First-Time Director Terri Johnson to make Biopic to Aid Brigitte Harris Parole

Dec. 4, 2011 - PRLog -- HOLLYWOOD-- Former script supervisor Terri Johnson is working feverishly to complete her screenplay “Initial Shock: The Brigitte Harris Story” to which she's also attached to direct. Harris is a Queens, New York woman who in 2007 immobilized her father Eric Goodridge, in her apartment and castrated him. Goodridge subsequently died of strangulation and Harris was convicted of second-degree manslaughter. She's currently serving a 5 to 15 year prison sentence.

 “What my film will show is that Brigitte is also a victim of long-time sexual abuse,” Johnson said. “Her intent was to stop a lifelong child rapist—not to commit murder.” Authorities confirmed that Harris had researched the Lorena Bobbitt case on her computer. Bobbitt, in 1993 severed her husband's penis with a knife. John Bobbitt's penis was surgically reattached and he survived. “Clearly, Brigitte wanted to render her father incapable of his deviant sexual activities,” Johnson added. Harris and her sister have both publicly acknowledged that their father had raped them from an early age off and on through their teens. Harris was even held captive in her father's native Liberia, West Africa where he continued to sexually abuse her. Years later back in America, she noticed Goodridge starting his routine with her young nieces, whom he had planned to take back to Liberia. "I knew exactly what I had gone through (as a child) and I couldn't see it happening to another generation. It just had to stop," Harris said. During the trial evidence showed that Goodridge had actually sexually assaulted nine other young girls in Liberia.

 Johnson, an Austin, Texas native learned about Harris' case through the “Snapped” TV show on the Oxygen network and wrote to her. Johnson's honesty and concern caused Harris to give her the rights to her story to help her and other victims of abuse with a film. “I understand completely what Brigitte suffered. I also suffered sexual abuse at the hands of my own father,” Johnson said. She will parlay her 14 years of experience as a script supervisor to write and direct her first film. Johnson would like to tell the world Brigitte Harris' story and help get her paroled from prison. “The bigger picture is that our children are being sexually assaulted daily by people we know,” Johnson said. “We need parents to listen more to their children.”

 “Initial Shock: The Brigitte Harris Story is quickly gaining grass roots and Hollywood support. Johnson said she expects a producer to sign onto the project within weeks.

# # #

Robert Lucy Creative promotes underserved small businesses. We grow these small businesses by providing news agencies with stories about unique entrepreneurs—and the lives of the consumers they change with their products and services.