about his fatally flawed hero -- a 1960s Top 40 radio deejay -- and discovers the bittersweet meaning of life.
We Wrestle Not With Flesh And Blood - 2nd TV episode of Free Indeed
Our hero is gifted to see into the supernatural if someone is in need.
Free Indeed
When our heroine sees more than what meets the natural eye, she knows she is on a divine assignment, if she doesn't free a woman from spiritual bondage the woman will die.
HOSEA
The son of the superintendent of international churches is convinced he hears a divine word which he follows, only to face ridicule from his family circle and friends and threats to lose his life from the drug and human trafficking world.
SEE JANE RUN
A young teacher moves back into her hometown.
FINDING CHRISTMAS
A woman gets threatening emails and anonymous calls about her little girl, who had drowned with her husband three years ago.
True Tears - Timeless Fairy Tale
A young princess who grew up hidden in the woods must find her father, the King, to save the kingdom from doom – His twin sister and self-appointed Sorceress Queen, who banished him about 18 years ago, uses all her powers to prevent a successful journey.
The Puzzle People
Berlin cold war aftermath: A Woman reconstructs shredded Stasi documents and stumbles upon a murder committed days after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Adapted scene from The Seven Rays
This was the Seven rays Script-a-Scene contest, for the book THE SEVEN RAYS, by Jessica Bendinger.