Morbid - Episode 534: The Story of Laurie Bembenek and the Tragic Murder of Christine Schultz (With Special Guest Holly Madison)

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Holly Madison joins us to give us a sneak peak at one of the cases they are covering on Season Two of the Playboy Murders. We talk about the tragic murder of Christine Schultz and the trial, conviction, and escape of Laurie Bembenek. It's a tragic story that is light on justice for anyone! She also chats with us about the second season overall of the Playboy Murders which premiers on January 22nd! You can find it on Investigation ID and stream it on MAX!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. Many put their hope in Dr. Serhat. His company was worth half a billion dollars. His research promised groundbreaking treatments for HIV and cancer. But the brilliant doctor was hiding a secret. You can listen to Dr. Death Bad Magic,

ad free by subscribing to Wendri Plus in the Wendri app or on Apple podcasts. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And I'm Holly. And this is a special episode of MoreBed. of Morbid! We have podcast host, New York Times bestselling author, executive producer Queen Extraordinaire, and friend of the pod, Holly Madison on the show today. Holly!

Thanks for having me back, you guys. It's always so fun to come on here. My God, of course. We were so excited that you wanted to come back. You're always welcome. Of course, anytime. And guys, if you're not listening to Girls Next Level podcast, start listening. Thank you.

Yeah, you're missing out if you're not listening. And join the Patreon because I joined the Patreon, So I've been slumber partying it lately. Ooh, I need to join. It's amazing. I want to slumber party it. Patreon is always where I rant about my drama. Like some older playmate went on a podcast this week and was like saying stuff that I wasn't too happy about.

So I have to respond on the Patreon, you know, but else in the picture. Hell yeah. Good for you. You have to say something somewhere, you know? I saw some of that on TikTok Patreon, you know, but else in the world. Hell yeah. Good for you. You have to say something somewhere, you know. I saw some of that on TikTok and I was like, if you go against Tali, I just don't like you anymore. Yeah.

You've made an enemy. Of course. But we're here today to talk about your not even new show anymore because now it's on season two. So the Playboy murders and I'm so excited to talk to you about it. We are basically just going to dive right in because congratulations on season two and it's premiering January 22nd. Yeah, Monday, January 22nd. I'm so excited. We have seven episodes this season and they're all so different. Some of them are kind of

famous cases from back in the day. A handful of them are cases I never even heard of. Some of them involve people I met and knew personally. So I'm really excited about this season. It's gonna be so good. I was so right of the show. Oh, it is. It's just everything about the show is such like a, it just hits all the things you,

like, you know what I mean? Like the music, the coloring of it, like everything I love it, it just drew me right in. Thank you. Everybody on the team does such a great job. I was so happy with season one. I got more positive feedback on that than anything I've ever done in my life.

So I'm super excited for everybody to see season two. No, it's so good. My husband Drew and I, we watched season one as soon as it came out, and we were hooked instantly. And I wanted to ask you personally, what was it like putting the first season together? Like how much, obviously, so much work went into that? Yeah, well, the production team is great. They already had the cases picked out before I even joined because when my agent first told me about the project

and that it was called the Playboy Murders, I was like, no, I don't want to do another. I can't handle another Playboy project. Like, I'll have nightmares at night if I do that. Like, I can't do it. Okay, well, just look at this deck and let me know what you think. So he sent the deck over where they presented the cases they wanted to do. And a lot of them were cases I'd never even heard of, coming from a person who thought she knew everything about what happened to anybody ever involved with Playboy. And I was like, this is a show I would actually watch.

So I was super excited to get on board. And the experience was great. We shot all of my stuff out here in Vegas and just had a great time doing it and telling the stories. And for me, just even learning more about the cases is so exciting. Definitely. It's just so good.

Like it captivates you the second that you start watching. And you're sharing stories that need to be shared. Like you said, there's stories that even you didn't know about and you're like very well versed in like the history of Playboy. Yeah. So it's like these people, they fell all under the radar and it's nice that the show is actually bringing them back into the light.

And I like that you guys kind of cover everything, like even unsolved cases you've covered. So hopefully they can get new light shed on them. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's every true crime producer's dream is for maybe, you know, something to come out of sharing those cases that are unsolved, but maybe somebody will come forward or somebody remembers something. Yeah, definitely.

Did anything change with your process when like you were able to, were you able to pick some of the cases for season two or did they bring all of the cases to you again? Yeah, season two we collaborated and there were some cases I knew about that they didn't know about because they involved some people that I'd met before and had found out that horrible things had happened to them after I lost touch with these people. So it was probably about like 50-50 cases they came up with and cases I came up with,

and they're just the best team to work with, and I love them, and it's been a lot of fun. That's awesome. That's the dream. Yeah, it's cool that you were able to have more of your input. Yeah. Has there been one specific case either season one or season two that really stuck with you that like kept you up at night? I know for me, it's like Dorothy Stratton and star Stowe, those two ones just really stick with me. Yeah, I think for season one, star Stowe really stuck with me too. It's one of the unsolved cases. You know, she was at the mansion as a playmate so I can relate to some of her story. And I had known who she was before and I knew that something tragic had happened to her before but I didn't know too many details. And I remember even, you know,

back in my Playboy days being very captivated by her photos because they did this really cool like glam rock pictorial with her back in the 70s, which was very kind of unusual for Playboy to do. So she was playing out to me. Yeah. And then this one that we're going to cover today sticks with me a lot too, because I just finished reading Lori Bambetik's autobiography. So really getting into how she felt about the whole case and what she was going through. So right now that's the one that's kind of sticking with me. That's kind of how I feel right now too. And I'm sure you do, Alina. Oh, I couldn't believe

this case. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I'd never heard of it. Twist returns. That's the thing it's so twisty. It really is. By the end of it you're like what just happened? Like what happened? Everybody lost here. And you still don't, I think I still don't really know what happened you know. Me either. Like if somebody's not doing it, I'm like I don't know. I don't know. That's the worst part. But yeah, I mean, we should probably just get into it. So Holly, we'll hand it over to you to kind of walk us through the case. Yeah. So this case got quite a bit of coverage a long time ago, like before your time, early 80s, because this involves a woman who worked as a playboy bunny was, I think, framed for a murder.

