7 Actresses Who Have Played Real-Life Accused Murderers

I'll always remember this role as the year of "ugly girl" Oscarbait: Theron, Jennifer Connolly, and Nicole Kidman slapped on the prosthetics to make their characters more tortured.

It obviously worked for Theron, who snagged Best Actress at the Oscars for portraying Wuornos. One of the most famous female serial killers, she was a prostitute who, after being raped by a client, began killing the men with intent to rob them. Her hope was to financially support herself and her lover (played in the movie by Christina Ricci).

What happens when your story isn't high-profile enough for Hollywood but you're still strangely pretty for a murderer? Lifetime turns it into a movie of the week, as was the case with the Amanda Knox trial.

Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito accused of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher while studying abroad in Italy. The year-long trial became something of a circus, with media outlets calling Knox by her MySpace nickname "Foxy Knoxy" and testimony focusing on details like her choice of sex toy. She was portrayed as both sides of the Madonna/whore complex, due mostly to her beauty. She cursed her looks, writing in her diary, "If I had been ugly, would they have acted in the same way? I don't think so."

From the trailer, the movie would seem to take Knox's side... until the last shot, where the voiceover says "My conscience is clear" and we see the prim Knox in court. Creepy!

Charlie's Angel turned suburban murderer when Fawcett portrayed Downs, an unstable woman who attempted to kill her three children so that she would be able to pursue a romance with a man who didn't want kids. Though she shot at all three children, only one died; of the surviving kids, one suffered a small stroke and the other was paralyzed from the waist down.

The kids were adopted by another family after Downs was sentenced to life in prison; the movie depicts her being reunited with her kids after 15 years, but in real life Downs has not been allowed to see her children.

Everything about Dunaway's portrayal of this gun-moll outlaw has become pop-culture legend: The clothes, the repartee, the bloody death scene. Dunaway took her role seriously, even recreating a 1933 cigar photo responsible for Bonnie's sex appeal.

This was quite a change of pace for the EastEnders star: Brooks played deadly nurse Beverly Allitt, who killed nine children in her ward. Though the oldest victim was five years old, for the most part the kids were under two; she injected them with either potassium chloride (forcing cardiac arrest) or insulin (to induce hypoglycema).

Although her motives were never fully explained, many believe she suffered from Munchausen syndrome, which causes the sufferer to harm others in order to get attention.

You know DuVall from guest spots on shows like Bones and Grey's Anatomy. You know Kasabian as one of the key members of Charles Manson's "family," who was an accomplice to the murder of Sharon Tate but ended up testifying for the prosecution.

Also in the movie (though I can't find a photo of her) is Mary Lynn Rajskub, who played accused murderess Lynette Fromme.

Though no one's bought the rights to Casey Anthony's story, you know that it'll get a movie. Storywise, it matches up with Lifetime's demographic, but if they get Stewart, she could bring a bigger budget with her.

The reporter who first put forth this casting, Marisa Guthrie, doesn't give the most shining endorsement: "She doesn't really have to do much but sit behind a table. She's got the dark hair, the vacant, deer-in-the-headlights look."

I can see Stewart funnelling that emotionlessness into the kind of chilling apathy you see in mothers who might have taken their children's lives.