All language subtitles for How It Really Happened s07e07 Adrienne Shelly

Adrian Shelley was using an apartment in
the West Village in Abingdon Square for

her office.

Shelley's husband dropped her off about
9.30 in the morning, didn't hear

anything from her all day.

He was very used to the two of them
being in communication throughout the

day, so it was strange.

So at 5.45, he returned to the apartment
to find what was going on. It took

moments before he discovered Adrian.

And the horror sets in.

Hello, and welcome.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

Adrienne Shelley was an actress, writer,
director, wife, and mother.

Some would say she had it all.

In 2006, she submitted the movie she
wrote and directed, Waitress, to the

Sundance Film Festival.

Waitress would go on to be a box office
hit and later a Tony-nominated Broadway

musical. But Adrienne Shelley would not
live to see its success.

Her beautiful life was tragically cut
short before the movie premiered.

This is how it really happened.

Adrienne Shelley was a 40-year-old woman
living her dream.

She was fiercely loving and funny and
whimsical and deep

and soulful.

Adrienne was this vibrant, vivacious,
talented woman. She was a

total New Yorker. She was an actress and
a screenwriter and a director.

She was maybe like 5'2", 5'3". She had
like a voice, like a little voice like

that. And she was a powerhouse, driven,
force of nature,

magical person who had a very clear
vision of how

she wanted to tell stories about who she
saw women

and girls to be.

In 2001, Adrienne Shelley met Andy
Ostroy.

Andy proposed to Adrienne in Paris, and
they were married.

In 2003, they welcomed their daughter,
Sophie.

She was really in what I like to call
the sweet spot of her life, just

excelling. She was just so immensely
talented and just contributing so much

to society, married, having a daughter
who she loved so much.

One of the things that Adrienne carried
with her through her life was the fact

that her dad died at 40.

He died of a heart attack.

Adrienne had a real sense from the loss
of her dad how to seize

the present moment.

It's entirely possible she gained a
perspective that she needs to live life

to its fullest because it could
disappear at any moment.

Adrian had just finished writing and
directing the movie Waitress.

Don't do that again.

Okay, what? Okay, I won't.

Kiss you, you mean. No, not that. I
didn't mean that.

Waitress is a quirky film about a
waitress who loves making pies,

who's married to this horrible guy, and
she...

gets pregnant and goes to this doctor
who is really charming and really

handsome. Keri Russell starred in it.
It's just a fantastic movie.

Adrian's in the movie also in a
secondary role.

Listen, I have a five-minute blind date
tonight with an insurance salesman named

Pete. 5'10", 37, all his hair, nice
picture, loves fishing.

Five-minute date? Can't the guy pay for
the whole thing?

Yeah. See, I have this idea. I'm meeting
men through personal ads, but I just

give them five minutes. Whether or not
we like each other, we just have five

minutes together.

She wrote Waitress while she was
pregnant.

So all those feelings that are up on the
screen that... jump off the screen were

exactly what she was feeling herself.

It attracted a lot of attention, and she
was able to cast Keri Russell, Cheryl

Hines, and Nathan Fillion in the movie.

She was putting the finishing touches on
it, and she had already submitted it to

the Sundance Film Festival.

Getting into Sundance is so huge.

for a filmmaker.

It was it. This was your big break.

This meant that you had finally made it
in your industry.

And if you had a film that was selected
to be screened at Sundance and then a

film that won Sundance, I mean, you
could really pick and choose your

projects after that.

She was so excited for me to see
Waitress.

That's what she had said. I can't wait
for you to see it and I can't wait to

see you and catch up.

November 1st, 2006 started as a normal
day for Adrian and Andy.

Adrian and Andy were at home together
until about 9.30.

Then Andy drops Adrian off at the
apartment that she keeps in the West

Village that serves as her office.

Andy dropped Adrian off at the apartment
building and watched her go in, and then

he went off to work.

Everything was fine. Everything was
normal.