And she went to prison for nine years, escaped from prison, was on the run. The nickname she got back when she was on the police force was Bambi. So everybody had this slogan run, Bambi run, because at this point, everybody was rooting for her. So to get a little more into this story, like I said, this is about a woman named Lori Bambinik. She worked as a playboy Bunny for only three weeks at the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Playboy Resort.

And it's crazy because even reading her autobiography, she wasn't really happy with how she was kind of only known in the press as a Playboy Bunny. And back then when she was on trial, it really worked against her because people saw her as like this manipulative femme fatale, like using her sexuality against men kind of it was kind of twisted that way. And it's crazy because she was only a bunny. No, there's anything wrong with being a bunny, but she was even only a bunny for three weeks and anytime people would talk about her in the media, they would either run a picture of her in her Playboy Bunny uniform or a picture for a beer calendar she had done once when she was doing some modeling when she was young. They never ran a picture of her in her police officer uniform or anything like that.

So it's just a good example of how somebody is more than just their headlines. And that's why I love getting into these cases is you can dive into more of who the person was. And Lorencia Bambinik, she was born in 1958. She was the youngest of three children born to like a middle-class family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her father, interestingly enough, was a former police officer, and he had resigned from the job when he had found out or seen some corruption in the police force. Oh, wow. I'm not sure what he saw. But he went on to become a carpenter after that. She went to Catholic school.

She later went on to get her associate's degree in fashion merchandising. After that, she worked in retail. She did some modeling where she did, I believe it was a Schlitz beer calendar and some other things. But that wasn't enough for her. And she decided she wanted a challenge and she really wanted to be a police officer.

It's cool that she got to follow in her dad's footsteps too. Yeah. Absolutely. And kind of, you know, this could have gone so differently. You know, her father resigned from the police force because he saw corruption. And this could have been a way to like, you know,

circle back around and it could have ended more positively. Exactly. But as we'll see in this story, it didn't really go that way. So in the score of 1979, the Milwaukee Police Department was basically a known boys club.

And they hadn't been, you know, trying to hire women or minorities very much, but there was encouragement to do so by the time you hit 1979. And they had put an ad in the paper asking for these kinds of recruits. Lori saw this ad and she decided to go into the Milwaukee Police Academy. And, you know, she was five foot 10,

she had blonde hair, blue eyes, she was really beautiful, high cheekbones, but, you know, she was five foot 10. She had blonde hair, blue eyes. She was really beautiful, high cheekbones, but, you know, she was over the modeling thing. She wanted to do something that she felt had a little more meaning and a little bit more of a challenge. You know, she was very athletic. She thrived in the police academy.

And in the police academy, you know, very grueling training and, you know, people would develop these friendships and relationships and come up with nicknames for each other. And her last name was Ben-Bennick, but that got turned into Bambi. That became her nickname at the police academy. I don't know that it was necessarily a nickname she loved or anything, but that's where later we'll get the run Bambi run slogan.

And everybody's calling her Bambi in the media when this case eventually broke. I think I read that she ended up not liking it because obviously it took on kind of like a life of its own at that point toward like the end of her like getting out of prison and everything. Yeah, it kind of started to sound very bimbo at the end because here she's been classified as like nothing more than a playboy bunny and like being called Bambi

just kind of took a turn. It's like they used it against her. There's two different things too that come out about like where that nickname came from. And one of them is like a nicer way where it's like she was so fast. And she lapped all the guys so they were like, she's like Bambi, she's fast.

And then other people are like, no it's because of her big doe eyes. And I'm like. Yes, I don't know. I like the other one better. Yeah, and I'm sure she probably did too. I think all those reasons are probably reasons it stuck. Yeah, there's so many It all fit together

One interesting thing to note is when she was in the police academy She made a friend another woman who was trained to become a police officer named Judy Zess and she would come into play several more times during this case and this whole Journey, yeah, Judy is Judy something Judy makes a mark and she would come into play several more times during this case and this whole journey. Yeah, Judy is, uh, Judy's something. Judy makes a mark. She makes a few. Judy scares me.

Judy scares me too. No. So, Lori graduated. She excelled as a congratulations gift for herself. She brought a bright orange Camaro, and it was a fast car for a woman who was going places. What a badass Congratulations to me gift. I love that. That's awesome Amazing I just think about this time, you know what was written about it and she just must have felt like life was so promising at this moment Yeah, exactly. She was working for everything she wanted to work for and she was succeeding

Exactly. That's all you can ask for. So she's on the police force, she's finishing her training. In the early 80s, it was obviously a lot of men on the police force. And there was a lot of socializing where the lines could get kind of blurred. Apparently on the police force at this time, there was a lot of going out to bars and partying and things like that. There was even later on, she would find pictures of these police gatherings in the park in public where people were like getting naked and like dancing on tables and stuff.

That's wild. Like people getting naked, obviously, but this was considered like decent exposure. So what are they doing? She was just seeing a lot of hypocrisy and like male officers getting away with a lot of things that female officers couldn't get away with. A huge double standard was going on for sure. And they're like ticketing people for indecent exposure to being naked in the park. It's like, no, I can't go both ways. Yeah, but what's going on? Yeah. Another issue she had was with some of the officers' wives, you know, at these social events, people would have a few drinks and they'd get a little mouthy with each other

and, you know, women would come up to Bambi and be like, you know, I see my husband looking at you, you know, why don't you dress and bag your clothes or something like that and just like get in her face. And yell at your husband. Yeah, why are you coming to me? Y'all at your husband, exactly. You're like, that's his problem, man.

