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Is the name Robert Graysmith familiar to you? He’s the author of Zodiac, and he was brought to life on the big screen by actor Jake Gyllenhaal in David Fincher’s film of the same name. He’s back in the true crime game with another unusual murder case, this one movie-related, with the release of his book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shower.
It’s the bizarre, convoluted account of the murder of Myra Davis, Janet Leigh’s stand-in for Psycho. The killer, Kenneth Dean Hunt, intended to murder Marli Renfro, Leigh’s body double for the infamous shower scene, but got the wrong woman back in 1988. The crime went unsolved until roughly ten years ago, and even the Associated Press reported Renfro had been murdered, when she was actually alive and completely unaware of her reported death.
Hitchcock and Leigh kept up the ruse that Leigh did the shower scene all by herself up to their dying days, burying the contribution made by Renfro – a contribution Graysmith’s book hopes to bring to light. It’s a rich enough story that Graysmith’s book might make an interesting film in its own right – the story of a real murder spurred on by Hunt’s love for Psycho’s fake murder, and the strange case of mistaken identity that followed.
(via Guardian UK)