No doubt most residents of Dufferin and Caledon will be glued to their TV sets

this Sunday evening, when CTV airs A Friend of the Family, a two-hour original movie that's promoted by the network as "based on a true story."

Having received a DVD of the movie along with a press kit last week, I wasted no time in having a look at the unusual production.

After all, it was something I should have found doubly interesting. Not only did the plot involve the most sensational murder case in the area's history, but it led to a trial I had covered (somewhat sporadically) for The Globe and Mail.

As the press release put it, the movie was "inspired by the real-life memoir of Alison Shaw, 'A Friend of the Family: The True Story of David Snow.' "

The main truth in the story is that Alison Shaw and her then-husband, Darris, knew David Alexander Snow, to the point where Darris was a business partner in a venture that involved demolishing old buildings and selling antiques and other collectibles.

Also true is the fact Snow was close enough to the Shaws' first child that they came to call him "uncle David."

However, much of the movie is fictitious, particularly toward the end when Alison meets up with the serial killer at the Shaws' new home in Vancouver.

Among the major fictions is the movie's suggestion that the serial killings were of young women and included several in B.C.

In reality, the loner described by CTV as having been dubbed "The Cottage Killer," was dubbed "The House Hermit" before his identity was known, and had vanished in the fall of 1992 after apparently taking the life of his first victim, Etobicoke shop owner Carolyn Case.

All we really know is that after Ms. Case's car was found near Highway 10 in Caledon, David Snow went to various locations to the north an east, holing up in empty cottages and at one point kidnapping and robbing a Penetanguishene couple, before picking the weekend retreat of Ian and Nancy Blackburn on Caledon's Grange Sideroad, where he likely killed either the husband or wife. (We do know that he didn't drive, yet their bodies were in the trunk of their car when it was found in the driveway of their Toronto home.)

After the Blackburn killings he decided to head west, and it was about three months later that he began kidnapping anew and almost killed one of his three female victims, at least one of whom was repeatedly raped.

However, none of the known or suspected murder victims was a young female who, as depicted in the movie, bore a remarkable resemblance to Alison Shaw.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the movie is that none of the scenes was filmed in Orangeville, Caledon, or the North Shore area of Greater Vancouver, where he kidnapped all three women and tried to strangle two of them. In fact, all you see of Vancouver is a perhaps 15-second clip shown of Burrard Inlet with North Vancouver in the background.

And the only shooting in Ontario was apparently in Dundas, which supposedly resembles either Orangeville or the fictitious Ontario location where the Shaws and Snow had supposedly been neighbours.

However, the movie does have its good points, among them the acting by the three lead characters, Laura Harris as Alison Shaw, Eric Johnson as Darris Shaw and Kim Coates as David Snow, although Coates, a star in the movie Assault on Precinct 13, doesn't really resemble Snow, even to the point of not wearing glasses.

It's a shame, really, that no one has produced the real "true story," which obviously is known only by Snow himself, and presumably could be obtained by a capable writer who was prepared to interview the deranged killer in Kingston Penitentiary or wherever else he might be found in Canada's federal prison system.

The legal proceedings themselves were almost as bizarre as the various criminal offences. Despite the fact his last victim when found had a ligature around her neck, David Snow was acquitted of a charge of attempted murder, yet was ultimately declared a dangerous offender and sentenced to an indeterminate jail term for the North Shore kidnappings and rapes.

Equally bizarre was the Toronto trial, which went on for weeks because of an incomprehensible defence by Vancouver lawyer Sheldon Goldberg, who had also represented him out west. The lawyer's conduct led to the trial judge, Justice Eugene Ewaschuk, frequently becoming exasperated to the point where he regularly interrupted the cross-examination of Crown witnesses.

In the end, the Ontario Court of Appeal took the unusual step of agreeing that the trial wasn't fair while upholding the conviction, based on the strength of the Crown's case.