"It's art imitating life, life imitating art — imitating murder!"

May 9, 2014 12:16 PM

Maybe you saw the 2011 movie. And if you're a fan of long form journalism, you shouldn't miss the Skip Hollandsworth piece it was based on. You probably didn't see this twist coming: Bernie was just granted early release on the condition that he move into director Richard Linklater's garage.

Skip Hollandsworth's update for Texas Monthly.

posted by blue suede stockings (3 comments total)

I feel better liking that movie knowing that Bernie has received some measure of mercy from the justice system. Because it's a *really* interesting movie.
posted by Tesseractive at 12:49 PM on May 9, 2014

I loved the movie and I certainly came away from it with the sense that Bernie Tiede wasn't dangerous or anything. But that was a movie and not, you know, actual life. I'm not worried about Tiede's presence in my town as an Austin resident or anything, but I'm also not sure how I'd feel if I were Mrs Linklater.
posted by immlass at 7:13 PM on May 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

I love the movie as well. Who knows if he will stay out of jail for long though, as he still has to face charges of theft for spending all of that money after he shot her. Dissociative stress could have explained how the killing occurred, but not the keeping up of appearances for a long time afterwards.
posted by Theta States at 9:50 AM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]