Murder of Innocence, the death of Laurie Dann
Written: Oct 15 '07 (Updated Oct 16 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: VALERIE BERTINELLI
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: "Hey_Laurie_Dann where ya gonna run to now?
I'm_going_to a house that's not too far away
I'm_gonna_shoot one more
Then_take_my_own_life away"
Macabre
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| susidee34's Full Review: Murder of Innocence |
On May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann calmly loaded her .32 Smith and Wesson revolver, entered Hubbard Woods Elementary School, and started firing in a 2nd grade classroom. After emptying her revolver into the terrified students, she fled the school and entered the Andrews home. Ruth and her son, Philip, were at the breakfast table when Laurie ran into the home, brandishing her weapon.
Philip talked Laurie into letting his mother leave and then tried to reason with Laurie. He was shot for his efforts. Laurie then ran upstairs and killed herself. End result: 8 wounded and the death of Laurie Dann, 30, and Nicholas Corwin, aged 8.
This is a true story, the real perpetrator was Laurie Dann, nee Wasserman. The crime occurred in Glencoe, Illinois. The deaths were real, the injuries were real. The reason for her violence was never discovered, her illness was never truly diagnosed. Laurie Wasserman Dann was a true victim of child abuse.
I know when crimes are committed people tend to look for an answer. Why would they do that? Did something happen in their past to make them this way? In most cases I think criminals use the ’I had a bad childhood’ excuse way too often. In Laurie’s case … yep, she had a problem.
The really devastating thing about this tragedy is the fact that it could have been avoided. Laurie’s ex-husband, Russell, begged the police to intervene. But Laurie was crafty and sly. She could look at you and lie until you believed the other person was the guilty party. Take for instance, she broke into Russell’s apartment in the middle of the night and stabbed him with an ice pick. When questioned by police, she stated that Russell was taking the divorce badly and was trying anything he could to put her in a bad light. She got away with it. In fact, she got away with everything she did over the years because her parents continued with their mantra ‘There is nothing wrong with our daughter. Perhaps she is a little high strung, but there is nothing wrong with her’.
I could continue to recount the fouls done by Laurie through her life like the hundreds of packages of raw meat she stored all over the apartment building where she lived, none of it refrigerated. Or doing laundry but forgetting that one little step - drying - and putting the soaked clothing back in drawers and on hangers. I could go on and on but my job here is to review the movie and not the tragedy that Laurie’s parents gave her for a life [mantra, mantra, mantra]
Valerie Bertinelli
Valerie, like so many others accomplished in the acting profession, have to thank their lucky stars for the likes of Lifetime TV and made-for-television movies. It isn’t that they are bad actors, they are just actors in a very large ocean of actors. Without these two mediums I fear many of them would be regulated to the droning on infomercials shoving their face creams and thigh reduction machines at you. Valerie, like others, are acceptable actors. Never gonna get that Scarlett and Rhett role, but they make a decent living doing something they obviously enjoy.
In Murder of Innocence there could have easily been no one else in the movie. Valerie Bertinelli absolutely rawked! Director, Tom McLoughlin, took advantage of her scrubbed school girl face, her freckles and baby doll eyes, and ate you up. Many shots reminded me of the work of Darren Aronofsky as they concentrated on simply her eyes, mostly one eye at a time, or the repeated tapping of her pencil. She was fixated on the number 7 for some reason, never divulged, and everything she did was in sequences of 7 … tap, tap, tap … you get the idea.
On the other hand, during her lucid moments, she could be so likeable and adorable. In fact, she earned a living as a babysitter, heaven forbid. She was beautiful and perky and just down right sweet. Everyone loved her. Valerie was able to pull this off, reminding you of Sally Fields in Sybill. Perhaps she did have MPD or DID, again, never disclosed. Certainly she had OCD, the constant hand washing testified to that. Strange though, when in her manic stage she was a complete and absolute slob, often lying in her own feces for days at a time. To say nothing of all that raw meat lying about. But I digress.
Bertinelli got inside this character and made her real and believable. You felt nothing but sympathy for her throughout the movie, even in the end, because she had no control over what she was doing.
The Aftermath
Because Laurie managed to slip through the system with such aplomb, stricter gun control laws were enforced in Illinois. More attention to mental disorders in relationship to gun ownership was brought to light. Several parents of her victims, including Philip Andrews, joined forces to tighten gun laws. Laurie’s parents were sued by the victims families. They continued to live in denial [mantra, mantra, mantra]. And like Lizzie Borden, Laurie became vocally famous when rockers Macabre released a song about her.
Overall impression
The movie was an outstanding production that Valerie Bertinelli absolutely owned. It won one award, an Eddie, for best edited motion picture. Phooey … she should have received an dang Oscar for her performance. The movie came from the book by the same name, written by Eric Zorn. From accounts I have read over the internet, it stayed fairly close to the actual events.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Dann
http://skcentral.com/readarticle.php?article_id=230
Thanks,
Susi
p.s. perhaps you think I paid too little attention to the innocent victims in this tragedy, the children. Perhaps I did.
This movie is part of the Good Movie Write-off, compliments of CaptainD
Recommended:
Yes
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susidee34
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Member: SusiDee
Location: Gastonia NC
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It's easier to build a child than repair an adult
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