..in the latest of a string of US sitcoms in the works

Kristen Schaal is set to star in a sitcom – about a murder suspect.

The Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominated comic and Daily Show regular will play a 'small-town misfit who becomes an unlikely celebrity when she goes on trial for the murder of the century' in the new show, American Monster.

She also co-wrote the show with her husband, Rich Blomquist.

The series has been sold to the ABC network, Hollywood website Deadline reports.

It is the latest in a series of sitcoms announced in America. Recent news includes

• Conan O’Brien is developing a buddy comedy for Fox called I Knew You When – about two old men looking back at their long, eventful lives.

&bull: Fox has also ordered a pilot called Fatrick, about 30-something removal man called Patrick still facing the consequences of his years as a fat kid,

• NBC is developing a sitcom starring up-and-coming comedian Erik Rivera, based on his stand-up routine about growing up half-Puerto Rican and half-Guatemalan. The script is being developed by former Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria's production company, unbeliEVAble

• NBC is also developing Pulling Teeth, a single-camera, workplace comedy set in a dentist. The show comes from Stacy Traub, one of the executive producers on Glee.

• Actress Anne Heche is working on the script of an untitled sitcom about the middle-aged manager of a store's beauty department, also for NBC. The pitch is: 'With the help of her hilariously opinionated sister Chelsea, her romantically-deprived co-workers, and a vast array of department store clients, Poppy turns a comic yet anthropological eye on what love and sex really mean for women.'

• ABC has a script in development called The Alzheimer’s Project, about a father with early onset Alzheimer’s trying to reconnect with his family.

&bull: Comedy Central is developing an internet series starring Kevin Brown – best known as Dot Com in 30 Rock. Strong Island is about two brothers who live at home on Long Island with their mother

Published: 8 Nov 2013