Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story

The events in the film tell the real story of Mary Elizabeth Bailey (who was only 11 years old at the time), as well as about her mother Priscilla Wyers and stepfather Wayne Wyers.

Little is known about Priscilla herself, except that she is the daughter of Marshall O'Dell and Eva Esther Bailey. She was born on September 18, 1958 in Glenville. She was a housewife who "loved her volunteer work at the Marshall University Science Department." She was also the mother of two daughters, Mary and Melissa, and a son, Christopher.

All that is known about Wayne is that he was 29 years old and he was a freight worker. He was found shot dead in their West Virginia home in the early morning of February 24, 1987, but what was most shocking about the case was who pulled the trigger?

On February 23, 1987, Wyers returned home from work to find that his car had been damaged by a friend of his wife who had borrowed the car. From this, he flew into a rage and began to threaten his wife and son. Bailey watched everything that was happening and was afraid that her stepfather would kill her brother. "The child was crying and it was scary because he had a knife," Bailey recalled. He's going to kill my brother, she thought. When Wyers fell asleep, Bailey's mother handed her a gun and asked her to shoot him. "You have to, Mary. He's going to kill me. And if he kills me, what will you do?" said Priscilla after Bailey begged her mother not to force her to do it. "I felt like I had no choice," Bailey recalled. After two failed attempts, Bailey fired the fatal bullet.

Next, Priscilla called 911 to report the incident. She told police that she killed her husband in self-defense, but denied pulling the trigger. "I didn't shoot him, but I'm responsible," she told police. Police charged Bailey and her mother with murder, but charges against the 11-year-old girl were dropped after she agreed to testify. Priscilla was found guilty of first-degree murder in June 1988 and was sentenced to life in prison, while Bailey was placed in foster care, where she remained until the age of 17.

After leaving foster care, Bailey moved to North Carolina and opened a medical uniform manufacturing business. She now lives in Gastonia with her lawyer husband. In 2020, Bailey published a memoir, "My Mother's Soldier."

As for her mother, she was released on parole in 1998 and continued to live a quiet life until her death in August 2022 from cancer.