After a brief infatuation with the O.J. Simpson trial, television’s true-crime wave has found another 20-year-old case to pick apart this fall.
At least three networks have specials in the works to reexamine the tragic 1990s murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey, but Lifetime’s fictionalized TV movie “Who Killed JonBenét?” might just take the hate-watching cake.
Ramsey’s case has remained unsolved since the little girl was found beaten and strangled in her home in 1996. Unlike CBS’ miniseries “The Case Of: JonBenét Ramsey,” which at least attempts to solve the murder with actual evidence (though it reaches dubious conclusions), Lifetime’s movie steers well clear of reality. It recreates Ramsey’s final days and the ensuing investigation into her murder with actors in the HIGHLY dramatic fashion we’ve come to expect from the network that gifted the world “Liz & Dick.”
In the trailer, released on Friday, young actress Payton Lepinski, playing Ramsey, narrates the unabashedly exploitative tale, which features a lot of serious acting and totally authentic dialogue like “What you do in the next 24 hours is going to decide the rest of your life.”
“Who Killed JonBenét?” airs on Lifetime this November.
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