Go yell at him. I was thinking that too when I read that I'm like, how embarrassing to have to go up to somebody and say, I see how my husband's looking for me. Yes. He's like, honestly, girl, together, let's go yell at him. I'd be like, why are you yelling at me? Exactly. Team up.

So beyond the sex parties and the drugs, allegedly, some of the other officers were up to even more serious things, such as soliciting sex workers on the drugs, allegedly some of the other officers were up to even more serious things, such as soliciting sex workers on the job, sleeping through shifts in squad cars, paying in for drugs, using drugs, even selling pornographic material. So there's a lot going on. I'm like, when were you guys working

in between all that? Seriously. That seems like a lot. Exactly. And in Lori's autobiography, there was a lot of that when she's talking about her training and like disputes that would come up and like certain shifts and areas of town that officers wouldn't want to work, or they would have this thing where they'd have to check in and like make phone calls from where they were at certain times of nights back to headquarters just so people knew they were working.

And some police officers didn't want to do that, because a lot of them, I don't want to say a lot of them, but some of them weren't working. They were like sleeping in their cars or off doing other things. And they didn't really want to be on their beat so much. Yeah, wow. That's so nuts.

That's scary. You're like, Milwaukee, what's going on? You OK? And that comes back later too with a certain someone. Mm-hmm. Lucky, what's going on? Are you okay? And that comes back later too with a certain someone. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, host of Wondery's Podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history, presidential lies, corruption in sports, corporate fraud.

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So eventually, Lori got her, she called to get her schedule and was told not to come in at all. And she was dismissed from the police force because she had gone to a concert with a handful of friends, including Judy, and Judy was caught smoking a joint. And Judy somehow said that Laurie was involved in this or that Laurie knew about it and didn't report it. And because as a police officer, she saw something illegal going on and didn't report it,

that was treated as if she was doing it too. And for her, that kind of blew her mind because she'd seen police officers do so many other things and actually committing illegal acts. So she's like, wait, this isn't fair. And she started to notice that women weren't lasting on the police force and people of color weren't lasting on the police force. And that seemed like those candidates are being looked at with a more critical eye and being dismissed. It's like, okay, we're going to call these people in because of, you know, federal rules or whatever was going on at the time, you know, we need more minorities and more women, but they we're going to call these people in because of, you know, federal rules or whatever was going on at the time.

You know, we need more minorities and more women, but they didn't want to keep those people on the police force. At least that was the conclusion she was coming to based on what she observed. And you can see why she thought that, you know? Exactly. It seems absolutely like they were looking for the first moment when they could clear it off. It was very performative.

Like, oh, let's hire all these people, like women and people of color, and then completely get rid of them as soon as we can. Yeah, exactly. So even after that happened, Lori remains friends with Judy, which is here's when I start to cringe. Like, I think we've all in our lifetimes had that toxic friend too, for whatever reason, maybe they're fun, maybe they're magnetic, maybe they're fun to vent to, maybe, you know, whatever,

they provide you some support in some way. So you look over all these kind of toxic things, even something huge like, you know, Judy throwing Lori under the bus and she ends up losing her career basically. Yeah, it's big. She's still friends with Judy, yeah. It's a big one. She's like, yes, since they're both out of a job,

why don't we go down to the Lake Geneva Playboy Club and try out to be bunnies? Because back in the day, you could make a lot of money being a Playboy bunny. It was a job where you tended to get tipped really well. You could bring somebody a cup of coffee and get 50 bucks back in 1970s money. Yeah, that's huge.

So they went down just in time before they were doing an open casting call and they got the job. And back then at the Lake Geneva club, you were supposed to live down there too, kind of in dorms. That makes sense. So there were a lot of rules and regulations working as a bunny, you know, you kind of had to keep your eye on customers and like facilitate their experience all over the place where there was at the ski chalet or in the cabaret where there are performances and things like that. Like those clubs seem so glamorous looking on the outside.

I think they really were. You know, like the chalet and all that, like it just feels like such a glamorous atmosphere. It definitely looks like it, but then there was like all kinds of shady stuff going on, like behind closed doors with the members and stuff. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the Lake Geneva club sounds really fun.

And I guess it was even family friendly too. Like you could bring your kids and stay there. It was really interesting. It was, it's interesting to me just how the brand has been perceived throughout the years and even in the 2000s, like we would be considered really unbrand friendly, you know, for coming from Playboy and things like that.

But then you go back to the 70s and apparently there was like a resort that was kind of seen as a family resort and it And that was pretty boy brand. So it's, it's just interesting to me, like where it's gone over the years. Yeah, it truly has evolved. Yeah. And it's evolved like, like, you know, hills and valleys kind of thing. Yeah.

Definitely. Yeah. It's never like a straight line. No, that's why it's so fascinating though. The research. I know. Cause you always find something new. Everybody just always feels different.

Yeah. So many layers. So Lori eventually filed a lawsuit, a complaint against the Milwaukee Police Department because she felt like she was unfairly dismissed. So this is kind of something that would hang over her head a little bit. She wasn't satisfied working as a Playboy Bunny.

She only kept the job for three weeks. She wanted to join the military. But as she was going through that process, she found out that as long as she had like an open lawsuit going on, she couldn't join the military. They didn't have anybody with that kind of, yeah, I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, I didn't either. But it was really important for her to pursue justice. And I wonder, shouldn't talk about this too much in our autobiography, but I wonder how much of her dad's experience kind of played into this. It's almost like wanting to finish out like a generational trauma in a way like if her there had resigned from the department after seeing corruption.

Like I wonder how much of that was in her motivation to go after and do this complaint against the police department. I could definitely see that being a driving factor because in a way like her justice would be his justice. Yeah, it's like unfinished business. Right, exactly. That's a perfect way to put it. Yeah. And she was only like 21, 22 when this was all going on.