But then, during the day, he tried to
get a hold of her, and she wasn't

answering his calls.

This was very uncharacteristic of
Adrian.

At 5.45 thereabouts, he returned to the
apartment and, along with the doorman,

went to find what was going on.

He entered the apartment through an
unlocked door that had no evidence of

forced entry.

He said that when he first entered the
apartment, he knew immediately that

something was wrong. The TV was on low,
and he called out for Adrian.

At first, nothing really looks amiss.

But then, when he gets to the bathroom,
Andy finds Adrian's body hanging from

the shower curtain rod by a bed sheet.

I can't even imagine. I literally cannot
imagine what he went through.

Of course, horror sets in. He makes a
911 call, and the police show up.

And they arrive on the scene. They
verify what he saw.

There was no need for medical attention.

Detectives from the NYPD 6th Precinct,
they question Andy for hours after her

death. They don't consider Andy a
suspect.

They feel like it's got to be a suicide.

She has this sheet around her neck, and
it appears, based upon the sheet and the

metal rod and the bathroom and her
positioning, that she had taken her own

life.

My mom had to tell me, and I just
remember the feeling of, like, there was

a hole that fell out underneath me. And
I was just like, no, what do you mean

she's dead?

Actress, writer, director Adrienne
Shelley was a 20-year veteran of the

independent film scene.

You okay, sweetie?

She co-starred, wrote, and directed
Waitress. But while she waited to hear

if it would play at the Sundance Film
Festival, tragedy struck.

It's a horrible thing.

I mean, it's a tragedy.

She had a three-year-old daughter. She
had a husband. She had the family. The

whole thing couldn't be any worse.

Everything seems to indicate that it was
a suicide.

There is no sign of forced entry.

Nothing appears to have been taken. No
one was in the apartment. No one

remembers anything weird going on in the
building that day.

This assumption that she had taken her
own life was so horrific

and so impossible.

And that was what somehow leaked to the
press.

I had to wrap my brain around it, and
what everyone was trying to do was...

To understand, wait, did I misunderstand
every single conversation we've ever

had? Did we not fully grasp? Like, was
something happening that I didn't know?

The office of the chief medical examiner
of New York did an autopsy.

They concluded that those neck
compressions were consistent with a

hanging.

Apparently, this appeared to be a
suicide to them.

My wife, Adrienne Shelley, did not.

Kill herself. There are emails, phone
conversations that took place almost up

until the time of the tragedy itself.

I mean, within minutes probably, where
she was making plans with our friends

for the weekend in emails, with dropping
off things to our daughter's school.

This is someone who was at the peak of
her life.

She was creating. She was writing
screenplays.

She was so in love with her daughter.
She had such a happy marriage.

There was no way she was going to kill
herself.

He just said, I will not let Sophie grow
up thinking that her mother wanted to

leave her.

And he said, I am determined to find out
what really happened.

There's a few people in this world that
leave all kinds of good vibes in their

trail, you know, and she was one of them
where she'd just walk in a room.

And everyone loved her and everyone
wanted to be around her and felt good

when she left.

Adrienne, like so many women, had dated
other guys and it didn't work out. And

she had some bad breakups and just
thought, I know my guy is out there

somewhere. And he was.

And she met him in a place that for her
was very unlikely in online dating.

She tried it and found Andy Ostroy, the
man she ended up marrying.

They fell madly in love and they found
each other's soulmate.

Adrienne, of course, was this
independent woman. She wanted to have it

all, be married, have a career, be a
director, be a screenwriter, but also be

a mom.

But she was...

that she might lose some of herself by
becoming a mother,

something that I think a lot of women
think but don't really verbalize.

But this was on her mind. Is this other
little person going to take away?

And, of course, when Sophie was born,
she fell madly in love, and

all those worries went away.

It is not uncommon for suicide victims'
families to not believe it for an

extended period of time.

It is not uncommon for them to want to
deny it and try to advocate for someone

to look stronger and to more evidence
and work harder on a particular case.

