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hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and I'm Holly and this is a special episode of
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[Music] morbid we have podcast host New York time bestselling author executive producer Queen extraordinaire and friend
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of the Pod Holly Madison on the show today hi Hol thanks for having me back you guys it's always so fun to come on
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here my god of course we were so excited that you wanted to come back you're always welcome course
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anytime and guys if you're not listening to Girls Next Level podcast start listening yeah you're missing out if
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you're not listening and join the patreon because I joined the patreon so I've been Slumber partying it lately oh
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I need to join it's a amazing I want a slumber party at patreon is always where I rant about my drama like some older
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Playmate went on a podcast this week and was like saying stuff that I wasn't too
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happy about so I have to have to respond on the patreon you know what else hell yeah good for you you have to say
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something somewhere you know I saw some of that on Tik Tok and I was like if you
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go against hly I just don't like you anymore you've made an enemy of course but we're here today to
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talk about your not even new show anymore because now it's on season 2 so the Playboy murders and I'm so excited
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to talk to you about it we are basically just going to Dive Right In because congratulations on season 2 and it's
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premiering January 22nd yeah Monday January 22nd I'm so excited we have seven episodes this season and they're
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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
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heard of some of them involved people I met and knew personally so I'm really excited about this season it's going to
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be so good the vibe is so right of this show oh it like it's just everything about the show is such like a it just
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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
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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
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positive feedback on that than like anything I've ever done in my life so I'm super excited for everybody to see
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season 2 no it's so good my husband Drew and I we watched season 1 as soon as it
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came out and we were hooked instantly and I wanted to ask you personally like what was it like putting the first
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season together like how much obviously so much work went into that yeah well the production team is great they
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already had the cases picked out before I even joined because when my agent first told me about the project and that
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it was called The Playboy murders I was like no I don't want to do another I can't handle another Playboy project
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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
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what you think so he sent the deck over where they presented the cases they wanted to do and a lot of them were
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cases I'd never even heard of you know coming from a person who thought she knew everything about what happened to
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anybody ever involved with Playboy and I was like this is a show I would actually
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watch so I was super excited to get on board and the experience was great you know we shot all of my stuff out here in
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Vegas and just had a great time doing it and telling the stories and for me just
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even learning more about the cases is so exciting definitely it's it's just so good like it captivates you the second
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that you start watching and you're sharing stories that need to be shared like it's it like you said there's
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stories that even you didn't know about and you're like very well versed in like
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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
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actually bringing them back into the light and I like that you guys kind of cover everything like even unsolved
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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
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producers dream is for maybe you know something to come out of sharing those cases that are unsolved like maybe
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somebody will come for forward or somebody remembers something yeah definitely did anything change with your
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process um when like you were able to were you able to pick some of the cases for season two or did they bring all of
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the cases to you again yeah season two we collaborated and there were some cases I knew about that they didn't know
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about because they involved some people that I'd met before and had found out that horrible things had happened to
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them after I lost touch with these people so it was probably about like 5050 cases they came up with and cases I
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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
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that's the dream yeah it's cool that you were able to have your like more of your
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input yeah has there been one specific case either season one or season two that really stuck with you that like
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kept you up at night I know for me it's like Dorothy Stratton and star Stow those two ones just really stick with me
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yeah I think for season one star Stow really stuck with me too it's one of the unsolved cases you know she was at the
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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
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tragic had happened to her before but I didn't know too many details and I remember even you know back in my
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Playboy days being very captivated by her photos because they did this really cool like Glam Rock pictorial with her
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back in the 70s which was very kind of unusual for Playboy to do so to me yeah and then this one that
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we're going to cover today it sticks with me a lot too because I just finished reading um Lori benedick's
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autobiography so really getting into how she felt about the whole case and what she was going through so right now
