Based on the true story of the Burt family who seemed normal, upstanding members of the community but were actually deeply embedded in crime. Based on the true story of the Burt family who seemed normal, upstanding members of the community but were actually deeply imbedded in crime. The matriarch took in foster children who were subsequently molested and abused by her husband and children and she kept a woman enlaved and imprisoned in the basement for over twenty years until the.