Tale of Two CitiesWhen pregnant Carol Stuart...

Tale of Two Cities

When pregnant Carol Stuart was murdered in Boston last year--and a black man, William Bennett, was falsely accused--the city was gripped by controversy and thrust into an unflattering national spotlight. Now the producer of a CBS movie based on the sensational case has decided to lense the film primarily in Chicago, with only a few scenes to be shot in Beantown.

The reason: lingering tension in Boston’s Mission Hill district, where police rounded up herds of black suspects, accusing Bennett, before Stuart’s own husband--white and upscale--became the prime suspect in his wife’s homicide, and committed suicide.

“The case inflamed the (Boston) community,” explains director Jerrold Freedman, speaking of the controversy surrounding the aggressive tactics of police investigators in the black neighborhood. “Feelings were bruised. Families were traumatized. We don’t want to step on anyone’s feelings if we don’t have to.”

Producer Arnold Shapiro insists that the move to Chicago was not motivated by fears about the community’s response. “We’re not ‘afraid,’ that would be a totally inappropriate word,” Shapiro tells us. “We decided it might be insensitive to shoot all of the movie in Boston--particularly the murder scene and other scenes that involve the Mission Hill district. . . . There has never been an official conclusion about whether the police operated properly . . . it’s a sensitive area.”

Shapiro’s “Rescue 911” camera captured the murder scene on tape after Charles Stuart called for help from his car, telling police that a black assailant had shot him and his wife. In January, when his story began to unravel, he took his own life.

“We’ve been researching this since the murder happened last October,” Shapiro says. “You could wait and wait and wait (for an official resolution), and five years from now there might still be investigations under way. There comes a time when you know you have enough information to go on--and we do.”

No casting or start date has been set, but Shapiro expects to deliver the movie to CBS before summer’s end. The script features the character--and point of view--of real-life Boston Herald reporter Michelle Caruso, one of the media members who doubted Charles Stuart’s story from the beginning.