It's funny when we look back on these older cases, I feel like people became such adults at like age 18 back then. Yes, so true. Like I think about like a 21 year old, 22 year old, like I was this idiot girl in college. Same. I look at Lori's story and all the things she had done and she's doing this big lawsuit and everything

and it's just crazy like how much had already gone on at such a young age. I know she's just pursuing so many things like so wholeheartedly at such a young age, it's wild. Yeah. So despite her grudge against the police department, her social circle still included a lot of people connected to the police.

And through a friend, she met a man named Fred Schultz. He was a detective on the Milwaukee police department. He was dating a friend of hers, but they caught each other's eye and eventually connected after he broke it off with a friend. Fred would tell Lori that it was love at first sight. And this Fred guy, based on her autobiography, seems like a little bit of a love bomber.

Yeah, definitely. I got that vibe. So he was tall, blonde, handsome. Lori loved a man with a badge. And even though she was receiving bail threats for pursuing this case against the police department, she was falling for Fred. She would have things happen,

like she would go out to her car and find like a dead rat on the window. Oh my God, very symbolic. Yeah, so there were other things happening where she didn't feel 100% safe. That's so scary. I don't wonder getting involved with a man who was a detective on the force.

I wonder if there was a feeling of shelter a little bit in that. It wouldn't turn out that way. But I wonder if you're kind of feeling threatened by this big force you're going up against, but you're making these intimate connections with a man who's on the police force, maybe that feels a little safe in like a counter

intuitive way. Does that make sense? Yeah, it really does. I could definitely see that. Like she was looking for protection and an ally. Yeah. Like maybe he could help even. Like maybe he can make everyone see. Or maybe somebody who's gonna like let you know what's going on. Yeah, and this is the guy that's supposed to like know you like, you know, intimately and know who you are as a person and know you're not a bad person. So you're hoping that he can convey that to everyone else and that they'll listen to him.

And stop leaving dead rats on your windshields. And he's a detective, which it's like he should have a little pull. He's a little above the patrolman at that point. So it's like you would think he would be able to, they would listen to him maybe and take his word. They take his word at some point. Yeah.

Absolutely. So by Christmas that year, Laurie and Fred were super close. They were spending every day together. And an important thing to note about Fred is he was recently divorced from a woman named Christine Schultz. He had two children with her and he was paying a lot of money in child support, alimony, and the former wife and children were living in a home that he had built himself, kind of his dream house.

So I think it'd be safe to say, and based on what Lori wrote in her book, that he was harboring a lot of resentment toward Christine for having to pay all that money. And, you know, she's living in the house and, you know, he would always speak poorly about Christine to Lori and it wasn't a great relationship. Yeah, which is not great. Yeah, definitely not great at all. Yeah. And actually, Fred and Christine had only been divorced for six months by the time Fred and Lori were married. Oh, wow. Oh, I didn't even realize it was that soon. Yeah. And there were times in Laurie's autobiography

where she mentioned she felt like Fred either wasn't completely over Christine or just had some sort of weird obsession, whether it was resentment that Christine had moved on with someone else and he was still paying the bills. I don't know. But there was a time where Laurie found the wedding ring from Christine in Fred's pocket and she kind of went off on it.

I'm like, what, why is this so? Why is this something you're carrying around? Yeah, I would be pissed off about that. So a few months later, after they were married in the spring of 1981, Lori was abruptly awoken by a phone call from Fred. It was a quarter to three in the morning and she could barely make sense of what he was saying,

but he was telling her that something had happened to his ex-wife, Christine. The call in the early morning hours of May 28, 1981 might have startled Lori awake, but nothing compared to what had just happened in the house that Fred had built with his own two hands. In the middle of the night, his eldest son had awoken and described that a man had been standing behind

his younger brother with his hands around the boy's neck. When the boy was able to get free, the man ran from the boy's room and into his mother's room. Christine had screamed, please don't do that. And a sound that the boy's described as a firecracker echoed through the upstairs hall. They ran to the mother's room as the man who was wearing a green tracksuit, allegedly although later the oldest son would say no, he was not wearing a green tracksuit who's actually wearing a green army jacket. And the boy in great detail

described how he knew it was a jacket because it was like kind of flapping at the edges. It was like an army jacket that didn't have any writing or camouflage. It was just kind of that green army jacket. And he was very specific in describing when he was on the stand, the perpetrator's body as being like very square, shouldered and very straight up and down, like not like a more hourglass female baby. Like the oldest son was very adamant that it was a man who had done this. And they were young. I think it wasn't the oldest one, like 11. Yeah, 11 years old. These are young kids seeing done this. And they were young. I think it wasn't the oldest one, like 11. Yeah, 11 years old. These are young kids seeing all this.

It's so sad. And that's a really important detail. I didn't realize that he later said, like, no, it wasn't a great jogging suit because the jogging suit becomes such an important detail. It really does. At 2 a.m., the boys called their mother's boyfriend to come help and sat by her side.

They were even, the oldest one was trying to do first aid, the best he could, trying to stop the bleeding. It's really heartbreaking. That is heart-wrenching. Yeah, she passed away that night. Next thing you know, all the police officers are at Lori's husband's house, the house he had built anyway,

that Christine still lived in. Every cop in town was there. And it was almost like they lost one of their own, because this was so closely connected to the police department. Fred's oldest son had gotten a good enough look at the man who killed his mother to give the cops a description. An intruder, a man around 5'8", with a long red ponytail, had come in and they have collected reports from all around the neighborhood that people had seen a man wearing a green tracksuit with a long red ponytail jogging throughout the neighborhood that people had seen a man wearing a green tracksuit with a long red ponytail

jogging throughout the neighborhood over the past few weeks. And someone had even found a man in the green jogging suit with a long red ponytail, like asleep in a parking lot. And I'd like pick that person out. So that's really interesting. Very strange. That is strange.