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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
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Elena this case I couldn't believe it I had never heard of it twist turn that's the thing it's so twisty it really is by
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the end of it you're like what just happened like what happened everybody lost here and you still don't I I think
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I still don't really know what happened you know me either like if somebody's ask me you did it I'm like I don't know
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I don't know that's the worst part but yeah I mean we should probably just get into it so Holly will'll hand it over to
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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
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your time early 80s because this involves a woman who worked as a Playboy bunny was I think framed for murder and
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she went to prison for nine years escaped from prison was on the run the nickname she got back when she was on
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the police force was Bambi so everybody had this slogan run Bambi run because this point everybody was rooting for her
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so to get a little more into this story like I said this is about a woman named Lori Ben benck she worked as a Playboy
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bunny for only three weeks at the Lake Geneva Wisconsin Playboy Resort and it's crazy because you know even reading her
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autobiography she wasn't really happy with how she was kind of only known in the press as a Playboy bunny and back
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then when she was on trial it really worked against her because people saw her as like this manipulative Fe fatal
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like using her sexuality against men kind of it was kind of Twisted that way and it's crazy because she was only a
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bunny not there's anything wrong with being a bunny but she was even only a bunny for three weeks and anytime people
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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
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beer calendar she had done once when she was doing some modeling when she was young they never ran a picture of her in
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her police officer uniform or anything like that so it's just a good example of how somebody is more than just their
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headlines and that's why I love getting into these cases is you can dive into more of who the person was and lorenia
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Ben benck she was born in 1958 she was the youngest of three children born to like a middle class family in Milwaukee
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Wisconsin her father interestingly enough was a former police officer and he had resigned from the job when he had
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found out or seen some corruption in the police force I'm not sure what he saw but he went on to w become a carpenter
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after that she went to Catholic school she later went on to get her associates degree in fashion merchandising after
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that she worked in retail she did some modeling where she did uh I believe it was a Schlitz beer calendar and some
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other things but that wasn't enough for her and she decided she wanted a challenge and she really wanted to be a
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police officer it's cool that she got to follow in her dad's footsteps too yeah yeah absolutely and kind of you know
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this could have gone so differently you know her father resigned from the police
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force because he saw corruption and this could have been a way to like you know Circle back around and it could have
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ended more POS but as we'll see in this story it didn't really go that way summer of 1979
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the Milwaukee Police Department was basically a known boys club and they hadn't been you know trying to hire
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women or minorities very much but there was encouragement to do so by the time you hit 1979 and they had put
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an ad in the paper asking for these kinds of recruits Lori saw this ad and she decided to go into the Milwaukee
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Police Academy and you know she was 5' 10 she had blonde hair blue eyes she was really beautiful high cheekbones but you
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know she was over the modeling thing she wanted to do something that she felt had
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a little more meaning and a little bit more of a challenge you know she was very athletic she thrived in the police
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academy and in the police academy you know very grueling training and you know people would develop these friendships
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and relationships and come up with nicknames for each other and her last name was Ben benck but that got turned
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into Bambi that became her nickname at the police academy I don't know that it was necessarily a nickname she loved or
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anything but that's where later we'll get like the Run Bambi run slogan and everybody's calling her Bambi in the
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media when this case eventually broke I think I read that she ended up not liking it because obviously it took on
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kind of like a life of its own at that point toward like the end of her like getting out of prison and everything
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yeah it kind of started to sound very bimbo at the end because here she's been classified as like nothing more than a
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Playboy bunny and like being called Bambi just kind of took a turn it's like they used it against her there's two
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different things too that come out about like where that nickname came from and one of them is like a nicer way where
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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 other people
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are like no it's because of her big de eyes and I'm like yes I don't know I like the other one better yeah and I'm
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sure she probably did too I think I think all those reasons are probably reasons that stuck so much is there's so
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many it all fit together one interesting thing to know is when she was in the police academy she made a friend another
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woman who was training to become a police officer named Judy Zess and she would come into play several more times
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during this case and this whole journey yeah Judy is uh Judy something Judy makes a mark she makes a fewy scares me
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Judy scares me too so Lori graduated she excelled as a congratulations gift for herself she
