Rebecca Godfrey is the author of True-crime, her best-selling book The BridgeHulu ordered her to series just over a month ago. She died from lung cancer in a New York City hospital. She was 54.
Just now, the news is spreading about her death on October 3. Godfrey’s death was confirmed by agent Christy Fletcher to The New York Times.
Hulu revealed that it had ordered eight episodes from the limited series just one week prior to her death. 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 returned home. The brutal killing of seven teenage girls was perpetrated by a boy and seven other teens.
The limited series will be executive produced by Samir Mehta (Hulu’s Tell me liesLiz Tigelaar (who will also serve in the role of showrunners). Quinn Shephard adapts the book. Godfrey and Stacey Silverman are other EPs. House of the Dragon Geeta Vatant Patel, who is the director The Bridge.
Godfrey was working on a crime book that would be her best seller. The Torn SkirtShe visited a juvenile detention centre in Victoria, British Columbia in 1997. According to the TimesThe author saw Reena Virk, a 14-year-old girl, and the teens behind her death. “caught off guard by their youth and vulnerability”The case was chosen to be the subject of a nonfiction book.
Virk’s murder became a media sensation in Canada due to the victim having been bullied by classmates, the youthful age of the killers and the viciousness of the beating that preceded her drowning death. The Globe and Mail stated that Virk’s case was being investigated by the FBI. “elevated into a national tragedy.”
Godfrey’s exhaustively researched account of the crime and its aftermath was published in 2005 by HarperCollins as Under the Bridge: The True Story Behind the Murder of Reena Virk. The book won numerous awards, was placed on many Best Of lists and became a best-seller; it was optioned for a film by Reese Witherspoon’s Type A Productions, though the status of that project is uncertain. Hulu’s recent announcement is for a limited series, not a film.
Godfrey lived upstate New York. She taught creative writing at Columbia University until recently. Herbert Wilson, her husband; Ada Wilson, their daughter; and her mother are all survivors.