IT might have been the murder that “48 Hours Mystery” executive producer Susan Zirinsky witnessed as a young child that turned her on to a life of crime.
You may not know Zirinsky, but you’ve likely been watching her for years.
PHOTO GALLERY: ’48 Hours Mystery’
For more than 20 years, her newsmagazine show has been a mainstay on CBS. But now, her shows have jumped the boundaries of the network and are being shown all over TV.
In the next seven days, “48 Hours” will air no less than 36 times on four channels – CBS, Investigation Discovery, WE and TLC.
“These are remarkable stories,” says Zirinsky, who started in the news business as a college intern with the unenviable assignment of tailing then-Attorney General John Mitchell during the Watergate scandal.
But her fascination with murder probably began when she was just 6, Zirinsky recalls, as she was playing dodgeball near where she grew up in the Rockaways.
She heard a “pop! pop! pop!” and ran over to a white convertible parked nearby to discover a grisly murder/suicide. The daughter of the neighborhood gas station owner had broken up with her boyfriend and he didn’t take it well, she says.
“I had repressed the whole scene and only remembered it a couple of years ago,” she says.
Since then, she has spent much of her adult life in editing rooms – telling more stories about murder and mayhem than “Law & Order” could ever dream of.
We asked Zirinsky to pick out her favorites:
“Murder for Hire” (1999)
“A story of absolute arrogance,” Zirinsky says of the grisly tale of Sheila Bellish, a Sarasota, Fla. mother of quadruplets who was killed by thugs hired by her ex-husband, Alan Blackthorn, after a nasty custody fight.
“She was killed in front of her children,” she says. “They were found crawling around in her blood.”
Blackthorn (who had such a vision of “greatness for himself,” that he changed his name to that of a character from the novel “Shogun”) agreed to be interviewed for the episode and claimed he had nothing to do with the murder.
“The most amazing part of these stories is the ability people have to believe their own [version] of the truth – even if they are blatant lies,” Zirinsky says.
“The arrogance he had to sit for an on-camera, network news interview and lie – we did years of stories on it.”
“Right or Wrong” (2004)
Beautiful, shy, stay-at- home mother of two Susan Wright, 27, is convicted of stabbing her husband Jeff 193 times and burying him in their front yard – in a hole she had him dig to install a fountain.
At her trial, she claims she was a battered wife.
The prosecutor, Kelly Siegler, becomes afraid that the jury is leaning towards Wright so she re-enacts the murder – in court – by tying an assistant DA to a “bed” and “stabbing” him 193 times.
“The prosecutor was so dynamic,” says Zirinsky. “She was so creative in the way she presented the case that ABC actually did a [drama] pilot based on her.”
“Written in Blood” (2004)
The tale of Sebastian Burns and his friend Atif Rafay who were convicted in 2004 of bludgeoning Rafay’s parents and sister to death in their Bellevue, Wash. home.
It took 10 years, but the boys are finally snagged in a wiretap by Canadian police posing as mob insiders interested in producing Burns and Rafay’s script about “the per fect crime.”
“The Law and Mrs. Sheldon” (2003)
Powerful, connected Texas lawyer Katherine Sheldon is accused of no fewer than six murders, but has never been convicted of any.
After the episode airs, Sheldon calls up the “48 Hours” field producer and says: “I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided not to kill you.”
“She’s such a delicious character, you couldn’t make her up if you tried,” Zirinsky says.
“We were so nervous when we did this story that we hired our own private secu rity.”
“Dead Men Tell No Tales” (2001)
Zirinsky calls this “the incredible story of a little girl who put away a serial killer” named Tommy Lynn Sells.
An 11-year-old girl survives a knife attack by the killer, crawls to a neighbor and calls the police.
“This is a story of a child who not only survived – a miracle in its own right – but had the tremendous strength to testify and face down the killer in court,” Zirinsky says.