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brought a bright orange Camaro and it was a fast car for a woman who was going places what a badass congratulations to
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me gift I love that that's awesome amazing I I just think about this time you know what was written about it and
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she just must have felt like like was so promising at this moment yeah exactly she was she was working for everything
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she wanted to work for and she was succeeding really exactly that's all you can ask for so she's on the police force
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she's finishing her training you know in the early 80s it was obviously a lot of
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men on the police force and there was a lot of socializing where the lines could
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get kind of blurred apparently on the police force at this time there was a lot of you know going out to bars and
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partying and things like that there was even later on she would find pictures of
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these police gatherings in the park in public where people were like getting naked and like dancing on tables and
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stuff I don't care about people getting naked obviously but this was considered like incent exposure so what are they
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doing she was just seeing a lot of hypocrisy and like male officers getting away with a lot of things that female
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officers couldn't get away with a huge double standard was going on for sure and they're like ticketing people for
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indecent exposure and then being naked in the park it's like no what's going on another issue she had
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was with some of the officers wives you know at these social events people would
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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
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like you know I see my husband looking at you you know why don't why don't you dress and bag your clothes or something
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like that and just like get in her face yell at your husband yeah why are you coming to me yell at your husband
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exactly that's his problem man go yell at him I I was thinking that too when I read that I'm like how embarrassing to
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have to go up to somebody and say I see how my husband's looking at like like honestly girl like together
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let's go yell at him like I'd be like why are you yelling at me exactly let team up so beyond the sex parties and
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the drugs allegedly some of the other officers were up to even more serious things such as soliciting sex workers on
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the job sleeping through shifts in squad cars pay drugs using drugs even selling
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pornographic material wow so there's a lot of a lot going on I'm like when were you guys working in between all that
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seriously seems like a lot exactly and in Lorie's autobiography there was a lot of that when she's talking about her
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training and like disputes that would come up and like certain shifts and areas of town that officers wouldn't
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want to work or they would have this thing where they'd have to check in and like make phone calls from where they
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were at certain times of nights back to headquarters just so people knew they were working and some police officers
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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
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were like sleeping in their cars or off doing other things and they didn't really want to like be on their beat so
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much wow that's so that's scary they like Milwaukee what's going on you okay and that comes back later too with with
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a certain someone yeah absolutely So eventually Lori got her she called to get her schedule and was
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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
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of friends including Judy and Judy was caught smoking a joint and Judy somehow said that Lori was involved in this or
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that Lori knew about it and didn't report it and because as a police officer she saw something illegal going
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on and didn't report it that was treated as if she was doing it too right and for
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her that kind of blew her mind because she'd seen police officers do so many other things and actually committing
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illegal acts so she's like wait this isn't there and she started to notice that women weren't lasting on the police
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force and people of color weren't lasting on the police force and it seemed like those candidates were being
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looked at with a more critical eye and being dismissed it's like okay we're going to call these people in because of
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you know Federal rules or whatever was going on at the time you know we need more minorities and more women but they
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didn't want to keep those people on the police force at least that was the conclusion she was coming to based on
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what she observed and you can see why she thought that you know exactly it seems absolutely like they were looking
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for the first moment when they could clear it off it was very performative like oh let's hire all these people and
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like women and people of color and then completely get rid of them as soon as we
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can yeah exactly so even after that happened Lori remains friends with Judy which which is here's when I start to
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cringe like I think we've all in our lifetimes had that toxic friend who for whatever reason maybe they're fun maybe
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they're magnetic maybe they're fun to vent to maybe you know whatever they provide you some support and some way so
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you look over all these kind of toxic things even something huge like you know Judy throwing Lori under the bus and she
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ends up losing her career basically but she's still friends with Judy yeah a big
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one just since they're both out of a job why don't we go down to the Lake Geneva
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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
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was a job where you tended to get tipped really well you know you could bring somebody a cup of coffee and get 50
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bucks back in 1970s money so yeah that's huge so they went down just in time before they were doing an open casting
