The Novack Family Suffered from the 'B & T' Murder

Lifetime's latest movie Beautiful & Twisted tells the ripped from the headlines story of Narcy Novack, a murderous housewife from Florida who married and killed hotel heir and Batman-phile, Ben Novack, Jr., and his mother, Bernice, in hopes of getting his fortune. The TV movie adaptation turns this into a lurid thriller, where Narcy's history of erratic behavior is turned into foreshadowing for her ultimate crime, and Rob Lowe's charm is used to humanize the relationship between Ben and his stepdaughter, May, who eventually becomes the only sane person left in this family. But the "characters" in this movie are people, and the real people in the Novack case lead real lives that kept going long after the Lifetime cameras stopped rolling.

After Beautiful & Twisted, individuals from the Novack case will appear in Beyond the Headlines: The Novack Murders , a supplemental documentary that will cover what some of the other people involved were feeling, thinking, and fearing as Narcy and Ben's marriage started to spiral out of control. But many of the Novacks can't speak out — for obvious death- and prison-related reasons. And the family fortune that everyone was fighting over ended up dwindling down to almost half of what it once was. The fallout from this case could make for its own Lifetime movie.

Narcy Novack

Narcy is currently spending her life in prison in Brooklyn, New York, and has been since 2012. She was 56 when she went to jail, so that life sentence will keep her away for quite some time.

Bernice And Ben Novack

As the murder victims, unfortunately these two have been dead since 2009. But they got justice when Narcy and her accomplices were caught and convicted.

Cristobal Veliz And Accomplices

The accomplices testified against Veliz and Novack, providing much of the evidence that helped put them away. Veliz was also convicted on the same charges as Novack.

Alison Carpentier

This detective was assigned to the Novack case, but after giving May Abad $5,000 so she could move to a new apartment, she was forced to retire. Luckily, the money wasn't enough to stop Abad from testifying, and she thanks Carpentier for potentially saving her life, because she was worried about being Novack's next victim.

May Abad

She was blamed by her mother and uncle in court as the architect of their murder plot, because she was set to inherit her stepfather's Novack estate, and was threatened by suspicious figures and had to spend the years between 2009 and 2012 under the radar, struggling for money. But she acted as a key witness against her mother and eventually did end up inheriting the Novack money to share between herself and her two sons.

Image: Jack Zeman/Lifetime (5)