For years, Glenn Palmedo-Smith has been trying to tell his version of what happened to a Rancho Santa Fe family found dead nearly 15 years ago.

The case garnered international media attention and Palmedo-Smith, a Rancho Santa Fe resident who was enlisted by a British newspaper to help cover the story, was quick to recognize its dramatic potential.

The story broke on Nov. 5, 1992, when neighbors discovered Ian Spiro's wife and three children dead at the couple's rented home on Avenida Maravillas. They were each shot in the head. Spiro's dead body was later found in the Anza-Borrego Desert.

San Diego County sheriff's investigators concluded that Spiro shot his family and then poisoned himself with a lethal dose of cyanide.

Palmedo-Smith said the story is not that simple. He said he believes authorities "severely downplayed" Spiro's involvement with American and British intelligence agencies in the Middle East, including hostage negotiations in Lebanon in the mid-1980s.

"I believe I have the right to interpret what happened," Palmedo-Smith, 55, said.

"The Hungry Woman," a movie Palmedo-Smith wrote and directed, opens in local theaters today. He said the movie is a fictionalized account of the murder mystery told from the perspective of the family's maid, a Mexican immigrant who lived in a North County migrant camp.

Palmedo-Smith said the film "imagines" the family being murdered by terrorists while the Spiro-like character is out of the home. Palmedo-Smith said he interviewed the family's maid, who described two well-dressed Middle Eastern men coming to the house two days before the deaths.

Spiro worked in Beirut in the early 1980s and played a role in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages trades orchestrated by former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North and Anglican church envoy Terry Waite in Lebanon, according to news reports.

Sheriff's Lt. Dennis Brugos, who was part of the investigating team, said there is ample evidence that pointed to a simpler explanation than terrorist assassins.

Spiro, who was having financial problems, killed his family then took his own life, Brugos said.

A 1995 review of the investigation by two retired police detectives agreed with the department's conclusion.

"The evidence is irrefutable," Tim Carroll, one of the retired detectives, said at the time.

Palmedo-Smith's film stars members of theatrical groups throughout Los Angeles, San Diego and Tijuana. Olivia Pena stars as Evelia, a Mexican immigrant who - along with her sister and two brothers - tries to pursue joy and success in her new home only to find injustice and tragedy after witnessing the murder of her employer's family.

In real life, Palmedo-Smith said he tracked down the woman, who has since gone back to Mexico, at a migrant camp in Rancho Penasquitos. He said he was intrigued by the immigrants he found in the camp.

Palmedo-Smith studied film at San Diego State University, but spent much of his life working as a real estate developer. He earned and lost millions by the time he left the business in the early 1990s when the housing market took a dive, he said.

In 1994, he decided to return to his passion for films by finishing the screenplay for the movie. It took years before he was able to secure funding from private investors to bring the script to life, Palmedo-Smith said.

Filming for the movie began in fall 2000 near an abandoned San Marcos landfill, where a migrant camp was recreated. It took six weeks to shoot the bilingual film that focuses on the immigrant family set against the drama of the killings.

An earlier version of the film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Palmedo-Smith said.

Investors later took the film away from him and re-edited it, taking most of the scenes involving the murder out of the film, he said. It was screened locally at the San Diego Latino Film Festival in 2002 under the title "Los Patriotas," but failed to garner attention from distributors.

Palmedo-Smith regained control of the movie three years ago and edited in the deleted scenes and added new ones with cinematographer, Jim Orr.

The title, "The Hungry Woman," comes from an ancient Mexican myth that explains how flesh and other organic material is "devoured" by the earth when it decays. It stands as a metaphor for America, Palmedo-Smith said.

"People ask me what 'The Hungry Woman' is," he said. "I tell them it is not a person, it's a place - a place that feeds on dreams."

- Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.