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call and they got the job and back then at the Lake Geneva Club you were supposed to live down there too kind of
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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
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keep your eye on customers and like facilitate their experience all over the place whether it was at the ski chalet
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or in the Cabaret where there are performances and things like that like those clubs seem So Glamorous looking on
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on the outside I think they really were you know like the Chalet and all that like it just feels like such a glamorous
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atmosphere it definitely looks like it but then there was like all kinds of shady stuff going on like behind closed
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doors with the members and stuff yeah for sure yeah the Lake Geneva Club sounds really fun and I guess it was
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even familyfriendly too like you could bring your kids and stay there was really interesting it was it's
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interesting to me just how the brand has been perceived throughout the years and
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even in the 2000s like we would be considered really unbrand friendly you know for coming from Playboy and things
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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
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resort even though it was Playboy brand so it's it's just interesting to me like
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where it's gone over the years yeah it truly has evolved and it's and it's evolved like like you know Hills and
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Valleys kind of thing definitely yeah it's never like a straight line no that's why it's so fascinating though to
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research I know because you always find something new everybody just always feels different yeah so many layers so
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Lori eventually filed a lawsuit a complaint against the Milwaukee Police Department because she felt like she was
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unfairly dismissed so this was kind of something that would hang over her head a little bit she wasn't satisfied
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working as a Playboy bunny she only kept the job for three weeks she wanted to join the military but as she was going
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through that process she found out that as long as she had like an open lawsuit going on she couldn't join the military
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they didn't want anybody with that kind of yeah I didn't know that was a thing either either but it was really
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important for her to pursue Justice and I wonder she doesn't talk about this too
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much in her autobiography but I wonder how much of her dad's experience kind of played into this it's almost like
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wanting to finish out like a generational trauma in a way like if her had resigned from the Department after
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seeing corruption like I wonder how much of that was in her motivation to go after and do this complaint against the
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police department I could definitely see that being a driving Factor cuz in a way
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like her justice would be his Justice you know it's like unfinished business right exactly that's a perfect way to
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put it yeah and she was only like 2122 when this was all going on it's funny when we look back on these older cases I
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feel like people became such adults at like age 18 back then like think about like a 21y old 22y old like I was this
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idiot girl in college I look at Lor's story and all the things she had done and she's you
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know doing this big lawsuit and everything and it's just crazy like how much had already gone on it's such a age
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I know she's just pursuing so many things like so wholeheartedly at such a young age it's wild yeah so despite her
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grudge against the police department her Social Circle still included a lot of people connected to the police and
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through a friend she met a man named Fred Schultz he was a detective on the Milwaukee Police Department he was
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dating a friend of hers but they caught each other's eye and eventually connected after he broke up broke it off
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with a friend Fred would tell Lori that was love at first sight and this Fred guy you know based on her autobiography
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seems like a little bit of like a love bomber yeah definitely I got that Vibe so he was tall blonde handsome Lori
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loved a man with a badge and even though she was receiving Veil threats P for pursuing this case against the police
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department she was falling for Fred she would have things happen like she would go out to her car and find like a dead
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rat on the window oh my God very symbolic yeah so there were there were things happening where she didn't feel
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100% safe that's so scary and I almost wonder getting involved with a man who was a detective on the force I wonder if
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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
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feeling threatened by this big Force you're going up against but you're making these intimate connections with a
00:20:51
man who's on the police force maybe that feels a little safe in like a counterintuitive way does that make no
00:20:58
it really does I could definitely see that she was looking for protection and an ally you know like maybe he could
00:21:04
help even like maybe can make every side or maybe somebody who's going to like let you know what's going on yeah and
00:21:11
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
00:21:17
you're not a bad person you know like so you're hoping that he can convey that to
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everyone else and that they'll listen to him and stop leaving dead rats on your windshield and he's a detective which
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it's like he should have a little pull you know he's little above the patrolman at that point so it's like you would
00:21:31
think he would be able to they would listen to him maybe and take his word take his word at some point absolutely
00:21:39
so by Christmas that year Lori and Fred were super close they were spending every day together and an important
00:21:46
thing to note about Fred is he was recently divorced from a woman named Christine Schultz he had two children
00:21:54
with her and he was paying a lot of money in in child support alimony and the former wife and children were living
00:22:03
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
00:22:11
in her book that he was harboring a lot of resentment toward Christine for having to pay all that money and you
