My Mother, The Sociopath
Location: NY and Miami
Circa: Contemporary
Form: Feature Film or TV series
Genre: Detective - Crime
Nutshell: Think "Animal Kingdom" meets "Castle"
Logline: A depressed mystery writer with a vivid imagination, needs to prove her eminent mother is a cold blooded serial killer before becoming her next victim. She teams up with a gregarious detective offering protection and the hopes of exposing her mother.
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The story
SABRINA (resembling the character played by Ally Sheedy in Breakfast Club) breaks her foot in the middle of the night in unseen circumstances, before enlisting the help of Sam, a loyal ex-Spec Ops officer, to get to hospital. An alcoholic drug addict who can't remember much of what happened.
She is placed in a bed next to a Mr Hillstreet, who is being looked after by a detective, also a fan of her mystery writing, MICHAEL. Hillstreet flatlines, dying, and the detective, Michael, offers her the chance to help him solve the case of who killed him. Her mother donating so much money to the force, it will be easy to get her in. He also notes that she thinks someone is trying to kill her and says HE CAN PROTECT HER.
While Sabrina mulls her options, her mother PATRICIA, an eminent real estate mogul, is trying to track her down. Sabrina remembers how her mother disapproved of her husband, who was killed. She accepts the offer and is caught up on the current investigation: Mr Hillstreet was a prosecutor and they’re looking at recently released convicts.
They visit Mrs Hillstreet, the wife, who fails to provide decent information. Two convicts are found, the first of which has a tattoo of an eagle that Sabrina notices but has his alibi confirmed by a stripper. The second admits to robbery at the time of the murder and is arrested once more. The coroner finds atropine in Hillstreet’s system and deduces he was hit by a long thin object from a left-handed person.
Meanwhile, Patricia buries her third husband who mysteriously got ill and takes a lover. She tries to force her son to date a woman she has chosen for him but that he despises. Hillstreet is revealed to have a large sum of money in his will to his wife – whose business just so happens to be in big debt. They pay her another visit and Sabrina finds a fire iron with a path of blood on it. The wife is right handed, though, and wouldn’t be reckless enough to leave the weapon in her own house. They get a lead on a mistress Mr Hillstreet was keeping, but she wouldn't kill the father of her unborn child.
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Late at night, Sabrina remembers her father’s death and a flower that’s “the best way to get rid of a husband” – she remembers that Devil’s Weed contains atropine and Mrs Hillsborough had lots of it in her house. It doesn’t explain why the cause of death was the fire iron, however, with them musing she may have gotten sick of waiting.
The mistress calls back, remembering that Hillstreet kept mumbling ‘raven’ after he was beaten. The first convict’s tattoo was actually a raven, not an eagle, and with more force the stripper backs away from his alibi, allowing his arrest and admission that Mrs Hillstreet ordered him to do it.
Sabrina is asked to stay and help Michael solve more cases and she accepts. In the TV series, she will become closer to Michael, drop the booze and drugs eventually, and share her “issue” with her mother. Together, they will try to prove her guilt.
IN THE FEATURE, events are accelerated. Patricia kills her lover's lover and her son's fiance. Her son gets shot when he decides to help Sabrina. Sabrina's grandfather can prove Patricia's guilt but the building where he meets her explodes killing him on the spot. Michael gets arrested for attempted murder and terrorism. Sabrina finds the courage to flies to Miami to confront her mother. A shooting takes place. Sabrina falls. Michael comes to the rescue. Patricia is taken away in a police car. Sam at the wheel, having felt blown off by a Sabrina he secretly loved, helps the mother escape.
Sabrina will learn trust and courage. Michael will finally let go of the guilt he felt over cheating on his fiancé causing her to loose their child the day his father died. Patricia will discover the limits of her ''power''.
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