Laurie 'Bambi' Bembenek dies; convicted in sensational 1980s murder case

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. She and Gugliatto were arrested a few months later.

She applied for political asylum in Canada but later agreed to return to Wisconsin. In 1992 a judge ruled that "significant mistakes" were made in the investigation of Christine Schultz's murder; Bembenek then struck a deal to plead no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to time served.

Her saga became the subject of a 1993 TV movie, "Woman on Trial: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story," which starred Tatum O'Neal.

Bembenek's name faded from the spotlight for a while after that -- until 2002, when she either fell or jumped from a window while working with the "Dr. Phil" show to prove her innocence via DNA testing. The fall was so bad that part of her right leg had to be amputated. She claimed the show's producers had kept her confined to a small apartment, which triggered a panic attack and led her to fall out the window. She reached an out-of-court settlement with the show.