Yeah, it is. So for Lori, this obviously it's a huge shock and a tragedy to lose somebody this close to you, but also she finds herself kind of the mother of the two sons. Yeah, you got to step into that role. Yeah. And she was someone who had never wanted to have kids, wasn't really prepared for that, but she really stepped up to the plate as best she could. And again, she's so young when this happens, Like to have to step into the role of a mother

to traumatize grieving children. Like that's huge. Truly traumatized. Cause that's the sad part about this too, is like you can search and search and search. And there's like barely any information about Christine. Yeah, there's nothing. Cause it's really focused on like the shenanigans

that happen afterwards. And it's like, I think you can find out that Christine was like 30 years old. She was a mother of two. And that's really it. And loved her kids. And it's like, that's really all you can find out. So it is always sad when somebody gets left behind in these.

But if you search and search, you can't find anything. It just got so sensationalized, I think, with all. Like you said, the shenanigans is the perfect way to put it. And the way Fred comes off from what I read, like Christine must have had a hard time dealing with him co-charity, constantly fighting about money and things like that. Exactly.

I think it was definitely unpleasant. I saw some quote that said she was sick of his flandering ways, which you can kind of see. Yeah. He met Lori pretty quickly. We can put two and two together. So standard procedure after a murder is to canvas the area and look at those closest to the victim, that list included Christine's boyfriend, her ex-husband, Fred,

Lori, and their roommate, Judy, because I think I neglected to mention Fred and Lori were living with Judy's ass. Oh, yeah. Smoking a joint and kind of threw Laurie under the bus. She was also their roommate. They were just trying to make ends meet. You know, Fred felt like he was giving most of his money, you know, as he should to his kids.

He was really bitter about not still living in the house. And he wanted to move back into the house after the murder. And Laurie did not want to do that. She was adamantly opposed to it, but he really wanted to go back to the house after the murder. And Lori did not want to do that. She was adamantly opposed to it, but he really wanted to go back to that house. That's interesting. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, reclaim it.

So Fred and Christine's boyfriend both had alibis. Fred was on duty at the time, and they didn't have anything to worry about it seemed. Judy and Lori both refused to take polygraph tests. Lori was worried that the Milwaukee Police Department would take her results and this opportunity to use it against her. Like, she was already afraid of them because she filed this big complaint. And she'd already gone through so much with them. And then I read somewhere that it came out that Fred was lying about being on duty and that he was actually, he said he was working with his partner.

And then it came out later that they were actually drinking at a bar, but then some detective looked into that and there was a lot of holes within the story. So it's like, was he even working? Where were you Fred? Yeah, his story is so suspect. And then Lori says in her autobiography that, you know, when Fred and his police partner came back

to their apartment, they felt the hood of Lori's car to see what she had been out. And she wrote in her book that she thought, well, that's a weird thing to do. And the car was not warm, so it was determined that it couldn't have left the driveway that night, so they thought. Once inside the house, Fred grabbed his off-duty gun and his partner examined it. The partner said the gun did not smell like it had been fired recently. A campus in the neighborhood turned up 12 different people that claimed to have seen the man in the red ponytail

in the green track suit. You know, there was the report that he was seen laying in the hospital's parking lot at some point. And I guess the person who spotted him in the hospital parking lot had went up to approach the man but he like, got out of the way before they could get up to it. That's such a strange one. Yeah, that's sketchy that he was avoiding. Yeah, yeah, it's really weird. I want to know who this guy is. I know, is it your real hair? No, no, willing to bet. So back at the scene, there was no sign of forced entry. So there was the thought that maybe the killer was somebody

who knew how to get into the house. A safe that was in the den was tampered with. There was nothing in it. So they don't know if somebody got what was in it or what was in it in the first place. Christine had been shot at close range in the back and the bullet that killed her had gone through her heart. Her wrist was bound with clothesline

and a bandana was tied around her face as a gag. After examining the body police discovered a single strand of reddish brown hair-like material on her right cap. A few days after the murder on June 10th, a plumber was called to the apartment complex that Laurie, Fred, and Judy lived in. There was something clogging up the pipes between the apartment and the neighbors. The plumber discovered that the cause of this clog was a red wig. The fibers from the wig matched the hairs that were found on Christine's leg. A day later, the detective came by and took Fred's two guns, his service revolver and his off-duty gun. On June 18th, police ballistics would find that the gun that shot Christine matched the off-duty gun that was in the Schultz apartment on the night of the murder

While Fred was at work and Laurie slept at home without an alibi So sadly things are not looking good for Laurie at this point. No not at all. It's that flushed wig That is so weird to me. I'm like first of all who flushes a wig down the toilet Why would you call the problem? flushes a wig down the toilet. And why would you call the plumber? It wouldn't even flush. That's the thing. If I tried to do that,

the toilet would overflow. Yeah, it would just shoot it back. Like it wouldn't even suck it down. Every time I try to picture that, I'm like, no, that can't happen. How would that work? What force does your toilet have? Because that's in the toilet.

That's in the toilet. Exactly, like did they cut the wig up? Like I don't know. Weird. And it just seems like if you were really trying to get rid of that, you would do it differently. Yeah. Exactly. Like, did they cut the wig up? Like, I don't know. Yeah. It's weird. And it just seems like if you were really trying to get rid of that, you would do it differently. I don't think you would flush it down the toilet.

And especially like... Unless maybe you were trying to frame someone. Police officers. Yeah. Like, if that was coming out of that house, you've all been police officers. Like, you all know how this works. That seems like a very silly thing for any of you to do to try to get away with it. That's such a good point. You know? Yeah, it really does.