00:22:16
know she's living in the house and you know he would always speak poorly about Christine to Lory and it wasn't a great
00:22:24
Rel which is not great yeah definitely not great at all yeah and actually Fred and Christine had only been divorced for
00:22:31
six months by the time Fred and Lori were married oh I didn't even realize fresh that soon yeah and there were
00:22:39
times in Lor's autobiography where she mentioned she felt like Fred either wasn't completely over Christine or just
00:22:46
had some sort of weird Obsession whether it was resentment that Christine had moved on with someone else and he was
00:22:51
still paying the bills I don't know but there was a time where Lori found the wedding ring from Christine in Fred's
00:22:58
pocket and she kind of went off on him like what what why is this so why is this something you're carrying around
00:23:04
yeah I would be pissed off about that so A few months later after they were married in the spring of 1981 Lori was
00:23:10
abruptly awoken by a phone call from Fred it was a quarter to 3 in the morning and she could barely make sense
00:23:16
of what he was saying but he was telling her that something had happened to his ex-wife Christine the call in the early
00:23:22
morning hours of May 28th 1981 might have startled Lori awake but nothing compared to what had just happened in
00:23:29
the house that Fred had built with his own two hands in the middle of the night his eldest son had awoken and described
00:23:35
that a man had been standing behind his younger brother with his hands around the boy's neck when the boy was able to
00:23:42
get free the man ran from the boy's room and into his mother's room Christine had
00:23:47
screamed please don't do that and a sound that the boy described as a firecracker echoed Through The Upstairs
00:23:53
Hall they ran to the mother's room as the man who was wearing a green track suit alleged edly although later the
00:23:59
oldest son would say no he was not wearing a green tracksuit he was actually wearing a green army jacket and
00:24:05
the boy in great detail described how he knew it was a jacket because it was like
00:24:10
kind of flapping at the edges it was like an army jacket that didn't have any writing or camouflage it was just kind
00:24:15
of that green army jacket and he was very specific in describing when he was on the stand the perpetrator's body as
00:24:23
being like very square shouldered and very straight up and down like not like a more hour
00:24:28
female figure like the oldest son was very adamant that it was a man who had done this and they were young I think
00:24:34
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
00:24:40
important detail I didn't realize that he later said like no it wasn't agreeing jogging suit because the jogging suit
00:24:46
becomes such an important detail it really does at 2 a.m. the boys called their mother's boyfriend to come help
00:24:52
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
00:24:57
bleeding it's really heartbreaking that is heart-wrenching yeah she passed away that night next thing you know all the
00:25:04
police officers are at Lor's husband's house the house he had built anyway that Christine still lived in every cop in
00:25:11
town was there and it was almost like they lost one of their own because this was so closely connected to the police
00:25:16
department yeah Fred's oldest son had gotten a good enough look at the man who killed his mother to give the cops a
00:25:22
description an intruder a man around 5'8 with a long red ponytail had come in and they had collected reports from all
00:25:31
around the neighborhood that people had seen a man wearing a green track suit with a long red ponytail jogging
00:25:38
throughout the neighborhood over the past few weeks and someone had even found a man in the green jogging suit
00:25:44
with a long red ponytail like asleep in a parking lot at a business and like KCK
00:25:48
that person out so that's really interesting it's very strange that is strange yeah it is so for Lori this
00:25:56
obviously it's a huge shock in a tragedy to lose somebody this close to you but also she finds herself kind of the
00:26:02
mother of the two sons yeah you got to step into that yeah and she was someone who had never wanted to have kids wasn't
00:26:09
really prepared for that but she really stepped up to the plate as best she could and again she's so young when this
00:26:15
happens like to have to step into the role of a mother to to traumatized grieving children like that's huge truly
00:26:21
traumatized cuz that's the the sad part about this too is like you can search and search and search and there's like
00:26:28
barely any information about Christine you know cuz it's really focused on like the the shenanigans that happen
00:26:34
afterwards and it's like I think you can find out that Christine was like 30 years old she was a mother of two that's
00:26:41
loved her kids and it's like that's really all you can find out so it is like always sad when somebody gets like
00:26:47
left behind in these but if you search and search you can't find anything it just got so sensationalized I think with
00:26:53
all like you said the shenanigans is the perfect way to put it and the way Fred comes off from what I read like
00:26:58
Christine must have had a hard time dealing with him coting constantly fighting about money and things like
00:27:04
that rough yeah I think it was definitely unpleasant I saw some quote that said she was sick of his
00:27:09
philandering ways which you can kind of see yeah he met he met Lori pretty quick
00:27:14
put two and two together yeah so standard procedure after a murder is to cvas the area and look at those closest
00:27:20
to the victim that list included Christine's boyfriend her ex-husband Fred Lori and their roommate Judy because I think
00:27:30
I neglected to mention Fred and Lori were living with Judy's s the woman was smoking a joint and kind of threw Lori
00:27:38
under the bus she was also their roommate they were just trying to make ends meet you know Fred felt like he was
00:27:43
giving most of his money you know as he should to his kids he was really bitter about not
00:27:50
still living in the house and he wanted to move back into the house after the murder and Lori did not want to do that
00:27:55
she was adamant opposed to it but he really wanted to go back to that house that's interesting yeah that's really
00:28:01
interesting yeah reclaim it so Fred and Christine's boyfriend both had aliis Fred you know was on duty at the time
00:28:10
and they didn't have anything to worry about it seemed um Judy and Lori both refused to take polygraph tests Lori was
00:28:17
worried that the Milwaukee Police Department would take her results and this opportunity to use it against her
00:28:24
like she was already afraid of them because she filed this big and she' already G through so much with them and
00:28:29
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
00:28:35
working with his partner and then it came out later that they were actually drinking at a bar but then some
00:28:40
detective looked into that and there was a lot of holes within the story so it's
00:28:43
like was he even working where were you Fred yeah his story is so suspect and then Lori says in her autobiography that
00:28:51
you know when Fred and his police partner came back to their apartment they felt the hood of Lor's
00:28:57
car to see if like she' been out and she and she wrote in her book that she thought well that's a weird thing to do
00:29:04
and the car was not warm so it was determined that it couldn't have left the driveway that night so they thought
00:29:10
um once inside the house Fred grabbed his Off Duty gun and his partner examined it the partner said the gun did
00:29:16
not smell like it had been fired recently a canvas in the neighborhood turned up 12 different people that claim
00:29:22
to have seen the man in the red ponytail in the green track suit you know the the
00:29:27
was the the report that he was seen laying in the hospital's parking lot at some point and I guess the person who
00:29:32
