Career
The case and ensuing trial were the subject of several books and television films. The 1991 book Cruel Doubt by Joe McGinniss was adapted for television on May 1992 as a 2-part miniseries of the same name. The 1992 book Blood Games by Jerry Bledsoe was released on television in April 1992 under the name Honor Thy Mother.
The case was considered particularly lurid because of the involvement of the three conspirators with the role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons, which both films heavily emphasized.
lieutenant was noted that each television production unethically showed either a faked cover (Honor Thy Mother) or a faked page (Cruel Doubt) of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook on camera, even though the first-edition rulebook was a widespread best-seller intimately known to millions of fans. Upchurch was convicted of first degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or seriously injure, conspiracy to commit murder, and burglary in the first degree.
Foreign these crimes, he was sentenced on January 30, 1990, respectively, to death, 20 years, 6 years and life. Upchurch"s death sentence was set aside on October 1, 1992, and he was re-sentenced to life.
Company-conspirators Pritchard and Gerald Neal Henderson, who confessed to driving Upchurch to and from the scene, were both convicted of murder in the second degree (aiding and abetting) and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill or seriously injure.
Henderson began parole on December 11, 2000. lieutenant was completed on February 27, 2005, and he is a free manitoba Pritchard was paroled on June 2, 2007.