A former assistant to Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnston, who appeared in a cameo role in the film, has been arrested and charged with second degree murder following the stabbing death of her mother in December.
According to Deadline, Mollie Fitzgerald was arrested on Christmas Eve and charged with the death of her mother, which had taken place December 20. Police responded to a report of a disturbance at the mother's home in Olathe, KS and found the 68-year-old's body. Fitzgerald was at the scene and taken to the hospital for treatment for minor injuries but was not arrested at the time of the incident.
Mollie Fitzgerald has a number of film credits but the most high profile among them is her work on Captain America: The First Avenger, where she was the assistant to director Joe Johnston, who most recently directed The Nutcracker and the Four Realms at Disney and also appeared in the film as one of the "Stark Girls" which would seem to indicate that she can be found in early scene where the pre-super soldier Steve Rogers attends the Stark Expo.
In the sequence, Dominic Cooper's Howard Stark first appears in the film on stage at the Expo showing off one of his newest inventions. He's preceded by a number of lovely ladies who entertain the crowd with a dance before Stark comes onto the stage.
The First Avenger wasn't Mollie Fitzgerald's final association with the film's director. In 2014, Fitzgerald wrote and directed a a movie called The Lawful Truth, in which Joe Johnston played a role. The film appears to have been largely a one-woman show for Fitzgerald. In addition to writing, producing and directing the film, she's also credited as the movie's editor and production coordinator.
Fitzgerald has also produced and directed a number of short films and she has several additional acting credits, largely in those same films.
No motive for the stabbing has been revealed. While the definition of second-degree murder can vary, it tends to denote intentional killing that is not premeditated.
According to IMDb, Mollie Fitzgerald was in the middle of directing a documentary film called Fireball and was in pre-production on another short film. It would seem these projects will be on hold while the legal situation runs its course. Fitzgerald was given a $500,000 bond. It's not reported if it has been posted. She's scheduled to go before a judge today.
Without any more information it's impossible to guess what may have happened here, beyond the fact that it was certainly a tragic event. It's possible there's a great deal more to the story than the bare facts we have here. Perhaps we'll learn more today after Mollie Fitzgerald sees a judge.