Lori was arrested on June 24th despite an eyewitness account, Christine's own son, who kept insisting that the killer was a man. Lori spent three nights in jail after her arrest. Her husband Fred said he could not get the money together to bail her out. Immediately after her release, because she was let go eventually, Lori began doing interviews with the press. She wanted to make it clear she did not kill Christine Schultz. And she felt she was being set up for speaking out against the Milwaukee Police Department. That's so scary. Can you imagine if that is the truth? How helpless she must have felt? Oh my God, I can't even imagine. Like, oh,

I can't imagine. Oh, yeah. So the trial was very sensationalized, and it was supposed to be the first televised trial in the city, which to me is crazy, because this is like the early 80s. And I realized they were televising the trials. I thought that was more of like a 90s thing, like around the time of like OJ. Yeah, I didn't know it was this far back. Yeah, I didn't either. Yeah. So she was being characterized as, you know, this femme fatale, playboy bunny, you know, her looks became a point of contention in the trial. You know, she felt like she couldn't do anything right as far as how she dressed. If she wore anything that looked cute, she was being told she was too sexy. If she wore like a button up to the neck, hasn't blouse. People didn't like that either. They felt like she was trying to fool everybody

into thinking she was the school mom. And, you know, they kind of took that the wrong way. That happens so often when women are on trial. And it's like murder or not. We're not here to talk about what she's wearing. We're here to figure out, did she do this or not? It's so silly to me. Like what does her cleavage have to do

with the murder trial at hand? It should have nothing to do with it. Right. Have you guys ever read Marsha Clark's book from the OJ trial? I haven't read it, but they picked her apart during that trial. Oh, yeah.

And it's like she wasn't even on trial. I know. She was just trying to do her job. Yeah, it's such a good book. And she's like, they wouldn't shut up about my hair. No, they wouldn't. Like that's it. It must be so hard when you're just trying to like prove yourself and trying to do your job, which you have earned and worked for.

And then being the victim's family, I would be so pissed off if that's what people were focused on, like the lawyer's hair or even the person on trial their hair, their appearance. I could give two shits. I want to know did they do this or not. Exactly. That's what we're here for. Yeah, absolutely. So the evidence was mostly circumstantial, but the nail in the coffin was testimony from, you guessed it, Judy's ass. Oh, Mary Judy.

She's back. Judy claimed that she had heard Lori say that she should have Christine quote unquote, dusted. She also claimed to know that Laurie and Abad Jogger owned a green tracksuit. But Laurie, even through her autobiography, insists that she never owned a green tracksuit. That wasn't even a color she really wore.

So she was being painted as a woman who was both a cunning seductress and a woman who was foolish enough to shoot her husband's ex-wife with his gun and then flush the evidence in her own apartment. But the jury believed the witness testimony and gave great weight to the two damning pieces of evidence, the link to the murder weapon and the red wig found in her own plumbing. And Lori was found guilty of first degree murder and at only 23 years old was sentenced to life in prison. Wow. Yeah, that escalated so fast.

And it's like, you wonder if anybody was like, hey, why would she flush a wig down the toilet to get rid of it and then call a plumber to come find it? To like, why would she do that? Like she was a police officer. Why is no one being like, that's wild. And then the green jogging suit, it held so much weight and it's like they never even searched her

stuff to see if she had one. Yeah. That's the- Yeah, as far as I know, no one ever found a green jogging suit. And it seemed like such a big deal in the case. Just more circumstantial evidence. And pretty much- Pretty much- Never should be used to convict someone. Yeah, that's the thing, because pretty much everything was circumstantial. Yeah. And then you have Fred's eldest son who's insisting. Yeah. This person was in a green tracksuit.

It's just ridiculous. And he's saying this was a man. This was a man's build. So like, I'm sure of it. And I mean, he must he saw this person's face too. This person was like choking his brother. Yes, standing right in front of him. It's like, I know he was clearly being traumatized

at the moment and was under great duress. Yeah. So I can't imagine how that feels, but like he got a look and is saying he's confident that he knows that was a man. So it's like, take him into account here. Well, and I was saying to Alina earlier, I really don't believe that Lori did it.

I don't know if maybe she was involved somehow. I can't say one way or the other, but to me, it doesn't make sense that with Christine being shot at such a close range, I feel like she would have been able to fight off Lori. Cause Lori's a slim, like she's tall, but she's a pretty slim woman. I feel like she could have fought her off.

But remember she's gone through police academy training. That's true. Where you're literally like trained to take someone down. That is true. That's just devil's advocating. I don't believe she really did this, but I don't know who did this, but just to devil's advocate.

Which is a good point. It's just the fact that it's at such close range in that she was even able to like tire up and everything. And to go after the children first to Yeah, to be strangling a child. A strange line of thinking for her, I don't know. You would think if that was the case, like she would not want the kids to see her.

Exactly. That would be the last thing you'd want. Because they would recognize her. Like they would see her face and they would be like, what is, and in this case, she would have been actively assaulting them right in front of each other. Like that's weird.

And that doesn't make a lot of sense also with what you said earlier, where she really stepped into a mom role for them before she was apprehended for this. You would think that they would realize like she was there that night, it was her. That would be very messed up to attempt to murder one of them and then step in as the mom.

Like that would be strange. Not that people haven't done worse, but like just doesn't line up. And I feel like the boys would have, would have realized it was her and recognized her. I've been even more traumatized by that. Yeah, absolutely. So she goes to prison and over the next several years

from behind bars, Lori was working diligently to get what she felt like she had been denied a fair trial and she was hard at work on appeals. And while she was in prison, she was really active. She did a lot of things. She started a prison newspaper. She started collecting cans to raise money for a salad bar because she felt like the food wasn't healthy, and she really advocated for better conditions. So she definitely kept herself busy and was going after the appeals. There was even something else in the trial where a clerk at a wig store claimed

that Lori had come in and bought a red wig using a check, but Lori never even had a checking account. That was another part to me that was just like, we're just gonna blow past that. Yeah. And she bought this specific wig with a check and she doesn't have checks. And it's like, whose name was on that check?

Yeah, like find me the check then. Yeah, you don't have any records? That's just hearsay at that point. Yeah, it's so crazy. And, you know, it was also a dark time for Lori because she only got two letters from her husband while she was in prison. The second one was a letter letting her know

that he wanted a divorce. He wrote goodbye and good luck. Woo, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, so one day during visiting hours at the prison, a friend of hers had her brother come as a visitor. Lori thought he was very good looking and he had just recently gone through a divorce.

