**SPOILERS** Trying to put the past behind him Chuck Hausman, William R. Moses, at the urging of his wife Rebecca,Marcia Cross, never the less travels back to his home town of Deerfield for the reading of his fathers Reverand Leo Hausmer's, John Saxon, will. Right away old wounds are opened up as we see how the people in town respond to Chuck with total disdain and disgust blaming him for the murder, that was declared an accident, of his first wife Mary, Cyntyhina Preston some twenty years ago.
At the reading of the will it's discovered that Rev. Leo left Chuck $10,000.00 together with another ten grand to his housekeeper Mrs. Ford ,Katherine Helmound, who didn't bother to show up. But the over $250,000.00 that was given to him by Pete Gromek, Brandon Maggart, together with Art Sannar & Clift Bartok, Daniel Quinne & Jack McGee, to invest was completely gone due to, from what Leo said in his will, bad investments.
A number of story lines run concurrently in the film "Living in Fear" with the suspicion of Chuck being his first wife's murderer leading the pack. Chuck is also discovered to have been institutionalized, for a nerves condition, while in the US Marines during the Vietnam War. a fact that he withheld from his wife Rebecca. That as well as being somehow involved in the later deaths of housekeeper Mrs Ford and his former high school sweetheart Jeanine, Michele Scarabelli. Jeanine was not only suffering from a very severe case of wife abuse but who was also blackmailing Chuck with information that she knew about Mary's death and who's body was later found in the trunk of Chuck's car.
The most shocking thing that comes out of Chuck's past has in fact something to do with the death of his first wife Mary that was no accident but a crime of passion, as everyone in town had long suspected. But the passion of the person who killed her and why had nothing to do with Chuck at all, even though he helped cover up the crime. This we discover was the real reason for Chuck's mental breakdown and instability that has haunted him all these twenty years.
It also turns out that someone in town knowing that the $250,000.00 was somehow hidden in the late Leo's home, where both Chuck & Rebecca were staying at. That person saw Chuck as the perfect pasty in murdering Jeanine, who in the killer's deranged mind knew too much. He then ends up leaving the clues to her death right on Chuck's doorstep, or car trunk. Then incites Jeannie somewhat mad dog husband Stuart, Ted Haler, on him in order to have Chuck murdered in a fit of uncontrollable passion on his part. This effort in getting the lost money on the killers part was a bit confusing since why take the chance of having Chuck killed before he can find out where the hidden cash was that Chuck later, with the help of an old photo of him when he was 12, found?
We also learn the person responsible for Jeanine death also had it in for Chuck ever since he married Mary some twenty years ago. Since he was her boyfriend at the time and felt that Chuck stole her from him. Knocking off Deerfield Sheriff Lyle Pointer (Chris Kriesa), who stopped his van on the way to Chuck & Rebecca's place, for good measure and also planning to frame Chuck with it the killer now has his master plan all set up. The killer then has the crazed Stuart manipulated into killing Chuck for the murder, that the killer committed, of his wife Jeanine. The entire plan falls apart when he prematurely opens his big fat mouth, not knowing that crazy Stu was lurking around in the house and listening in, which had his whole crazy plan fall apart together with him.
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