Casting Calls for Carthage Murder Movie

LONGVIEW (AP/Staff) – Not long ago, we told you a movie’s being made about the Bernie Tiede case — involving the 1996 fatal shooting of an elderly Carthage woman and the hiding of her body for months in a freezer. Casting calls were held over the weekend in Carthage and Longview for extras for “Bernie,” a project of Austin-based filmmaker Richard Linklater starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine. Bernhardt Tiede II was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison over the death of 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent. (The two are pictured here.) Investigators said the funeral home worker became the woman’s companion after her millionaire husband died. Tiede, who’s now 52, remains in the McConnell Unit in Beeville. Casting agent Sheila Steele says the casting call reached Texas towns because “we want the interesting people, and we want the real people.”