Laurie Bembenek

Lawrencia Ann "Bambi" Bembenek (August 15, 1958 – November 20, 2010), known as Laurie Bembenek, was an American former police officer, convicted for the 1981 murder of her husband's ex-wife.

Lawrencia Ann Bembenek was the youngest of three girls born to Joseph and Virginia Bembenek in Milwaukee on August 15, 1958.

Joseph had previously worked for the Milwaukee Police Department but quit after witnessing what he described as corruption within the department.

He later worked as a carpenter.

Raised Catholic, Bembenek attended St. Augustine's Elementary School and St. Mary's Academy in Milwaukee.

She later transferred to Bay View High School, where she graduated in 1976.

Bembenek then attended Bryant & Stratton College in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she earned an associate degree in fashion merchandising management.

After college, Bembenek worked in retail and had a brief stint as a model.

In 1978, she appeared as "Miss March" in a calendar distributed by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.

In March 1980, Bembenek began training at the Milwaukee Police Academy.

While still a trainee, Bembenek was accused by an anonymous tipster of smoking marijuana at a party.

Bembenek denied the charge, which was investigated but never substantiated.

Bembenek later said she believed the accusation was made by the wife of a Milwaukee police officer who confronted her at a party, objecting to her clothing and accusing Bembenek of leading her husband on.

Bembenek graduated from the Academy in the summer of 1980 and was assigned to the MPD's South Side Second District.

In her autobiography Woman on the Run, Bembenek claimed that the MPD was then composed of "brutal, lazy, apathetic and corrupt" police officers.

She also claimed that female and minority officers were routinely subjected to harassment and abuse during training.

Bembenek stated that when female and minority trainees joined the MPD, they were routinely punished or even fired for minor infractions during their probationary period while white male officers went unpunished for more serious offenses.

While at the Academy, Bembenek met and became close with another female trainee, Judy Zess.

At a rock concert in May 1980, Zess was arrested for smoking marijuana.

Bembenek's subsequent dismissal from the MPD on August 25 stemmed from her involvement in filing a false report on Zess' arrest.

After her firing, Bembenek discovered scandalous photos of several MPD officers, including her future husband, Elfred O. "Fred" Schultz, dancing nude on picnic tables in Gordon Park near one of their favorite hangouts, The Tracks tavern.

She took the pictures to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission arguing that while she was dismissed for a minor infraction, police officers' committing more serious violations as depicted in the photos, did so with impunity.

The EEOC encouraged Bembenek to file a discrimination report with the MPD's internal affairs division.

Later, Bembenek briefly worked as a waitress at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Around that time, Bembenek met Schultz, then a 13-year veteran of the MPD.

Schultz had two sons and had divorced his wife, Christine, in November 1980.

Bembenek and Schultz were married in January 1981 in Waukegan, Illinois.

Bembenek was working as a personal trainer at a health club and living in an apartment with Schultz, her friend Judy Zess, and Zess' then boyfriend Thomas D. Gaertner.

Bembenek later got a job as a campus security officer at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

After a judge ruled the couple's marriage invalid, stating that Schultz had violated Wisconsin law by not waiting six months after his divorce to remarry, Bembenek and Schulz were married

again in November 1981.

On May 28, 1981, at approximately 2:15 a.m., Schultz's ex-wife Christine was murdered in her Milwaukee home.

She was shot point blank into her back through her heart by a single shot from a .38 caliber pistol.

Her story garnered national attention in 1990 after Bembenek escaped from Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Wisconsin and was recaptured in Thunder Bay, Ontario, an episode that inspired books, movies and the slogan "Run, Bambi, Run".

Upon winning a new trial, Bembenek pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to time served and 10 years' probation in December 1992.

For years, she sought to have the sentence overturned.

Prior to her arrest, Bembenek was fired by the Milwaukee Police Department and subsequently sued the department, claiming that its officers engaged in sexual discrimination and other illegal activities.

She worked briefly as a waitress at the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Playboy Club.

At the time of her arrest, she was working for Marquette University's Public Safety Department in downtown Milwaukee.

On November 20, 2010, Bembenek died at a hospice facility in Portland, Oregon at age 52.