Laurie "Bambi" Bembenek, whose murder conviction and subsequent escape from prison made national headlines and became the subject of a TV movie, has died.
Bembenek, 52, died Saturday (Nov. 20) of liver failure at a hospice facility in Portland, Ore.
Bembenek briefly worked as a waitress at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wis., and was briefly a Milwaukee cop before being fired for falsifying a report on a fellow officer's arrest. In the summer of 1981, she was charged with the murder of Christine Schultz, the ex-wife of her husband, Milwaukee police officer Fred Schultz. After a sensational trial, Bembenek was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1982.
She seemed like a model inmate -- until she escaped from prison in 1990 with the help of her fiance, Dominic Gugliatto, and fled to Canada -- spawning a cottage industry in Milwaukee of people selling "Run, Bambi, Run" T-shirts and bumper stickers.
Bembenek, 52, died Saturday (Nov. 20) of liver failure at a hospice facility in Portland, Ore.
Bembenek briefly worked as a waitress at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wis., and was briefly a Milwaukee cop before being fired for falsifying a report on a fellow officer's arrest. In the summer of 1981, she was charged with the murder of Christine Schultz, the ex-wife of her husband, Milwaukee police officer Fred Schultz. After a sensational trial, Bembenek was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1982.
She seemed like a model inmate -- until she escaped from prison in 1990 with the help of her fiance, Dominic Gugliatto, and fled to Canada -- spawning a cottage industry in Milwaukee of people selling "Run, Bambi, Run" T-shirts and bumper stickers.
- 11/22/2010
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
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