McDonald’s Massacre TV Drama Planned

An independent television producer has announced that he is close to signing a contract with a television network for a four-hour television movie about last summer’s massacre at a McDonald’s restaurant and that he plans to use the wife of the slain gunman, James Huberty, as a paid consultant.

Leaders of the border community of San Ysidro, where the July 18 murders occurred, expressed outrage and disgust Thursday at Larry H. Spivey’s plans to dramatize the murder spree, in which 21 people died.

“We’ve barely had time to restore our lives, and they’re coming back to make money on our pain and sorrow,” said Bertha Alicia Gonzales, publisher of the San Ysidro-based Ahora-Now newspaper.

Spivey announced Wednesday that he and fellow producer Harry Sherman are close to signing a contract with a major network, which he declined to name, for a movie that would air over two nights, perhaps as early as spring, 1986. Spivey said he believes that the movie would be done “tastefully.”

Charles Bronson Movie

The miniseries is to be written by John Crowther, who also wrote “The Evil That Men Do,” a Charles Bronson feature movie in which Bronson played a retired hit man out to avenge the murder of a close friend. Last year Spivey and Sherman produced the critically acclaimed made-for-televison movie “Victims for Victims,” which dealt with the stabbing of actress Theresa Saldana.

“This won’t be an exploitation piece, but a piece that will demonstrate the preventability of something like San Ysidro and show how a community can properly respond to this kind of tragedy,” Spivey said.

“We have an opportunity to help 40 or 50 million people. It will help people recognize and stop others in society who have the propensity to commit the same kind of violence as Huberty.”

Armed with a Uzi rifle, semi-automatic pistol and a shotgun, Huberty terrorized people in the McDonald’s restaurant for more than an hour before he was killed by a San Diego police sharpshooter.

‘Get Facts Straight’

Spivey said that Huberty’s widow, Etna, will assist in production as a paid consultant. She will receive money “to help us get the facts straight and also to help her raise her family,” Spivey said. Without specifying how much money Etna Huberty would receive, he said it would not be “all that much.”

Etna Huberty, who lives with her two daughters in Chula Vista, said Thursday, “I want this movie to show a very hard-working man, a very kind man who got a very raw deal and became extremely frustrated, would not admit for a long time that he was having difficulties, and that when he finally did, he didn’t receive any help.

“If it shows that much, I’ll be happy,” she added.

The production is expected to cost between $4.5 million and $5 million. Spivey said he plans to donate his share of the proceeds to the San Diego-based Crime Victims Fund, which compensates victims of violent crime. The fund is separate from a San Ysidro-based fund established by the widow of McDonald’s founder, Ray Kroc, to aid the families of the victims of the massacre.