Image via Murderpedia
Lawrencia Bembenek
“She’s not the sweet little thing she tries to make everyone believe she is. She’s guilty as sin”.
-Elfred O. Schultz Jr, 1990
“If she were standing here right now, I would say ‘Go!’”
-Joseph Bembenek, 1990
The Lawrencia Bembenek murder trial generated tremendous publicity in 1982, and newspapers began calling her "Bambi,” a nickname she hated. An extraordinarily beautiful woman, the Assistant District Attorney portrayed Bembenek as a loose woman with expensive tastes, and one who wanted Christine Schultz dead.
Do people really think she murdered Fred Schultz’s ex-wife just so he can dodge the alimony and child support payments? She receives threatening phone calls to withdraw the sexual discrimination complaint. The incriminating photos of naked police officers are suppressed. The grievance against officers alleged to be selling drugs and sleeping with prostitutes on the job goes away. Then she learns her husband is given immunity in exchange for his testimony.
Ira Robins, a Wauwatosa cop turned private investigator, followed the court proceedings with great interest. Robins resigned from the Wauwatosa police force because his fellow officers called him “the Jew,” a “kike” and other ethnic slurs. He immediately suspected she was being silenced before corruption inside Chief Harold Brier’s administration could be exposed. An indefatigable pit bull, Robins stayed on the case for decades without compensation. He organized rallies, interviewed witnesses and spent countless hours reviewing trial transcripts, even as he slept in his car or on a friend’s couch. The murder trial concludes in 1982 and Bembenek is sentenced to life behind bars at Taycheedah Correction Institute.
Eight years later, Bembenek met 35-year-old Dominic Gugliatto while he was visiting another prisoner. They began exchanging letters and soon Gugliatto was visiting her three times a week. He fell head over heels in love with Bembenek and agreed to help her escape so they could be together. One evening she squeezed through a loose window in the cellblock laundry room and climbed a nine-foot barbed wire fence to where Gugliatto was waiting in a truck. They drove all night, crossing the Canadian border into Thunder Bay, a town of 100,000 just 150 miles from Duluth. Using assumed names, they rented a small apartment and Bembenek began working at a Greek restaurant nearby.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Within a month, the romantic escapade Nick Gugliatto envisioned has lost its luster. Unable to afford a phone, television, VCR, and stereo, he becomes moody and depressed. Gugliatto doesn’t look for work, instead using Bembenek’s wages to purchase expensive hunting, and fishing equipment. To make ends meet, she finds a second job working as an aerobics club instructor while Nick goes fishing and moose hunting several times a week with his new friends. To get Nick out of Thunder Bay, Bembenek finds them jobs at Banff National Park. But as they’re leaving, they’re detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Journalists and television personalities arrive to cover the arrest. People magazine, 20/20, 60 Minutes, and Inside Edition were just a few of the outlets looking for a story. “We have a tradition here in Canada,” a public defender said. “We try people in court, not in the newspapers”. Gugliatto was extradited to Wisconsin almost immediately and went to jail. He stopped writing to Bembenek.
For her part, Bembenek passed a polygraph test with flying colors. She was able to fight extradition for six more months assisted by several Canadian attorneys. Back home, detective Ira Robins organized “Run Bambi Run” fundraisers to provide financial relief for Bembenek’s parents, Joe, and Virginia, who had already mortgaged their home twice. While working for Bembenek, Robins accumulated a mountain of debts that included income taxes, child support, a funeral for his mother, and claims from the landlord who had evicted him along the way. Bembenek voluntarily returned to Wisconsin with the guarantee that she would receive a new trial using evidence collected by Robins. Lawyers eventually persuaded her to enter a plea of no contest to second-degree murder and her sentence was commuted to time served.
Bambi no longer had to run, at least from the law. Although she finally gained her freedom, the inner demons refused to go away. The years behind bars had taken their toll. Her appearance had declined sharply, and the beauty that once turned man’s heads was gone. She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to alcohol. She was sleeping up to 15 hours a day and had recurring thoughts of suicide. Medical tests showed Bembenek exhibited symptoms of hepatitis C and liver disease. With assets of $7,000 and liabilities that exceeded $2 million dollars, she filed for bankruptcy. The money from her book sales, public speeches, and the movies about her life slowly disappeared. She legally changed her name to Laurie Bembenek in July 1994 and moved to Washington state to be near her retired parents.
As a form of therapy, she began painting, something she had enjoyed since childhood. Her work from that time was featured in an art show at UW-Milwaukee. After several years of painting in Washington, she created 30 canvases that were displayed at a local art gallery. The gallery burned down, and her work was destroyed in the fire.
In 2002, Bembenek was invited to appear on the Dr. Phil television show. While sequestered in an apartment building, she had a flashback of being trapped in prison and fell from a second-story window. Bembenek broke her leg so badly that it had to be amputated below the knee.
She petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2008, seeking a reversal of the second-degree murder conviction using evidence not heard in the original trial. Ballistics tests matching the bullets to a gun owned by Fred Schultz, male DNA found on Christine Schultz’s body indicating a sexual assault, and the testimony of the Schultz’s son who said the man in the house wore a mask were presented. The appeal was denied two months later.
On November 20, 2010, 52-year-old Lawrencia Bembenek died at a hospice facility in Portland, Oregon from liver and kidney failure. She steadfastly maintained her innocence until the end.
