Murder Ordained is a television film that originally aired for CBS in 1987, starring Keith Carradine, JoBeth Williams, and Kathy Bates.

Based on actual events that occurred in Emporia, Kansas, in 1983, the film tells the story of State trooper John Rule (Carradine), who investigates what appears to be a traffic accident resulting in the death of a local minister's wife.

[2] The series received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Editing for a Miniseries or a Special (Single Camera Production).

In 1982, Tom Bird, an ambitious and charismatic Lutheran minister in American's mid-west, falls in love with one of his parishioners, Lorna Anderson, and together they make plans to start a fresh life in New Mexico.

The clever staging of the two murders almost fool the authorities but for the suspicions of a highway patrolman, John Rule, who pursues his own investigation as a matter of conscience.