So Lori's friend kind of set them up and thought they could start like communicating and be pen pals and stuff, but they quickly fell in love and decided to get married. Lori's appeals were denied and eventually they came up with a plan to escape. And this was quite a detailed plan that Lori's parents were even involved in.

So Lori's new husband was talking with Lori's parents. They encouraged him to get a vasectomy because Lori didn't want kids. They also decided they were going to escape by driving across the border to Canada. And they thought the best way to do that without being caught, you know, they needed to come up with fake IDs.

And they thought the easiest way to do that would be to get real birth certificates. But how are they gonna do that without using Lori's name? So they decided to, or he did, go to the cemetery and find gravestones of babies who had died and had birth dates that lined up with their ages. So he took down the names and then wrote to the birth certificate, Office, the birth certificate office of records to get new birth certificates for these people. And I guess he was able to do that. So that was kind of

very weird. That's a little dark-sided. That's sinister. It's sinister and it's odd what people could get away with back then. Yes. Whoever's, you know, the office that supplies the birth certificates, like they don't back then have the computerized records to enter a name and be like, oh no, this person passed away. Yeah. Please ask me for this. Right.

You think it got caught right away with something like that. Like today you would think you would never get away with that. No way. But still, you hear it happen sometimes. Well, that's the thing people do. People do use like people who have passed their names. It's very strange. That one's chilling though, like using baby's names. It's like, ooh.

And the fact that because obviously like computers weren't what they are now or really a thing back then, he had to go to the actual cemetery. Like, that's eerie commitment. Oh, yeah. Crazy. I found his name too. It's Dominic Gugliotto, I think.

Oh, perfect. There you go. Imagine meeting the family of those babies and finding that out later too. Yeah, that's right. I would be so mad. You almost, in a way, hope that they didn't find out. I hope they didn't, because that'd be so disturbing.

Yeah, I hope so too. That would be a terrible thing to have knowledge of. Yeah, you don't need that. No. Yeah, unnecessary knowledge. Yeah. So it's year nine of Lori's sentence. And she had been noticing that in the laundry room with the present, there was this little window that was often left open. So that factored into her plan, she was able to squeeze through the small window frame out into the cold night. And

she sprinted toward her new husband Dominic, who was waiting there in his car with the birth certificates ready to drive to the Canadian border. So they go up to the Canadian border, they're asked what brings you to Canada? They say, oh, we're on our honeymoon. And the Border Patrol officer was like, OK, have a great time. Oh, crazy.

Slipped right through. So a jailbreak is always going, have a great time. And... Crazy. Slipped right through. So a jailbreak is always going to be a big story, but when that involves somebody like Lori, who had already attracted so much media attention in the first place, it became a huge story. And at this point in time though, everybody who is about the story, it's kind of like the overall public sentiment is like,

people were rooting for her. It was almost like a Bonnie and Clyde thing. Like people made t-shirts, they made bumper stickers, they made songs, and the slogan was run, Bambi run. That's wild. It really is. It's wild. It's crazy just how public sentiment turns.

Yeah. At first it was this vilified femme fatale, and then nine years later, everybody's like rooting for her. That's scary. To escape. Yeah. It is scary how the tide rooting for her. That's scary. To escape. Yeah. It is scary how the tide turns so quickly.

It really does. And it's just, it kind of goes to show you like a lot of whatever happened in the trial didn't hold that much weight on people's hearts, you know? If the public was so willing to be like, I don't know what happened here, but I don't think she was part of it. Right.

So they were able to live in a small town in Canada for three months. She worked as a waitress. And eventually at the cafe, she worked at someone recognized her. So the Canadian Mounties ended up surrounding the restaurant, and Lori was soon in custody. That must have been so scary. So it's July of 1990 at this point.

Again, she's front page news. The ex-cop had been on the lam for months and she was finally in police custody. However, she refused to go back to the U.S. and filed for political asylum in Canada. She couldn't go back to the states and face the same system that she claimed and treated her so unjustly before. Journalists clamored to get to Canada for an exclusive with her. Canadian officials were sympathetic to Lori's case and granted her asylum and only returned her to Wisconsin after obtaining a commitment that there would be a review of her case.

She returned to the States in April of 1991. There was enough proof that police had mishandled the investigation that Lori was given the right to a new trial. Not wanting to risk the same prejudice to her good looks and overall infamy she believed to have happened in her first trial, Lori took a deal.

She pled no contest to the second degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years, which was commuted to time served. She was released from custody three hours after the hearing, having served a little over 10 years for the murder of Christine Schultz. Which to me, the fact that they were willing to give her time served for murder, I'm like,

yeah, I don't think you guys were convinced that she did this. Yeah, I think so. I think they looked back on this case and was like, that was very circumstantial. There were a lot of conflicting stories. It wasn't really enough to hold water, which is such a tragedy for Lori one. And then for Christine too, that perhaps her the real person that murdered her, I mean, got away with it forever. Yeah. And it's just walking around. Exactly. It's so scary. So Lori went on to do a lot of things. She was an artist. She had exhibitions. She moved to Washington state to be closer to her parents who lived in Vancouver at the time. She went on to write a book about her experience

called Woman on Trial. I just finished it. It's really good. And she even had an interesting incident with Dr. Phil. She continued to do press. She was on the Oprah show. She went on Dr. Phil. And what she was going to do on Dr. Phil was he was going to do a DNA test on some evidence they had. And she was going to go back on the Dr. Phil show and kind of like open the envelope and reveal

like whether or not it was her DNA or not. And while the DNA test was happening, she was sequestered and I believe it was like a rented apartment. And she was supposedly like locked in there with no phone or anything and I guess to ensure that the results would be a surprise on the show. And she kind of came down with like this PTSD attack. She was getting flashbacks from prison and she was getting really panicked. She was in this apartment on the second floor and she ended up jumping out the window.

