EX-DEATH ROW INMATE SIGNS MOVIE DEAL

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 11, 1992                   TAG: 9201110311
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CRAIGSVILLE                                LENGTH: Short
EX-DEATH ROW INMATE SIGNS MOVIE DEAL
Joseph Giarratano, once Virginia's most celebrated death row inmate, has signed a contract for a movie about his life.
Giarratano, 34, came within three days of being executed last February for the 1979 deaths of a Norfolk woman and her daughter. He was removed from death row when Gov. Douglas Wilder granted a conditional pardon. Wilder commuted the inmate's death sentence to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 2004.
Giarratano's contract is with Gordon Freedman Productions of Venice, Calif., which has ties with Hollywood director Oliver Stone. Stone could choose to produce or direct a movie made about Giarratano, but Stone's participation is not definite.
Giarratano, now an inmate at Augusta Correctional Center near Craigsville, also said he may strike a deal with author Pete Earley for a book about his case.
Earley is a former Washington Post reporter who wrote a 1989 book about the espionage case involving former Navy man John Walker of Norfolk and several members of his family.
A drug addict at the time of the murders, Giarratano has said repeatedly in recent years that he has no memory of the killings and made up several inconsistent confessions he gave to police.
When he found the victims' bodies as he came out of a drug-induced slumber, he assumed he had killed them during a blackout, Giarratano said.
His case won international attention, and his attorneys and supporters say new evidence gathered by private investigators will prove him innocent.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB