This is the TRUE story...
I have copied and pasted what I wrote as a reply to another thread, but I thought I'd make a new thread for it too, incase anyone is interested!
The movie isn't totally accurate. The mother had a boyfriend but he was NOT abusive or a rapist or anything like that. Nor were any of her past boyfriends. That was one of the things created by the film makers to give the girls a more sympathetic story in order for the film to appeal to a wider audience. The truth is the girls did this in cold blood, without remorse, because they wanted the money.They wanted a bigger, nicer house and a weed farm. It's very difficult to comprehend how anyone could be so callous and twisted, and you want to believe there must've been more to it then that, but there was not.
The mother did not neglect the children, when she was busy it was because she was working - she did not lose her job - she had two hospital jobs at the time of her death, and did love her children. They were not struggling to survive by any means. It was the extras the girls complained about - they didn't have enough new clothes, wanted a swimming pool like their friends, wanted more money for mall trips etc. The mother DID have a problem with alcohol - the girls' father left her when they were young and she became depressed thereafter, and drank as a way to cope. The girls were upset about their mother's drinking not because of the drinking itself, but because they were mad their mother spent so much money on alcohol when they felt it should go to their new clothes. However, they had recently been on a family vacation to Iceland, and they discovered after her death she had been putting money about for their college educations. It's absolutely not the norm for anyone child here in Canada reporting abuse or neglect to be swept aside like that. While no system is 100% perfect, the welfare of children is definitely of upmost importance here!
However, the extremely short sentence thing, the girls essentially getting a fresh start, and being granted anonymity is true! I don't agree with it - criminals here definitely do have it so much easier, and, on top of that, because the girls were youth offenders the girls were protected under the youth offenders act & essentially got a away with murder. The sisters both got only ten years in jail for the premeditated murder of their own mother, and they didn't even serve half of it - the younger sister was released from jail after three years, the older after four - their records are essentially wiped clean now, they are able to move on and go to college and live in society like nothing ever happened.
Any time I have seen anything posted that leaks the real names of the girls (which is only on a few occasions), it gets taken down or blocked very shortly after, and as a result, 99.9% of the people here in Canada will have no idea who these girls ever are - can you imagine! So scary.