spotted him in the hospital parking lot had went up to approach the man but he had like got out of the way before they
00:29:38
could get up to him that's such a strange one yeah that's sketchy that he was avoiding people yeah it's really
00:29:45
weird I want to know who this guy is I know is it your real hair no no I'm willing to bet so back at the scene
00:29:53
there was no sign of forced entry so there was the thought that maybe the killer was somebody who knew how to get
00:29:58
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
00:30:05
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
00:30:11
that killed her had gone through her heart her wrist was bound with clothes line and a bandana was tied around her
00:30:17
face as a gag after examining the body police discovered a single strand of reddish brown hairlike material on her
00:30:23
right cap a few days after the murder on June 10th a plug was called the apartment complex that Lori Fred and
00:30:30
Judy lived in there was something clogging up the pipes between their apartment and the neighbors the plumber
00:30:36
discovered that the cause of this clog was a red wig the fibers from the wig matched the hairs that were found on
00:30:42
Christine's leg a day later the detective came by and took Fred's two guns his service revolver and his
00:30:48
off-duty gun on June 18th police ballistics would find that the gun that shot Christine matched the off-duty gun
00:30:55
that was in the Schultz apartment on the night of the the murder while Fred was at work and Lori slept at home without
00:31:01
an alibi so sadly things are not looking good for Lori at this point no not at all it's that flushed wig that is so
00:31:09
weird to me I'm like first of all who flushes a wig down the toilet why would you call the pl even
00:31:15
flush I if I tried to do that it would just the toilet would overflow yeah it would just shoot it back like it would
00:31:20
it wouldn't even suck it down every time I try to picture that I'm like no that can't how how would that work what force
00:31:26
does your toilet have because that's toilet yeah exactly like did they cut the wig up like I don't know weird
00:31:36
and it just seems like if you were really trying to get rid of that you would do it differently I don't think
00:31:40
you would flush it down the toilet unless may you were trying to frame someone police officers yeah like if
00:31:47
that was coming out of that house you've all been police officers like you all know how this works that seems like a
00:31:53
very silly thing for any of you to do to try to get away with it a good point you
00:31:58
know yeah it really does Lori was arrested on June 24th despite an eyewitness account Christine's own son
00:32:06
who kept insisting that the killer was a man Lori spent three nights in jail after her arrest her husband Fred said
00:32:13
he could not get the money together to bail her out immediately after her release cuz she was let go eventually
00:32:20
Lori began doing interviews with the Press she wanted to make it clear she did not kill Christine Schultz and she
00:32:26
felt she was being set up for speaking out against the Milwaukee Police Department that's so scary can you
00:32:33
imagine if that is the truth how helpless she must have oh my God I can't even imagine like oh I can't imagine
00:32:39
horrible yeah so the trial was very sensationalized and it was supposed to be the first televised trial in the city
00:32:47
which to me is crazy CU this is like the early 80s and I didn't realized they were televising trials I thought that
00:32:52
was more of like a '90s thing like around the time of like OJ and yeah I didn't know it was this far back yeah I
00:32:59
didn't either yeah so she was being characterized as you know this fatal Playboy Bunny you know her looks became
00:33:06
a point of contention in the trial you know she felt like she couldn't do anything right as far as how she dressed
00:33:11
if she wore anything that looked cute she was being told she was too sexy if she wore like a button-up the neck
00:33:19
peasant blouse people didn't like that either they felt like she was trying to fool everybody into thinking she was the
00:33:24
school M and you know they kind of took that the wrong way that happens so often
00:33:29
when women are on trial and it's like murder or not we're not here to to talk about what she's wearing we're here to
00:33:36
figure out did she do this or not it's so silly what does her cleavage have to do with the murder trial at hand it
00:33:42
should have nothing to do with it right have you guys ever read Mara Clark's book from the OJ trial I haven't read it
00:33:48
but they picked her apart during that trial and it's like she wasn't even on Tri I know she was just trying to do her
00:33:54
job yeah it's such a good book and she's like they wouldn't shut up about my hair
00:33:59
no they would it must be so hard when you're just trying to like prove yourself and
00:34:05
trying to do your job which you have earned and worked for and being the victim's family I would be so pissed off
00:34:11
if that's what people were focused on like the lawyer's hair or even the person on trial their hair their
00:34:17
appearance I could give two shits I want to know did they do this or not exactly
00:34:21
that's what we're here for yeah absolutely so the evidence was mostly circumstantial but nail in the coffin
00:34:27
was testimony from you guessed it Judy zest oh man scary Judy she's back Judy claimed that she had heard Lori say that
00:34:37
she should have Christine quote unquote dusted she also claimed to know that Lori and Abid jogger owned a green track
00:34:46
suit but Lori even through her autobiography insists that she never owned a green tracksuit that wasn't even
00:34:52
a color she really wore so she was being painted as a woman who was both a cunning seductress and a woman who was
00:34:58
foolish enough to shoot her husband's ex-wife with his gun and then flush the evidence in her own apartment but the
00:35:04
jury believed the witness testimony and gave great weight to the two damning pieces of evidence the link to the
00:35:10
murder weapon and the red wig found in her own plumbing and Lori was found guilty of first-degree murder and at
00:35:16
only 23 years old was sentenced to life in prison wow so like that escalated so fast and
00:35:24
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
00:35:33
plumber right to come find it to like why why would she do that like she was a police officer why is no one being like
00:35:41
that's wild and then the green jogging suit it helds so much weight and it's like they never even searched her stuff
00:35:47
to see if she had one yeah that's yeah as far as I know no one ever found a green jogging suit and it seemed like
00:35:53
such a big deal in the in the cas more circumstantial evidence oh and never should be used to convict someone yeah
00:35:59
that's the thing because pretty much everything was circumstantial yeah and then you have Fred's eldest son who's
00:36:04
insisting this person was in a green tracksuit it's just ridiculous and he's saying this was a man this was a man's
00:36:11
builds like I'm sure of it and I mean he must he saw this person's face too this
00:36:16
person was like choking his brother yeah standing right right at him it's like I
00:36:20
know he was clearly being traumatized at the moment and was under great duress yeah so I can't imagine how feels but
00:36:27
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
00:36:33
well and I was saying to Elina earlier I I really don't believe that Lori did it
00:36:37
I don't know if maybe she was involved somehow I can't say one way way or the other but to me it doesn't make sense
00:36:43
that with um with Christine being shot at such a close range I feel like she would have been able to fight off Lori
00:36:50
because Lorie's a slim like she's tall but she's a pretty slim woman I I feel like she could have fought her off but
00:36:56
remember she's has gone through Police Academy training that's true where you're literally like trained to take
00:37:02
someone down that is true that's just Devil's advocating I have I don't believe she really did this but yeah I
