A former Milwaukee police officer and Playboy Club model who gained national notoriety after she was convicted of murder and then escaped from prison has died in Oregon. Laurie Bembenek was 52.
Bembenek was convicted in 1982 of fatally shooting her police detective husband’s ex-wife and sentenced to life in prison. She escaped in 1990 and fled to Canada.
Supporters cheered her flight, selling “Run Bambi Run” T-shirts and bumper stickers.
Bembenek was captured but later released after pleading no contest to second-degree murder. Her story was made into a TV movie starring Tatum O’Neal.
Bembenek’s attorney Mary Woehrer says she died Saturday at a hospice care center in Portland, Ore. Woehrer says the cause of death was liver failure.