BLUE-EYED BUTCHER: An Advance Look at the Lifetime Movie

On Saturday March 3, Lifetime will air the made-for-TV movie Blue-Eyed Butcher which chronicles the very disturbing true story of Jeffrey and Susan Wright, a Texas couple who should have been the stereotypical, happy suburban family.

But of course that wouldn’t make for a compelling story. After being married for four years and having two children, Susan brutally murdered her husband in their own bedroom then hid the murder for almost a week’s time, eventually claiming, once the truth came out, that he was abusive, controlling and demanding.

The film plays out mostly via flashbacks from within the murder trial, as Texas prosecutor Kelly Siegler (Lisa Edelstein) questions Susan Wright (Sara Paxton) about the events that led to meeting her husband, Jeffrey (Justin Bruening) on a Texas beach, through their marriage and the birth of their first child.

More of the story unfolds as other witnesses take the stand, like a neighbor of the Wrights (Annie Wersching) who confirmed Jeffrey’s controlling ways and her fear that Susan would actually end up being the one found dead. A co-worker of Jeffrey’s (Matthew del Negro) also recounts a conversation he overheard between Jeffrey and Susan regarding an insurance policy Jeffrey had not renewed properly.

The disturbing details of how Susan Wright stabbed her husband an unbelievable nearly 200 times is also recounted in the court room and then also played out via flashbacks, giving a glimpse inside the troubling mind of Susan, who for weeks after Jeffrey’s murder seemed to believe her husband would show up at any moment to condemn her for not keeping their home cleaned up or worse yet, attempt to kill her.

Her defense, of course, was that of a battered wife with post-traumatic stress disorder. On the other side of the aisle, the prosecution worked to convince the jury that she was a blue-eyed butcher who, with full malice in her heart and mind, deliberately mutilated her husband then buried him in their backyard.

You will have to watch the movie to learn the outcome of the trial and judge for yourself if Susan acted out in self-defense or if she was just a malicious killer who wanted her husband dead in order to collect on his insurance policy.

Other cast members include Michael Gross and David Marciano.

Blue-Eyed Butcher premieres Saturday, March 3 at 8/7c on Lifetime.

Updated: The DVD is [easyazon-link asin=”B008Y1YK5S”]now available[/easyazon-link] from Amazon.