Story of Girl, 11, Forced by Mom to Kill Stepdad Becomes Lifetime Movie: ‘It Came Full Circle’ (Exclusive)

Mary Elizabeth Bailey was simply 11 years previous when her mom requested her to do the unthinkable.

In Feb. 1987, her mom, Priscilla Wyers, handed Mary a .22-cal. rifle and compelled her to shoot and kill her abusive stepfather, Wayne Wyers, after he handed out drunk in a chair inside their West Virginia residence.

“‘If you happen to do that,’ she mentioned, ‘it is going to all be over. You are not gonna go to jail, you are too younger,’ ” Mary beforehand recounted to PEOPLE in 2022, noting how she pleaded along with her mom however Priscilla insisted. 

After police arrived, Priscilla initially instructed investigators she shot Wayne. However then, “she mentioned it was all my concept,” Mary beforehand defined.

Each Priscilla and Mary had been charged with homicide. Mary was finally positioned in foster care and expenses towards her had been dropped after she testified towards her mom.

A jury discovered Priscilla responsible of first-degree homicide in 1988. Whereas she was sentenced to life in jail, she was eligible for parole in 1998 and launched shortly thereafter. Priscilla regained custody of Mary as soon as she returned residence.

Now, greater than 35 years later, Mary’s harrowing expertise has been tailored into a movie: Would You Kill For Me? The Mary Bailey Story — for which PEOPLE has an unique trailer.

The film, which is ready to premiere Oct. 28 at 8 p.m. EST on Lifetime, is instructed by means of three completely different views and follows the risky relationship between three generations of ladies — Ella (Melissa Joan Hart), her daughter Veronica (Olivia Scriven), and her granddaughter Mary (Presley Allard), whom Ella raises for Veronica.

After Veronica marries a person named Willard (Connor McMahon), the lives of all three girls take a flip for the more serious. Willard turns into more and more abusive, and Veronica then suffers a deep betrayal when her finest buddy Susan (Celina “Spookyboo” Myers), turns into pregnant with Willard’s little one. The connection finally grows more and more poisonous, leaving Ella, Mary and her half-brother Sammy on the mercy of Willard’s alcoholic rages.

Mary shares her gratitude for having been intently concerned within the film’s creation, admitting it was an emotional course of — however a memorable one.

“I believe for me, being on set, watching your life play out earlier than you, you get to see your life from so many alternative views,” she tells PEOPLE. “From every particular person’s perspective and likewise from the attitude of myself. There is a child, there is a 5-year-old, there is a 11-year-old and there is me as a goofy grownup. So simply having the ability to see that and actually course of that, was unimaginable. Completely.”

Mary says that finally writing her 2020 memoir, My Mom’s Soldier, about her life experiencesenabled her to undergo a means of therapeutic. She hopes that viewers will be capable of look extra deeply into how she got here to forgive her mom, a long time later.

“I believe the film will assist them to see that she’s not the worst particular person on the planet,” Mary, who has a cameo within the movie, says. “She was going by means of plenty of issues. ‘Why did she do that? How do you forgive her?’ I believe the film will assist them to see how I forgave her.”

Mary, who now lives along with her lawyer husband in North Carolina and owns a medical uniform enterprise, additionally notes that the a number of views within the film are key to understanding how the occasions unfolded.

“Not one is performed out to be so horrible that you do not have some empathy for that particular person,” she tells PEOPLE. “However that is what I actually love about it, is I believe individuals can watch it and even when they are going by means of one thing, they’ll sympathize or empathize and perceive what individuals undergo and why they undergo what they are going by means of.”

General, Mary hopes that the movie delivers a message of therapeutic.

“Watching it got here full circle for me,” she says. “However it’s very emotional. However watching it and realizing that different individuals, hopefully thousands and thousands of individuals, shall be watching this and be capable of relate to this and to search out some hope, some therapeutic by means of this film. I imply, it is actually good, and really enthusiastic about it. In order that’s primarily the main focus, is therapeutic and hope for others. ”