God bless her husband, Andy, who made it
his mission immediately

to kill that...

assumption by very clearly going to find
a forensic expert that was not attached

to the police.

Andy continued to push for answers, and
so he hired his own independent

pathologist, Dr. Michael Bodden, to
perform his own autopsy of Adrian.

And of course, most of the viewers would
know Bodden from his roles in different

cases over the years, renowned
throughout the United States. And

Michael Bodden.

was of the view that this was not a
suicide.

In fact, it was a homicide.

Death was something that was on
Adrienne's mind all the time.

She actually thought she was going to
die young.

Adrienne's father passed away when she
was 12, and this had a huge impact on

her life.

I think Adrienne faced a lot of pressure
because of her father's death and

because of her own nervousness about not
being around long enough to complete

everything that she wanted to complete,
to achieve everything that she wanted to

achieve.

Adrienne took his nickname, Shelley, as
her surname. She always said he was the

most incredible creative influence on
her life.

So even though she carried that sadness,
Of his death with her, she also had a

piece of him with her as she pursued her
dreams.

As a child, Adrienne would tell stories
to her family and put on shows.

But she always said the most enjoyable
thing when I'm acting is storytelling.

Adrienne went to Boston University. She
enrolled in college as a journalism

major.

but very quickly switched over to film
production and broadcasting.

In her junior year, she suddenly decides
to drop out of college and move to New

York to become an actor. She said,
absolutely, this is my calling. And she

was emphatic that she knew it would be
really difficult.

I am.

absolute respect for anybody who decides
they want to be an actor or a writer or

a poet, because that's part of what
makes New York, New York.

But she decided that she would
completely work her tail off to do this,

no matter what.

So she applied for and went to almost
every interview that she saw in

Backstage Magazine, and it eventually
paid off. She was eventually recognized

and selected by Hal Hartley.

In 1989, Adrienne starred as Audrey in
Hal Hartley's indie cult film, The

Unbelievable Truth.

It was Adrienne's very first starring
role in a film.

What is it? Hear it?

Bombs? Could be.

Nearby?

No.

They wouldn't drop a bomb on the
weekend, would they?

I think that people really took to her
because...

of a couple things.

Adrienne had a great presence on screen,
but she was also so filled with joy and

passion for her work that I think that
that transcended the screen.

The next film she made with Hal Hartley
was Trust, and once again, she just

blossomed. He was amazing in front of
the camera, and audiences fell in love

with her.

Dad, give me $5.

I'm a pretty young lady. I've had just
about all I'm going to take.

Mom, what's he talking about? Give me
$5. Listen to your father when he's

talking to you.

Well, what's he talking about? You know
damn well what I'm talking about. Maria,

you've been thrown out of school. I was
not thrown out. I quit. Now give me $5.

I could completely relate to being a
young woman coming to New York City and

wanting to make it no matter what. You
are going to work and work and work

until you achieve what you want to
achieve.

I just loved how tenacious she was and
how she just worked.

So incredibly hard.

I remember being like, oh my God,
everything's happening for her.

My wife, Adrienne Shelley, did not kill
herself.

Andy knew from the very beginning that
his wife wouldn't have killed herself.

And he continued to fight.

It was truly incongruous and cruel.

to make an assumption that this woman,
who was found in this most horrific way

in her office, had taken her own life
when there was no world in

which that could have been possible.

Andy was consistent that this was not a
suicide, and as a result, he got a hold

of... Dr. Michael Bodden, and his
autopsy was based on probably a little

bit more focus, looking for things that
he would expect to find in a violent

crime.

One of the things that Dr. Bodden seemed
to be stuck on was the fact that he felt

that there was bruising and there were
other types of injuries that would be

indicative of a struggle in a fight.

And he was able to uncover bruising to
the face, including one over the eye,

and then...

Injuries to the hands that would be
consistent with fighting.

