Guilty or Not Guilty: That Is the Question Posed in Lifetime's "Suitcase Killer: The Melanie McGuire Story"

McGuire, a fertility clinic nurse, and mother of two, had begun an affair with a doctor working at her clinic, when the dismembered body of her husband Bill turned up in three suitcases. She soon found herself the lead suspect in his murder, despite maintaining her innocence. Throughout her trial, enough evidence was amassed by the prosecution to convict her of the crime. For Candice King, who portrays McGuire, going into the project with a mindset of innocence proved to be complicated. "I get very into stories, and especially true-life crime stories," she recently explained while promoting the film. "I talked everybody's ear off about this case. For me, personally, I really felt it was my responsibility to tell Melanie's story, as those were the shoes I was filling.

"This was someone who, by her own account, is a mother who was scared and had an abusive relationship," she added. "[She] was very dedicated to her job and wasn't perfect. She had many, self-admitted faults. I listened to the testimony that she'd given to her lawyers, and there's a great podcast called Direct Appeal in which she spoke for hours [about] her story and experiences. That's kind of the direction I was showing up to set with while following the script that we had. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence against Melanie, and that's what I [find] so fascinating about this case; the actual physical evidence, specifically in the condo she and Bill [shared], they couldn't find anything within that condo. They even took piping from the sinks to test and found nothing."

To give an accurate portrayal, King had to believe McGuire's innocent claims. "You have to go in servicing the character," she shared. "The character is a real person, so I'm going in telling her story. [Here] there are two narratives, her story, the reason why she's in jail, and the fact that others believed the prosecution's [version] and what they said happened. I showed up playing Melanie McGuire, as Melanie McGuire, and what she shared. To this day she declares her innocence. She passed a polygraph test, not admissible in court, but it's there. So that's absolutely the role I came to and whose story I was sharing while acting out the script and the story."

For King, whose name is forever synonymous with the fantasy genre (following her eight seasons as Caroline Forbes on The Vampire Diaries), while filming this soon found herself in some familiar territory. "Yes, absolutely," she enthused. "Essentially, recreating what is a horrific scene of a body being cut up in a bathtub, I oddly felt right at home with a bunch of fake blood being thrown at my face. And the fake saw sounds … those really brought me back to some Vampire Diaries days. So absolutely, real-life and fantasy … there are a lot of parallels, shockingly."

The subject of McGuire's possible innocence was a major topic of discussion during production too, leaving the cast's opinions divided. "We talked about this endlessly," recalled Michael Roark, who portrays McGuire's ill-fated husband Bill. "If you look at the facts of the case there are so many things, other than the facts presented, that even the discovery in the trial seemed like it was a bit off. We're not even sure the [presented] facts are all the information. There's no smoking gun evidence, but Melanie had behavior that kind of looks like someone who would be guilty. There wasn't a lot of research material on him, so I played Bill the way I would play Bill. But do I think she was guilty? I don't know, but I've got opinions."

"I was kind of torn," admitted Jackson Hurst, who portrays McGuire's lover Dr. Bradley Miller. "I went in thinking she was guilty as charged. I started listening to the podcast and doing my own research, and I realized the forensic evidence was completely lacking and it was circumstantial. You could get into the specifics of a few things, but to this day I'm still torn. That's what makes [this] such a riveting story. Lifetime did a good job, and our director Nicole L. Thompson did a good job at not forcing you to choose sides within the movie -- just tell the story so the audience can pick however they see fit."

"I think that's what's so great about this film," chimed in executive producer Kim Raver (Grey's Anatomy). "The talent tells the story and the directing of it. It's this incredible back and forth roller coaster with moments of, 'Oh, my God. She did it.' 'Oh, my God. She didn't do it.' Unfortunately, it is a real story, but I think that's what makes [watching] a true crime story so appealing.

"And what Candice does so well in this movie, which is difficult, is play a human being with so many different layers," Raver added in closing. "It's not one-dimensional -- is she guilty/is she not guilty? It's really her specific performance in all these incredible, multilayered moments. You're watching this real human navigate intricate details of her life, and Candice really brings us into her world of how someone gets there whether they're guilty or not guilty."

Suitcase Killer: The Melanie McGuire Story will be telecast Saturday, June 18 at 8 p.m. on Lifetime.

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