This episode appears to be based on several separate cases/incidents:
- The 1986 Rod Matthews case. In 1986, Rod Matthews, a 14-year-old boy in Massachusetts, planned and carried out the premeditated bludgeoning death of a classmate, 14-year-old Shaun Ouillette. For months, after having watched the film Faces of Death (1978), Matthews had bragged to other classmates that he wanted to know what it would be like to kill someone. Matthews invited Ouillette to his home to play pool and then suggested that they go to the woods to build a fort. (Matthews later told his friends that he had picked Ouillette because he had no friends.) Matthews instead took Ouillette into an abandoned warehouse and told Ouillette that he planned to set off some fireworks there. However, when they arrived, Mathews attacked Ouillette with a baseball bat. Later Matthews bragged to his friends and showed some of them Ouillette's body, threatening them if they told anyone. During the police investigation into Ouillette's disappearance, all evidence pointed to Matthews. During three separate police interviews, he denied having any knowledge of Ouillette's whereabouts. In a fourth interview, he admitted that Ouillette had come to his house but indicated that the missing boy had run away from home. Meanwhile, one of Matthews friends who had seen Ouillette's dead body wrote an anonymous tip to the police. Acting on this tip, investigators found Ouillette's body and arrested Mathews, who went to trial and was found guilty of the murder. [As of 2019, Rod Matthews is still in prison for the murder.]
- The 1989 Barbara Stager case. Stager was convicted in 1989 of murdering her husband, Russell Stager, in 1988. Russell was shot while in bed; Barbara reported the shooting as accidental. Her first husband also died under similar circumstances.
- The 1872 Jesse Pomeroy (a.k.a. "The Boston Boy Fiend") case.
Lizbeth Mackay has played three different roles over the course of the series:
- Episode 2.15 Trust (1992) - Pamela Maser (as Lizbeth Mackay).
- Episode 13.18 Maritime (2003) - Miriam Ridgeway
- Episode 8.14 Grief (1998) - Park West Physician
The music video playing in Jamie Maser's room when the police speak to him is "She's Gone" by the band Steelheart.
Chris Noth (Detective Mike Logan) and Lizbeth Mackay (Pamela Maser) also worked together on Sticky Content (2014) (episode 6.09), as Peter Florrick and Sandra, respectively.