Now, these are small things, and they
can be overlooked, but the fact that

Biden found these things was much more
valuable to the detectives than you

could actually imagine because they're
actually kind of at odds with the

information that originally came out
from the medical examiner's opinion.

And as a result of that, you saw
detectives digging in even further.

to find out what really happened to
Adrienne Shelley.

Actress, writer, director Adrienne
Shelley's body was found in the bathroom

of her New York City office.

For days, her death was reported to be a
suicide.

But Keri Russell tells me no one
believed that was true.

We all had to go to the funeral. With
that being the only information, I was

so angry.

I was so angry. It was so hurtful to the
family. It was hurtful to everyone who

loved her.

Welcome back to How It Really Happened.

Adrienne Shelley was living the life she
always wanted. She had a rewarding

career, a loving husband, and a
beautiful young daughter.

Initially, authorities believed her
death to be a suicide, but they soon

learned that nothing is what it seems.

The detectives call Andy back in, and
they want to question him about the knot

that was used to tie that bed sheet.

If it was questioned about whether it
was a homicide or a suicide, one thing

I'm sure they would ask her family and
friends is, you know, did she know how

to make a knot like that?

They preserved the knot that was used to
suspend the victim. And this is another

thing that's very important because the
knot can tell you a variety of different

things. That knot was unique enough so
that the detectives went back and talked

to Andy and showed that knot to him.

And they asked, did Adrian have any
experience in tying knots? And he said,

no. Did she have any experience in kind
of tying that particular kind of knot?

He said, no, of course not.

And you have to ask, would this person
know how to do this? Or is it something

that would be outside of their knowledge
base?

Which is an important thing to establish
also, because I don't know how to tie

the knot that I'm going to hang myself
with. There's no hanging.

As detectives were looking through the
apartment, they noticed that there was a

footprint on top of the toilet lid.

There was also a footprint on the edge
of the bathtub and also on the floor.

And they photographed and preserved
these prints. They even removed that

toilet seat lid and logged it into
evidence for future analysis.

When you say to yourself, well...

Why would there be a footprint on the
toilet seat when it wasn't her foot

size? It could not be explained because
in checking the shoe prints on Adrian's

husband, Andy, along with the super from
the residence and any of the other first

responders, they didn't find anybody
that had those same patterns on their

shoes.

If you have multiple footwear
impressions, like one was on the toilet,

one was on the bathtub, now if it's a
left and a right, you can...

start to create the theory of was this
person standing and balancing themselves

in this position, one foot on the
toilet, one foot on the bathtub, and why

would that be?

So it seemed unusual, although it didn't
necessarily mean it was a murder, but

it's something that couldn't be ignored.

Detectives find an expert who analyzes
that shoe print and determines that it

matches a Reebok sneaker.

When they went back and did the revisit,
they managed to notice that there was

sheetrock dust on the floor outside of
the apartment in the hallway.

Apparently this dust was unique enough
where they didn't see it at any of the

other entrance doors to the apartments
on that floor.

Once you find something outside of the
parameters of the crime scene, in this

case the impressions left in the
sheetrock dust, you look and see, is

there enough characteristics from the
developed print in the hall to the

developed print inside the apartment?

And that made...

tell you we should be expanding the
search not just to her family that we're

trying to eliminate but maybe we need to
start going through the building and

talk to neighbors and say all right do
you happen to own this pair of shoes can

we take an impression of it etc we've
got to determine where that dust came

from so in a combination of interviews
that they did throughout the building

they found out that there was a
renovation taking place in apartment

number 37

directly below the apartment where
Adrian Shelley was found.

The investigators then went down there
and started looking at footprints in the

dust around that apartment.

They'd found a footprint that matched
one of the footprints that was found in

Adrian's apartment, and it was a Reebok
sneaker.

So, of course, this spurs the interest
of the detectives who had those shoes.

So now the search continues.

How many times does 52 go into 22,000?

I have no idea.

I don't do math. I do art.

