The real-life case of Diane Downs, on which movie is based on, foreshadows the 1994 trial and arrest of Susan Smith by 11 years. Like Downs, Smith pursued a man who didn't want to be with her because she had children. Refusing to take rejection, Smith also fabricated a story about being carjacked by a strange man, which caused her two small sons to drown while they were strapped in their mother's car. The shocking, disturbing truth was that Smith confessed that she had purposely pushed the car into the river, drowning the children in hopes of winning her boyfriend back. Both she and Downs remain in prison to this day.
Other than Diane Downs, most of the names have been changed; her children's names were changed from Christie to Karen, from Cheryl to Shauna, and from Danny to Robbie.
The film omitted the real-life situation of Diane Downs having affairs with other men while carrying on her affair with Robert "Nick" Knickerbocker (named Lew Lewiston in the film). She eventually caught an STD, which prompted Knickerbocker to confess to his wife about his affair with Downs. Knickerbocker's wife knew about the affair all along and was waiting for him to admit it. She ended up forgiving him despite Downs' persistence and hold on Knickerbocker.
Rebecca "Becky" Babcock, the woman who was the baby girl that Diane Downs was pregnant with during her trial, would fast-forward through the moment in the first trial scene where Downs was moving her head and hands rhythmically to the song, "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran, which was playing in Downs' car on the night of the shootings. This moment makes her understandably heartbroken and emotional. While the song was playing in the courtroom, jurors and spectators were aghast at seeing Downs' apathy and carelessness as she easily danced to the song that was playing while her children were shot.
Another situation that this film left out was that Diane Downs had actually opened her own surrogacy clinic in Arizona.