In her first television appearance, Judith Barsi played Kimberley MacDonald, who was murdered by her father, Jeffrey, along with her pregnant mother, Colette, and younger sister, Kristen, on February 17, 1970. By tragic coincidence, she and her mother, Maria, were murdered by her father, József, on July 25, 1988.
Gary Cole would go on to play another military man convicted of murder in An Officer and a Murderer (2012), based on the crimes of Russell Williams. He was a Colonel in the Canadian Air Force, who was convicted of two counts of murder and various other crimes in 2010.
In another tragic coincidence, actor Albert Salmi, who played Judge Dupree, shot and killed his own wife before committing suicide in 1990.
The role of Jeffrey MacDonald was offered to Alec Baldwin but he turned it down after being offered the regular role of Joshua Rush in Knots Landing (1979).
Jeffrey MacDonald is incarcerated in Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, Maryland. He married Kathryn Kurichh in 2002. In 2005, he applied for parole, but his application was denied. He continues to insist that he is innocent. He will not be eligible for parole again until 2020.