Yeah. See, because it's just that I want
to give Linda a race.

She has four kids, and the guy that she
lives with doesn't work either, so...

In 1991, Adrian goes to L.A. to shoot
Big Girls Don't Cry, They Get Even.

She exploded as this indie actress
darling, and there was a lot

of pressure to be sexy. She knew what
her boundaries were and

was not interested in being naked on
screen and was not buxom and was not

going to get breast implants.

At the time, Me Too was so far away from
happening, and Adrienne knew that she

wanted to go through her career with a
certain level of self-respect.

She was dealing with continuous sexism.

Adrienne wanted to be in control of her
own projects.

Hollywood wasn't easy.

For a woman in the late 90s, early
2000s, it was still very much a man's

world. And Adrienne knew that if she
wanted to make the kinds of projects she

wanted to make as an actress, that she
had no choice but to write them herself

and direct them herself. Otherwise, they
weren't going to get made.

But at the time, it was considered
unacceptable for a woman artist to be an

actor and a director and a producer and
truly be in control.

She grew tired of waiting around for
somebody to give her an opportunity. And

being Adrienne, she jumped right in and
said, you know what? I'm going to write

and direct my own movie.

So the first movie she directed was
Sudden Manhattan.

Maybe you're just a man representing
nothing at all but weirdness and lies

and a half-formed, not at all
justifiable feeling of hope leading

nowhere to nothing.

What a great pain.

And who wants that, huh?

A lot of it was based on her own life
and her own stories. And I think you can

see in that screenplay a lot of things
that come later. The sex in the cities,

all of the romantic comedies. And
Adrienne was really early in saying a

woman's life in Manhattan, a woman's
life in her 20s, that matters. And this

is a story worth telling.

I'll take you there with Shelley's
second feature film.

It was an unconventional romantic comedy
starring Ally Sheedy as a woman who

kidnaps a man who rejected her. And
there was all of a sudden this heat

about her work and her voice. When she
was eight months pregnant, she began

writing Waitress.

She knew that she was on the cusp of
something really great with this movie.

I was like, this is it. I'm telling you,
this is where you're going to, like,

explode as a director.

Like, this is everything.

I'm A.J. Hammer in New York. Showbiz
Tonight has the last on-screen moments

of a promising actress making her mark
as a director.

She was on the path to making it big,
very excited about the movie she was

finishing. She even put herself in the
movie, but her life was tragically cut

short.

You can imagine the excitement of the
detectives when the shoe print expert

tells them that the print documentation
that they did in the construction area

was essentially the same shoe print that
was present at the crime scene. So, of

course, a combination of interviews with
the person who was responsible for

hiring the crew and having the people
work there led the detectives to a

basement apartment in Brooklyn.

When they went to the apartment, there
was a variety of different people that

were there.

According to police, when they're at
that home and they're questioning the

construction workers in the basement,
one of those workers volunteers to let

them look in his backpack, which
includes some work clothes but also some

sneakers. Those sneakers were Reeboks,
about the same size and the

same tread pattern that was present not
only at the scene but also at the

construction site.

The owner of those Reebok sneakers
turned out to be a 19-year-old immigrant

from Ecuador by the name of Diego Pilko.
He was in the country illegally.

Diego Pilko was a part-time construction
worker who was living in the basement of

his employer's home along with his
brother and his cousin.

And people who knew him seemed to
describe him as a person who was just

quiet and a gentleman.

According to Diego, he and his family
owed more than $13,000 to those who had

arranged his illegal entry into the
United States.

And he was supposed to work in the
United States and send money home to his

parents. He immediately told the
detectives that, yes, he was working

construction there in apartment 37, but
he didn't know anything at all about

what had taken place.

He had a lot of excuses, and he said he
had nothing to do with her death.

When Diego Pilko tells the detectives
that those shoes are his, that puts the

detectives in a position where they can
now detain Diego Pilko and take him down

to the station for a more in-depth
interview.

