BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???

Subject: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 07:49 PM

I must co9nfess to having never heard of this woman but while looking thru the obituaries in this morning's W. Post I noticed this one:

"Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek, 52, Fugitive gained fame, inspired miniseries" about this woman who was accused of shooting her husband's ex-wife when she was 22, being sentenced to prison, eventually escaping and being recaptured in Canada, always insisting that she was innocent, won an appeal, gained a college degree, etc. etc...

Maybe someone will do a blue clicky...

Interesting woman and story...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: maeve
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 07:54 PM

Here you go, Bobert:

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 08:33 PM

Thanks fir the assist, m...

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 08:36 PM

Quite a story.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 10:08 PM

Yeah, down to her being a Playboy bunny... But it'd be a great story without that...

B~

Subject: BS: Obit: "Lawrencia 'Bambi Bembenek
From: Genie
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 10:09 PM

Yeah, it's a sad story. (And I didn't realize she was living in my back yard these past few years, either.)
Whether she was guilty or not, it's upsetting when people are prosecuted and convicted on the basis of sloppy investigations or contaminated evidence.    It also bothers me when the appeal courts are unwilling or unable to consider new evidence that might shed light on the validity of a previous conviction.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: open mike
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 11:37 PM

saw this story linked on the page where the Joan Baez story was..

Bambi sounds like she was quite a character...wondered why
her story was not more well-known.

there are some details in this story that werenot in the
first account i read...this one is from the L.A.Times

LAURIE 'BAMBI' BEMBENEK

Convicted of killing husband's ex-wife, escaped from Wisconsin prison

Laurie "Bambi" Bembenek, 52, a former Playboy Club bunny and police officer convicted of shooting her then-husband's ex-wife, died Saturday of liver failure at a hospice care center in Portland, Ore., said her longtime attorney, Mary Woehrer.

Bembenek worked briefly as a Playboy Club waitress before becoming a police officer in Milwaukee, where she married detective Fred Schultz. Bembenek was convicted in 1982 of fatally shooting his ex-wife, Christine Schultz.

Bembenek was sentenced to life in prison. In 1990, she escaped Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Wisconsin and fled to Canada with then-fiance Dominic Gugliatto, the brother of another inmate.

Bembenek and Gugliatto were captured about three months later. In a deal with prosecutors, she pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and served the remaining 10 years of that sentence on parole.

Her story was made into a book and TV movie starring Tatum O'Neal, "Woman on Trial: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story."

In 2002, after completing parole, Bembenek filed a motion seeking testing for genetic material in the case in the hope of clearing her name. Later that year, she seriously injured her foot falling out a hotel window before an appearance in Los Angeles on the " Dr. Phil" show, which had agreed to pay for some of the DNA testing. Bembenek's right foot was amputated a few weeks later.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Nov 10 - 04:44 AM

I get bothered by stuff like the fact that the murdered woman's own children said the suspect they saw was a man. They were obviously witnesses (I'm not sufficiently clued up on the story to know how much of the slaying they actually saw, but obviously it was enough to identify a certain amount). This is evidence that clearly supports Bambi's claim to innocence. Why has it been sidetracked? What else has been conveniently ignored?

There have been gross misattributions of guilt before, which ruined lives (remember Jon Benét Ramsay's parents?) so what chance does a "marginal" member of society like Bambi have against a system that needs to find a bad guy and has decided that she's it?

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Nov 10 - 07:04 AM

And: She requested DNA-testing in 2002???! What happened with that?

I read somewhere that her application form (tho not sure for what) was found to be "incomplete". Her determination to clear herself doesn't make her (or her lawyer) sound like someone who would leave any stone unturned in the process. What's that all about? Did they bother to actually inform her that it was incomplete, or just file it in some bureaucratic bottomless black hole?

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 23 Nov 10 - 07:19 AM

You like sad stories? read up on Saco and Vincetti. That old bastard Judge would not even read the evidence that would make him reverse his sentence.

Subject: RE: BS: Obit: 'Bambi'... Sad Story???
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Nov 10 - 07:34 AM

Well, yeah, Capt'n... But this is about "Bambi"...

BTW, I think I read that after her escape that she did win an appeal and was convicted of 2nd degree murder and released for time spent???

Still not too sure what evidence was used in reaching that verdict or whether or not the court was just trying to save a little face???

B~