Judge releases Bernie Tiede, whose small-town murder inspired Richard Linklater's movie, Bernie
Bernie/Facebook
"Start typing, because this story is so amazing," Skip Hollandsworth, a Texas Monthly writer, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week.
And, yes, this story is pretty amazing: In 1996, funeral director Bernie Tiede murdered Marjorie Nugent, an 81-year-old millionaire who had been bankrolling the 38-year-old Tiede. For nine months after the killing, Tiede kept Nugent's remains hidden in a freezer in her Carthage, Texas home, and he went about spending her money and carrying out her affairs as though she were still alive. The story — not to mention the bizarre circumstances around Tiede's eventual conviction — was first written by Hollandsworth as a magazine feature, and it later landed in the hands of Hollywood director Richard Linklater, who developed a 2011 movie starring Jack Black in the titular role.
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