Diego denies having anything to do with
Adrian's death.

He says that he was at the building and
then he left because he had a

stomachache and he went to the drugstore
to get medicine.

When he came back, the boss was outside
the building and he told him and his

buddy that they'd been reassigned to go
work at a different building in Midtown,

where he says he spent the rest of his
afternoon.

But it was lucky that they had
experienced detectives who had done

interviews and interrogations like this
in the past.

One of the lead detectives on the case,
Irma Rivera Duffy, notices that Diego

Pilko has a prayer card in his hand as
they're questioning him.

And she focuses on this and capitalizes
on it. She asks him if he has any

children of his own or perhaps some
nieces and nephews. And he admits that

he does have some nieces and nephews. In
fact, he has a niece.

almost the same age as the victim's
daughter, Sophie.

Rivera Duffy pushes this, plays on his
Catholic guilt, and tells him that if he

has done something wrong, that his niece
will pay for his sins.

Diego Pilko confesses.

Happening in America this morning in New
York, a possible break in the case of

the death of actress Adrienne Shelley. A
construction worker is now under arrest.

He's charged with her murder.

Shelley, she was seen in the movie
Trust, was found hanging in her

Greenwich Village apartment.

The construction worker now under
arrest. His name is Diego Pilko.

After he admitted to killing Adrienne,

He said that he did it in a fit of rage,
that he was working, he was minding his

business, and then she came downstairs
and yelled at him for making too much

noise. She was working and he was making
noise. He says she swore at him and was

really loud and really angry.

He apparently claimed that he slammed
the door on her. She reopened the door

and gave him some more grief.

And then he was concerned that she was
going to call the police.

And what possibly would result in him
being deported. So he then followed her

back up to her apartment.

And then he got mad.

And they got into a fight.

And she fell on the ground.

He claimed he got into a physical
confrontation with her, gave her a big

shove. She went backwards, hit her head
on a table.

And then Diego says what he does is he
puts his head down.

to her chest, to listen for her heart.

You've got to be figuring that Diego's
heart is pounding the hardest it's ever

pounded in his whole life.

If he did that, what he would hear would
be his own terror.

And by trying to listen to a heartbeat,
by putting his ear to her chest, he

couldn't hear a heartbeat. He thought he
had killed her, inadvertently, as an

accident. So he constructs this idea of
staging a suicide by putting a sheet

around her neck and suspending her from
the shower rod to make it look like she

killed herself, not knowing that he was
leaving his shoe prints behind at the

scene. Adrian died from strangulation
from being hung.

She was alive when he hung her from the
shower rod, which is absolutely

terrifying and disgusting.

The detectives learned that Diego,
unlike Adrian, absolutely knew how to

tie a knot like the one that was on
Adrian's neck.

He had grown up on a farm in Ecuador,
and it was the same knot that he used to

use to tie up the hogs on the farm.

Diego's account of what happens as he's
confessing to Detective Rivera Duffy,

it's good enough for her because it's a
confession, but there are certain things

that are just out of sync that he's
really probably...

Making up.

Most of it has to do with the fact that
Adrienne accosted him.

I was horrified for Adrienne that her
life was robbed from her. I think about

that a lot because of the stranger that
robbed her of living.

It eventually came out that what
happened was Adrian did not come at him.

She did not complain. She was not
cursing at him. It was something that

was totally out of character for Adrian
anyway.

He admitted that he was in the apartment
because he saw an opportunity to steal

from her.

He goes into apartments.

He looks for money. He gets money. He
leaves. In this particular occasion, he

goes into this apartment. He sees a
purse.

He then takes money or whatever he does
out of the purse. There's an encounter.

She allegedly, according to him, sees
him doing that. She then confronts him

and at the time threatening that she's
going to call the police.

His story is he pushes Michelle.

She then, he says, bangs her head, falls
down, is apparently dead. By Diego's

account, he gets a bed sheet tied a knot
around her neck. And what does he do?