00:37:08
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
00:37:13
close range and that she was even able to like Tire up and everything and and to go after the children first to yeah
00:37:20
to be strangling child a strange line of thinking for her I don't know you if that was the case like she would not
00:37:28
want the kids to see her that that would be the last thing you'd want because they would recognize her like they would
00:37:34
see her face and they would be like what is and she and in this case she would have been actively assaulting them in
00:37:41
front of each other like that's weird and that doesn't make a lot of sense also with what you said earlier where
00:37:46
she really stepped into a mom rule for them before she was apprehended for this you would think that they would they
00:37:52
would realize like she was there that night it was her that would be very messed up to attempt to murder one of
00:37:58
them and then step in as the mom like that's that would be Str not that people haven't done worse but like just doesn't
00:38:05
line up and I feel like the boys would have yeah would have realized it was her and recognized her and been even more
00:38:11
traumatized by that yeah absolutely so she goes to prison and over the next several years from behind bars Lori was
00:38:17
working diligently to get what she felt like she had been denied a fair trial and she was hard at work on appeals and
00:38:24
while she was in prison she was really active she did a lot of things she started a prison newspaper she started
00:38:29
collecting cans to raise money for a salad bar because she felt like the food wasn't healthy and she really advocated
00:38:35
for better conditions so she definitely kept herself busy and was going after the appeals there was even something
00:38:42
else in the trial where a clerk at a wig store claimed that Lori had come in and
00:38:49
bought a red wig using a check but Lori never even had a checking account that was another part to me that was just
00:38:56
like we're just going to blow past that she said she bought this specific wig with a check and she doesn't have checks
00:39:02
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
00:39:08
just hearsay at that point yeah it's so crazy and you know it's was also a dark time for Lori because she only got two
00:39:14
letters from her husband while she was in prison the second one was a letter letting her know that he wanted a
00:39:20
divorce he wrote goodbye and good luck woo that's rough yeah so one day during visiting
00:39:27
hours at the prison a friend of hers had her brother come as a visitor Lori Lori
00:39:33
thought he was very good-looking and he had just recently gone through a divorce
00:39:37
so Lorie's friend you know kind of set them up and thought they would could start like communicating and be penp
00:39:43
Pals and stuff but they quickly fell in love and decided to get married Lorie's appeals were denied and eventually they
00:39:52
came up with a plan to escape and this was quite a detailed plan that Lor's parents were even involved in so Lorie's
00:39:59
new husband was talking with Lor's parents they encouraged him to get a vasectomy because Lori didn't want kids
00:40:07
they also decided they were going to escape by driving across the border to Canada and they thought the best way to
00:40:13
do that without being caught you know they needed to come up with fake IDs and they thought the easiest way to do that
00:40:18
would be to get real birth certificates but how are they going to do that without using Lor's name so they decided
00:40:25
to or he did go to the cemetery and find gravestones of babies who had died and had birth dates that kind of lined up
00:40:35
with their ages so he took down the names and then wrote to the office you know the birth certificate office of
00:40:43
Records to get new birth certificates for these people and I guess he was able to do that so that was kind of we and
00:40:49
weird that's a little darked that's Sinister it's Sinister and it's odd what people could get away with back back
00:40:56
then yes whoever you know the office that supplies the birth certificates like they don't back then have the
00:41:03
computerized records to enter a name and be like oh no this person passed away like who's asking for this right you
00:41:08
think he' get caught right away with something like that like today you would think you would never get away with that
00:41:13
no way but still you hear it happens sometimes that's the thing people do people do use like people who have
00:41:19
passed their names it's it's very strange that one's chilling though like using babies names it's like o and the
00:41:25
fact that cuz obviously like computers weren't what they are now or really a thing back then he had to go to the
00:41:31
actual Cemetery like yeah yes that's Eerie commitment yeah crazy I found his name
00:41:38
too it's um Dominic googli googli I think oh perfect there you go imagine being the family of those babies and
00:41:47
finding that out later too yeah that's I would be so mad you almost in a way hope
00:41:53
that they didn't find out I hope they didn't cuz that'd be so disturbing do that would be a terrible thing to have
00:41:58
knowledge of so it's like you don't need that no yeah unnecessary knowledge yeah
00:42:04
so it's year nine of Lorie's sentence and she had been noticing that in the laundry room with the present there was
00:42:10
this little window that was often left open so that factored into her plan she was able to squeeze through the small
00:42:17
window frame out into the cold night and she sprinted toward her new husband Dominic was waiting there in his car
00:42:25
with the birth certificates ready to drive to the Canadian border so they go up to the Canadian border they're asked
00:42:32
you know what brings you to Canada they say oh we're on our honeymoon and the border patrol officer was like okay have
00:42:38
a great time crazy just slipped right through so a jailbreak is always going to be a big story but when that involves
00:42:47
somebody like Lori who had already attracted so much media attention in the first place it became a huge story and
00:42:54
at this point in time though everybody who has about the story it's kind of like the overall public sentiment is
00:42:59
like people were rooting for her it was almost like a Bonnie and Clyde thing like people made t-shirts they made
00:43:04
bumper stickers they made songs and the slogan was run Bambi run that's wild it really is wild it's crazy just how
00:43:12
public sentiment turns at first was this vilified F fatal and then nine years later everybody's like rooting for her
00:43:20
that's scary yeah it scary how the tide turns so quickly it really does it's just it
00:43:26
kind of goes to show you like a lot of whatever happened in the in the trial didn't hold that much weight on people's
00:43:33
hearts you know public was so willing to be like I don't know what happened here
00:43:36
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
00:43:42
she worked as a waitress and eventually at the cafe she worked at someone recognized her so the Canadian mounties
00:43:49
ended up surrounding the restaurant and Lori was soon in custody that must have been so scary so it's July of 1990 at
00:43:57
this point again she's Front Page News the ex cop had been on the lamb for months and she was finally in police
00:44:05
custody however she refused to go back to the US and filed for political asylum in Canada she couldn't go back to the
00:44:12
States and face the same system that she claimed had treated her so unjustly before journalists clamored to get to
00:44:18
Canada for an exclusive with her Canadian officials were sympathetic to Lor's case and granted her Asylum and
00:44:24
only returned her to wiconsin after obtaining a commitment that there would be a review of her case she returned to
00:44:31
the states in April of 1991 there was enough proof that police had mishandled the investigation that Lori was given
00:44:37
the right to a new trial not wanting to risk the same Prejudice to her good looks and overall infamy she believed to
00:44:43
