When a competent transgender detective returns to her struggling religious college, she must battle painful memories, her old hardline Reverend, and the secrets and lies of six devilish suspects to solve the murder of the prominent basketball coach. [A producer asked for an exclusive shopping agreement, so this script is unavailable now.]

SYNOPSIS:

The emergency Alumni and Donors Meeting at struggling St. Dominic’s College is off to a rocky start. The only donor attending, WARREN FOOT (20s), a tech mogul, offers a generous $200 million “gift” with devilishly liberal conditions that insult the staff. Warren quickly alienates the ultra-conservative REVEREND FATHER (70), and stuffy college President, PETER (60). College Counselor and Alumni Chairperson, GINA (30), and pre-med Student Body President, ROSA (21), welcome many of Warren’s suggested changes regarding equal rights and modernization, but they cling to religious education which he seeks to swap for technology and science. A violent right-wing Theology major, ROBERT (21), assaults Warren, gets thrown to the floor, and sees the basketball coach lying dead under the meeting table. A bloodstained statue of the Virgin Mary rests by his head. The college is otherwise deserted for St. Christopher’s feast day, so all the suspects are around the table.

Enter a competent transgender DETECTIVE (30), who attended St. Dominic’s as a bullied male 12 years earlier. She recalls the college as a bastion of intolerance. Her mood darkens mood from sweet to angry as the investigation begins with all the suspects withholding secrets and telling lies. A turning point comes when Robert panics and is frightened into a murder confession. The Detective thinks he’s protecting someone or the college that would benefit from the Coach’s $4 million life insurance payout. The staff appear satisfied until the Detective reports the Coach’s autopsy found his stomach was full of pills. Life insurance doesn’t pay out for suicides, and now it looks like someone bludgeoned the coach after he was dead to make it look like murder: insurance fraud.

None of the suspects have solid alibies and some suspects have motives for murder or fraud. Peter was jealous of the Coach’s salary. That day, Gina reported years of the Coach’s and Peter’s sexual misconduct and she was to be fired the next day. The investigation takes another turn when the pills in the Coach’s stomach are found to be testosterone, for which overdoses are extremely rare. The Coach was unresponsive but alive when he was bludgeoned, returning it to a murder investigation. We learn that all the suspects met with the coach immediately before and after his attempted suicide. The no-nonsense Detective, armed with a stun gun for liars, painstakingly unravels the Coach’s last few minutes. She finds that several of the suspects precipitated the Coach’s suicide attempt, but the holy Reverend Father is guilty of murder. In the bittersweet end, we see there’s a little Devil in all of us… and the Devil appears to be winning!

MURDER AT ST. DOMINIC'S