 Based upon an incident that happened in California in the early  1950s. A man named Billy Cook murdered a family of five, including  three children, and then killed a traveling salesman. He then  kidnapped two hunters and took them across the border into Mexico,  intending to kill them, too, but before he could he was captured by  Mexican police and subsequently extradited to the US, where he was  tried for the murders, convicted, and died in the gas chamber at San  Quentin on Dec. 12, 1952.