This podcast details true crime cases.

It contains adult themes and may contain descriptions of violence.

It is not intended for children.

Listener discretion is advised.

Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Once Upon a Crime.

We're in the series Stranger Than Fiction, where I share true crime cases that inspired

Hollywood films.

In this episode, the life and tragic death of a young socialite in the 1930s inspires

a novel and then an Academy Award-winning movie starring Elizabeth Taylor.

But Star Faithful's life was far from the glamorous treatment it would receive on the big screen.

Instead, it was a tale of abuse, exploitation, and pain from the time she was a child until

the beautiful young woman's body was found discarded on the New Jersey Shore.

This is the story of Star Faithful and Butterfield Eight.

The movie Butterfield Eight opens with Elizabeth Taylor, playing glory wondrous, waking up

in bed in a penthouse apartment in New York City.

The young actress was just 28 years old at the time Butterfield Eight was filmed.

The movie's first scene shows her tassled, her hair amests lying in rumpled sheets,

but there's no mistaking that she's still gorgeous.

Her character Gloria finds herself alone after having spent the night with a wealthy man

named Weston Liggett.

She calls out to him, but he's gone.

Gloria then discovers an envelope and a note he's left for her on the dresser.

...