News File Photo Jason Belanger is led by Alpena County sheriff’s deputies to his arraignment hearing in this 2001 News archive photo. Belanger and his wife, Melissa Bredow-Belanger, were eventually convicted in the murder of James Orban. Their story will be featured on a Monday episode of the Oxygen Network’s “Killer Couples.”

ALPENA — A grisly murder, a cover-up, a romance gone bad … a harrowing piece of Alpena’s history sounds like the stuff of television.

On Monday night, it will be.

A 2001 Alpena crime will be featured on an episode of the Oxygen Network series “Killer Couples.” The episode, scheduled to air at 9 p.m. local time, depicts the October 2001 slaying of James Orban in a north Alpena home, which was destroyed by fire a few days later, an effort to hide evidence.

Retired detective Larry Thomson was the lead investigator on the case. He remembers well the emotional impact of working the murder, with its difficult details and interesting plot twists.

Melissa Bredow-Belanger, 21 at the time, worked for Orban, 69, a man she called her best friend — a man, Thomson said, who was giving her money for cleaning the house … and a lot of other things.

When Bredow-Belanger’s old lover, Jason Belanger, reentered her life, in need of drug money, she conspired with him to rob the older man, police said. That robbery turned into murder.

While Bredow-Belanger played Bingo at the Senior Center, Belanger crept to Orban’s house, planning to rob him of his imagined riches.

“Orban just happened at the same time to be letting his cat out the back door, and there’s Jason standing there, face-to-face,” Thomson said.

A fight inside the doorway resulted in Belanger stabbing Orban and then fleeing, leaving his pocketknife behind.

“Most people who are involved in a homicide want to get as far away as they can, but he literally spent the entire next day within blocks of the house,” Thomson said.

After dark the next day, Belanger went back with gasoline to burn the house in an effort to hide the evidence of his crime.

It only took a few days for police to arrest Belanger for the murder. Several years into his life prison sentence, he told police of Bredow-Belanger’s part in the crime, and she, too was charged and convicted, although she maintains her innocence.

The episode to be aired Monday night will be the final show of the series’ 11th season. The producers of the program chose the Alpena murder because it fit in so well with their theme of romantic relationships that have an element of obsession and desperation that make a couple willing to commit heinous crimes.

The episode will delve into Bredow-Belanger’s troubled family life and the intense emotional connection she developed with Belanger, according to Eric Wetherington, executive producer and showrunner for Jupiter Entertainment, which produces the series.

Bredow-Belanger’s family, objecting to the relationship, went so far as to move away, ending the romance — until the two found each other again by happenstance and reconnected, igniting a spark that led to Bredow-Belanger turning on her benefactor.

A variety of Alpena-area people, including Thomson, were interviewed for the show, and crews filmed in several locations around the city for footage for the episode. Alert viewers will spot clippings and photos from The Alpena News archives in the episode, telling the tale now as they did in 2001.

The crime had a lasting emotional impact on Thomson. He remembers the crime for its brutality, and “just the senselessness of it. The callousness of the act is what really has stuck with me.”

After 35 years in law enforcement, Thomson now heads up the criminal justice program at Alpena Community College, teaching a new generation of eager future officers. He plans to watch the “Killer Couples” episode Monday night at home with his wife.

“We had to sign up for the Oxygen Network to get it,” Thomson said. “But we have to see it, so when people are telling me, ‘I saw you on TV,’ I can say, yeah, I saw it, too.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com.