And she injured herself so badly that she had to have the lower part of one leg amputated. That is mind blowing. When I read that, absolutely. And I guess she severed an artery and fractured a couple of bones, and then it became infected. So it was amputated from the knee down. Oh, my God.

And it's like, it's scary. Wow. Strange story. And it ended up with the DNA. It results ended up being inconclusive. So that didn't even go anywhere. So it wasn't even all that worth it. That's awful.

Wow. Not that they could try her again. But if it wasn't, so it didn't matter either way. Yeah. Lori was diagnosed with PTSD. She had hepatitis C and suffered from alcoholism, which led to passing away at a young age. She was only in her early 50s when she passed away from liver and kidney failure in 2010. So young.

So young, definitely. And what a way to go. I mean, that's awful. And what a life. Yeah. A lot packed into a short period of time. And just really marked with tragedy. And she never got the justice that I think she deserved,

personally. Absolutely. And it must have been so stressful going through all of time. And just really marked with tragedy and she never got the justice that I think she deserved personally. Absolutely. And it must have been so stressful going through all of that. But of course, by the time you're in your 40s and 50s, you know, you're maybe you're dependent on substances and your body's really been through it. Yeah. It just, I believe led to a really young death for her. Yeah, absolutely. And there's all kinds of unanswered questions in this case Like I read that there was male DNA found on Christine's body that never really got tested and it seems that her boyfriend at the time was cleared So you wonder like he had to have been cleared somehow. So did they test that DNA and I think they cleared him with an alibi with an alibi So maybe they didn't even and it's like so why didn't anybody ever test that DNA? Yeah.

So weird. And then there was hair. I think it was the hair that was not the one found on Christine's calf, because I think that was the wig hair, but there was other hair found at the crime scene. And they came out, a hair analyst from a crime lab in Madison, Wisconsin, concluded that they were consistent with blonde hairs that were found in Lori's brush. But then the medical examiner who worked on the case

came out later and completely opposed that claim. And she said, I recovered no blonde or red hairs of any length or textures. All the hairs I recovered from the body were brown and were grossly identical to the hair of the victim. And then she went on, I do not like to suggest that evidence was altered in any way, but I can find no logical explanation for what amounted to the appearance of blonde hair

in an envelope that contained no such hair at the time it was sealed by me. Yikes. That is sinister. That is sinister. The fact that, I mean, cause I don't think that the hair analyst at the crime lab was lying, obviously, but it's like- The hair was in the envelope. It's like how to get in the envelope.

And I mean, sorry, but who had access to that brush? The medical examiner is coming right out and being like, I don't like to- Because she's like, I'm not going to say it, but like, it wasn't there when I saw it. Right. That's how it ended up there. Yeah. And then- That's so crazy. It is. And then I also read, and this is, I think this was just recently reported on that, and it was reported on

by Milwaukee Magazine, they said, Nubalistics tests revealed that the gun that Laurie supposedly used was actually not the murder weapon. That's interesting. And I couldn't find like really anything else on that, but they, they retested some of the guns. It was at least coming into question. It was coming into question. So there's just a lot unanswered here. Oh, and then one more thing. Fred, I guess, was allegedly in one of the

incriminating photos that Lori had. So it's like a photo. Oh, it's in Lori's book. She full on included the new. Really? Yeah, she was like fucking Fred. She full on included the new... Really? Yeah, she was like, fucking Fred. She was like, I don't have anything for revenge porn, but no. Actually, in a public place, it wasn't like it was a selfie he sent her or anything, but yeah. So that's interesting that he was in one of those pictures, and I'm not saying anything,

it's just interesting that he was in one of those photos and that she was gonna go to the department with those photos, you know? It is interesting. I don't know. There's just so much dirty stuff happening in that environment that it's all been so tainted. Yeah, it's hard to find any truth. It started with corruption and I feel like it ended with,

at the very least, just mishandling. Yeah. And it's really sad. It's so sad for Lori because I really don't believe she did it. And what a life. Again, I don't know who did it, but I really don't think she did it. And I think to have that kind of life based on that is wild and so sad and tragic. And then it's so sad for Christine and her two boys. Like I don't know if her two boys are trying to just move on and don't wanna know, but it's like to not know who did that. Yeah.

I can't even imagine and it's so sad. Yeah, it's so sad all the way around. It's such a crazy situation. Yeah. I hope that somehow they could like test that DNA. I know. Some day or, and you know, maybe the Playboy murders will make people wanna It's such a crazy situation. Yeah. I hope that somehow they could like test that DNA some day. I know. And you know, maybe the Playboy murders will make people want to make it happen more.

Maybe that would be very interesting for sure. That'd be crazy. But this is happening. It's just one of the stories that you're going to cover in your new series and I'm so excited to see it. Seriously, so excited. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I'm really proud of it. And you did a great job telling that story, by the way. You really did. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm really proud of it. And you did a great job telling that story, by the way. You really did. Thank you. I was nervous. I'm like, oh, I gotta tell the story their style. It was perfect. You did a great job.

That's a captivating story for sure. It is. And I'm just gonna have you say really quickly where people can watch it, because I did not ask you where people can watch the new show. Oh, yeah. did not ask you where people can watch the new show. Oh yeah, the Playboy Murders season two premieres on Monday, January 22nd on Investigation Discovery. And after that, it will be available to stream on Max. So excited.

Hell yeah, we love ID Discovery here. Oh yeah, it's on in my house 24-7. I just go back and forth between that and Bravo. Yeah, perfect combo. That's awesome. You got the best of both worlds right there. Well guys, first of all, thank you so much, I just go back and forth between that and Bravo. Perfect combo. That's awesome. You got the best of both worlds right there. Well guys, first of all, thank you so much, Holly, for joining us again.

And guys, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird as this case. And not so weird that you don't go check out the Playboy Murders. And listen to my dog Spark for a little while. We'll flip. My dog Spark for a little while. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and add free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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