Rebecca Godfrey, a best-selling true-crime novelist whose book Under the Bridge was just ordered to series by Hulu, passed away from lung cancer in a New York City hospital. 54 years old.
It has only now come to light that she passed away on October 3. Agent Christy Fletcher informed The New York Times that Godfrey had died.
Samir Mehta (Hulu’s Tell Me Lies) and Liz Tigelaar, who will also act as showrunners for the limited series, will executive produce it. The book is being adapted by Quinn Shephard. Godfrey, Stacey Silverman, and Geeta Vasant Patel, who directed House of the Dragon and will direct Under the Bridge, are additional EPs.
Godfrey visited a juvenile correctional facility in her native city of Victoria, British Columbia, in 1997 while conducting research for a mystery thriller that would eventually become The Torn Skirt. According to the Times, the author was “taken off guard by their youth and fragility” and chose to make the case the focus of a non-fiction book after seeing the youngsters who had recently been imprisoned for the murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk.
The limited series Under the Bridge, based on Godfrey’s book about the 1997 murder of a 14-year-old Canadian girl who went to join friends at a party and never came home, was ordered by Hulu for eight episodes just a week before she passed away. The gruesome killing was blamed on seven adolescent females and a boy.
HarperCollins released Godfrey’s meticulously researched account of the murder and its consequences in 2005 under the title Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk. The novel was a bestseller, best-seller, and winner of multiple accolades. Reese Witherspoon’s Type A Productions optioned the book for a movie, although it’s unclear how that project is doing now. Recent news from Hulu refers to a limited series, not a movie.
Godfrey, who formerly taught creative writing at Columbia University in Manhattan and resided in Upstate New York, is currently retired. Her husband Herbert Wilson, their daughter Ada, her mother, and a brother are all still alive.
