The Staircase Murders is a 2007 Lifetime Television

Lifetime Television

Lifetime Television, often referred to as Lifetime TV, or most commonly, Lifetime, is an American cable television specialty channel devoted to movies, sitcoms and dramas, all of which are either geared toward women or feature women in lead roles. The cable network is owned by A&E Television Networks...

 movie, directed by Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin

Tom McLoughlin is an American screenwriter, film/television director and former mime whose credits include numerous television movies, such as Murder in Greenwich, the feature film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and the 2009 Lifetime Movie Network film The Wronged Man.In 1977 McLoughlin was...

 and starring Treat Williams

Treat Williams

Richard Treat Williams is a Screen Actors Guild Award–nominated American actor and children's book author who has appeared on film, stage and television...

, Samaire Armstrong

Samaire Armstrong

Samaire Rhys Armstrong is an American actress, fashion designer and model. She is best known for her roles in Stay Alive, The O.C. and It's a Boy Girl Thing. Her best known role to date is portraying the role of Juliet Darling in the ABC television series Dirty Sexy Money...

, and Kevin Pollack.

It tells the story of Michael Peterson

Michael Peterson (author)

Michael Iver Peterson is a fiction writer and politician. In 2003, he was convicted of the murder of his wife, Kathleen Peterson.-Personal life:...

, who was convicted in 2003 of killing his wife by beating her over the head. During the trial it was revealed that many years previously a friend of Peterson's, whose children he would later adopt, died under similar circumstances.