He drags her into the bathroom.

And by his account, he decides he's
going to stage a suicide.

I don't think he ever really put his
head on her chest to hear her heartbeat.

He was in full-blown panic mode. She has
passed out. When she comes to, he will

call the police.

It's just a matter of time before he's
discovered.

So, although he is by no means a
sophisticated criminal,

He has seen something on a telenovela
back in Ecuador where somebody commits a

murder and stages it as a suicide by
hanging somebody with a bed sheet.

A guy who's so cold is to, like, take a
person and kind of make

it look like they hung themselves?

I mean, that's total dedication to not
being blamed for what you did.

Adrian was killed in November 2006, and
waitress went

to Sundance that January, and it was
absolutely heartbreaking because people

loved the movie.

We're very excited to be here because
Adrian would, this is what she was

hoping to get in Sundance.

So it's bought at Sundance, and then it
comes out nationwide.

And it made about $19 million at the box
office, which for an indie movie is a

lot of money.

It brings up so many emotions because
you want to celebrate how great the film

is and how great her work is.

And then there's another part of you
that makes me so angry, like that

somebody took her life.

I remember seeing Andy in the theater
and talking to him.

And he was...

So incredibly heartbroken, you could
tell, but also so proud of his wife and

so proud of what she had achieved. And I
think he just felt her spirit there with

him in that room.

To know Adrienne was to understand
innately that she was meant to be a

trailblazer. Her storytelling was
trailblazing, and I really feel like

Adrienne set a path.

For people like Greta Gerwig and
everyone who

worked as a writer, director, actor
after her.

Adrienne Shelley's film Waitress was by
far her greatest hit, a huge success at

the Sundance Film Festival.

So it's no surprise that in 2016,
Waitress the musical debuted on

Broadway.

What's so exciting about Waitress, the
musical, to me, is that Adrian,

as a creator, gets to live on.

And people who might not see the film go
to this musical and then read about

Adrian Shelley and then go back and see
the movie and see her work and learn

more about Adrian.

So there's sort of this full circle,
sweet, magic.

But it doesn't surprise me that
Adrienne's legacy and momentum lives on

for other creators. And that feels
really right.

It was nominated for multiple Tonys. It
had songs written by the incredible

songwriter, Sarah Bareilles.

And it just became an incredibly beloved
play.

Andy has been the key to all of this.

Andy's the reason that Adrian's murderer
was caught and brought to justice.

And Andy is also the reason that her
legacy lives on today.

I think that, you know, she's still part
of the vibrancy of the city. And she's,

you know, she's shown the way where
there's going to be some other young

woman who's going to say that, you know,
I really want to do something. And

they're going to know about her and
they're going to follow her example.

Be inspired by her.

I just miss my friend all the time. I
wish I could have one more day with her.

No, I wish I could have a million more
days with her.

If I had wishes, then I would go for the
million.

I think the movie has a really lovely
heart.

I really like putting that sort of thing
out.

That's important to me.

And it is a love letter to my baby.

What's really poignant and made me cry
is at the end of Waitress the movie,

Sophie, her daughter, is in the movie.

And at the time,

they didn't know just...

what kind of impact this was going to
have.

There was no world in which Adrienne
ever would have wanted to wave goodbye

to Sophie, but the fact that that is
captured in that last scene

is this incredible, strange, prophetic
gift to her love

of Sophie. And the film itself is a love
letter to Sophie that is so oddly...

Remarkably meaningful and necessary
because all she would ever want for her

daughter is to know that she loved her
with her whole soul.

Diego Pilko is serving a 25-year
sentence without parole in Cook

Sake Correctional Facility in New York.

Adrian Shelley's legacy lives on in her
daughter Sophie and in the Adrian

Shelley Foundation started by her
husband, Andy.

To date, more than 50 women filmmakers
have been awarded scholarships and grant

money to support their education and
pursuit of the arts, a cause very close

to Adrian's heart.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.