have happened in her first trial Lori took a deal she pled no contest to the second degree murder and was sentenced
00:44:49
to 20 years which was commuted the time served she was released from custody 3 hours after the hearing having served
00:44:55
served a little over 10 years for the murder of Christine Schultz which to me the fact that they
00:45:02
were willing to give her time served for murder I'm like yeah I don't I don't even think you guys were convinced that
00:45:09
she did this yeah I think so I think they looked back on this case and was like that was very circumstantial there
00:45:15
were a lot of conflicting stories it wasn't really enough to hold water which is such a tragedy for Lori one and then
00:45:22
for Christine too that perhaps her the real person that murdered her I mean got away with it forever yeah and is just
00:45:28
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
00:45:36
moved to Washington State to be closer to her parents who lived in Vancouver at the time she went on to write a book
00:45:41
about her experience called woman on trial I just finished it it's really good and she even had an interesting
00:45:48
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
00:45:54
to do on Dr Phil was he was going to do um a DNA test on some evidence they had and she was going to go back on the Dr
00:46:04
Phil and kind of like open the envelope and reveal like whether or not it was her DNA or not and while uh the DNA test
00:46:13
was happening she was sequestered in I believe it was like a rented apartment and she was supposedly like locked in
00:46:21
there with no phone or anything and I guess to ensure that the results would be a surprise on the show and she kind
00:46:28
of came down with like this PTSD attack she was getting flashbacks from prison she was getting really panicked she was
00:46:35
in this apartment on the second floor and she ended up jump ended up jumping out the window and she injured herself
00:46:41
so badly that she had to have the lower part of one leg amputated that is mindblowing when I read that absolutely
00:46:49
insane I guess she severed an artery and like fractured a couple bones and then it became infected so it was amputated
00:46:56
from the knee down oh oh my God it's so scary and such a strange story and it ended up you know with the DNA results
00:47:05
ended up being inconclusive so that didn't even wasn't even all that that's awful wow not that they could try her
00:47:13
again even if it wasn't so it didn't matter either way yeah Lori was diagnosed with PTSD she had hepatitis C
00:47:22
and suffered from alcoholism which led to passing away a young age she was only in her early 50s when she passed away
00:47:29
from liver and kidney failure in 2010 so young so young definitely and what a way
00:47:36
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
00:47:43
with tragedy and she never got the justice that I I think she deserved personally absolutely and it must have
00:47:49
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
00:47:56
you're dependent on substances and your body's really been through it it just I believe led to a really young death for
00:48:03
her absolutely and there's all kinds of unanswered questions in this case like I
00:48:08
read that there was male DNA found on Christine's body that never really got tested and it seems that her boyfriend
00:48:15
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
00:48:21
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
00:48:27
that DNA yeah so weird and then there was like um there was hair I think it was the hair that was not the one found
00:48:34
on Christine's calf because I think that was the wig hair but there was other hair found at the crime scene and they
00:48:40
they came out uh a hair analyst from a a crime lab in Madison Wisconsin concluded
00:48:45
that they were consistent with blonde hairs that were found in Lorie's brush but then the medical examiner who worked
00:48:51
on the case came out later and completely opposed that claim and she said I recovered no blonde or red hairs
00:48:58
of any length or textures all the hairs I recovered from the body were Brown and
00:49:03
were grossly identical to the hair of the victim and then she went on I do not like to suggest that evidence was
00:49:08
altered in any way but I can find no logical explanation for what amounted to the appearance of blonde hair in an
00:49:14
envelope that contained no such hair at the time it was sealed by me yikes is Sinister is the fact that I mean cuz I
00:49:24
don't think that the the uh the hair Analyst at the crime lab was lying obviously but it's like the hair
00:49:30
was in the envelope it's like how' it get in the envelope and I mean sorry but who had access to that brush the medical
00:49:36
examiner is coming right out and being like I don't like to CU she's like I'm not going to say it but like it wasn't
00:49:42
there when I saw it right so how did it end up there yeah and then it's so crazy
00:49:48
it is and then I also read and this is I think this was just recently reported on
00:49:52
that and it was reported on by Milwaukee magazine they said new ballistics tests
00:49:57
revealed that the gun that Lori supposedly used was actually not the murder weapon that's interesting and I couldn't
00:50:05
find like really anything else on that but they they retested some of the guns and it was at least coming into question
00:50:11
it was coming into question so there's just a lot unanswered here oh and then one more thing Fred I guess was a uh
00:50:19
allegedly in one of the incriminating photos that Lori had so nak book full on included the new really yeah she was
00:50:28
like [ __ ] you Fred she like for revenge porn but in a public place it wasn't like it
00:50:35
was a selfie he sent her or anything but yeah so that's that's interesting that he was in one of those picture and I'm
00:50:42
not saying anything it's just interesting that he was in one of those photos and that she was going to go to
00:50:47
the department with those photos you know it is interesting I don't know there's there's just so much like dirty
00:50:55
stuff happening in that environment that it's like it's all been so tainted yeah it
00:51:01
started it's hard to find any truth it started with corruption and I feel like it ended with at the very least just
00:51:08
mishandling yeah so and it's really sad it's it's so sad for Lori because I really don't believe she did it and what
00:51:15
a life again I don't know who did it but I really don't think she did it and I think she to have that kind of life
00:51:22
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
00:51:30
know if her two boys wanted you know are trying to just move on and don't want to
00:51:35
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
00:51:42
around it's such a crazy situation yeah I hope that somehow they could like test
00:51:46
that DNA someday or and you know maybe the Playboy murders will make people want to yeah make it happen more maybe
00:51:53
that would be very interesting for sure that'd be crazy is just one of the stories that
00:51:59
you're going to cover in your new series and I'm so excited to see it seriously soed thank you so much I'm really proud
00:52:05
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
00:52:11
got to tell the story their style it was perfect you did a great job that's a captivating story for sure it
00:52:19
is and I'm just going to have you say really quickly where people can watch it cuz I did not ask you where people can
00:52:24
watch the new show oh yeah the Playboy murders season 2 premieres on Monday January 22nd on
00:52:32
Investigation Discovery and after that it will be available to stream on Max so excited hell yeah we love ID Discovery
00:52:39
here oh yeah it's on in my house 247 I just uh go back and forth between that and Bravo Perfect combo awesome you got
00:52:47
the best of both worlds right there well guys first of all thank you so much hly
00:52:51
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
00:52:58
and not so weird that you don't go check out the Playboy murders and listen to my
00:53:02
dog spark for a little while W [Music] Wu