Dorothy Stratten's sister lays bare details of Playboy Playmate murder

The horrific murder of Playboy model Dorothy Stratten in 1980 sent shockwaves through LA  and took the shine off what back then appeared to be a glamorous life inside Hugh Hefner's famed mansion.

Dorothy, a 20-year-old stunner, was raped and killed by her estranged husband Paul Snider, 29, in Los Angeles after the couple separated, and she began an affair with movie director Peter Bogdanovich.

Now, in a tell-all account, Dorothy's baby sister, Louise, has lifted the lid on the slaying that upended her childhood, roiled her family and altered the course of her life forever.

In a two-part series in Air Mail, she lays bare haunting new details about the day of the murder, and reveals why Hugh Hefner later broke down and apologized for his role in the tragedy.

Louise also frankly describes how she went on to marry her dead sister's lover, Bogdanovich, and rebuffs claims that he groomed her when she was a teenager.

Louise writes about herself as a 'survivor of three traumas.'

As well as the murder, she bemoans the 'gossip, scrutiny, and unwanted publicity' she endured over her relationship with Bogdanovich.

Her 'third trauma,' she writes, involves coming to terms with the director's death in January 2022, and how she's had to 'navigate the love, legacy, and wreckage he left behind.'

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Dorothy was an 18-year-old serving ice cream at a Dairy Queen in Vancouver, Canada, in 1978, when she caught the eye of Snider, a local a nightclub promoter and pimp with dreams of making it big in Hollywood.

Snider saw an opportunity in Dorothy and began grooming her, according to those who witnessed the relationship.

They got married, and he promptly took her to Hollywood to make her a star.

He persuaded her to pose for a nude photo shoot to help launch her career in LA.

Over the next two years, Dorothy's 'girl next door' looks made her a Playboy Playmate of the Year with a budding acting career.

Her credits included TV series Fantasy Island and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

But as Dorothy's star rose, so did Snider's apparent insecurity.

The jealous, abusive husband spent hours hanging at the Playboy Mansion, frequently arguing with his wife, irking Hefner and others nearby.

When Dorothy was cast in the movie They All Laughed, she began an affair with its director Bogdanovich.

Snider hired a private investigator to track her during filming in New York. She eventually filed for divorce.

The couple agreed to meet and talk things out on August 14, 1980.

Instead, in the Los Angeles home they had once shared, Snider raped and shot Dorothy in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing her, police said.

He then turned the weapon on himself.

Younger sister Louise in her new account fleshes out unknown details about what that harrowing day.

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She was in the vehicle with Dorothy as she headed to meet her estranged husband and soon-to-be killer, she writes.

'I was in the car with her. Then I changed my mind suddenly. To this day, I don't know why,' she writes in Air Mail.

'I remember hearing a small voice inside me telling me to stay behind.'

Louise instead returned to Bogdanovich's home in Bel Air, where Dorothy was living, and she was staying during her visit.

Dorothy had asked Louise to keep the meeting with Snider a 'secret' from her new beau, which she did.

But as the hours wore on, and Dorothy did not come home, the atmosphere grew tense.

'I remember that he was eating coffee-flavored Häagen-Dazs right out of the carton when I finally told Peter where Dorothy had gone,' she writes.

'He dropped the spoon. He turned white, as if all the blood had drained out of his face, and he left the room.'

She adds: 'I didn't see him again until Dorothy's funeral.'

Louise, then 12, says she was kept in the dark about the murder as she was returned to her family in Vancouver.

Days later, she was back in LA for the funeral.

There, she stood between Hefner and Bogdanovich, who 'held my hands while Dorothy's casket was lowered into the ground,' she writes.

Louise says she returned to Canada, but spoke to Bogdanovich every day by phone, and later moved with her mother to live at his home.

They developed a relationship, based on the shared tragedy and their love of film, she writes.

Their marriage in 1988 sparked a tabloid frenzy and allegations that Bogdanovich had groomed the youngster.

But Louise insists there was nothing untoward in the slow-burn relationship.

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'Even though I was 29 years younger than Peter, I started to think of him as being my contemporary because we were sharing and talking like equals,' she writes.

'Or maybe I was an old soul in the sense that I just knew certain things instinctively. When we talked, there was no real feeling of an age difference, at least on my part.'

As her feelings grew, she says she 'began to feel jealous whenever he'd talk to other women.'

'I don't know if that was when I started to have a crush on him — a crush that would develop into love,' she writes.

The couple were 'married for 13 wonderful years,' she adds, and they stayed close and worked on film projects together after their divorce.

But even friends of the couple had questioned whether the relationship was healthy.

Bogdanovich blamed Hefner for the predatory atmosphere that led to Dorothy's killing, she writes.

In turn, the Playboy owner 'started spreading the rumor' that Bogdanovich had groomed his dead lover's baby sister.

Louise describes a visit to Hefner's mansion, at which the pleasure-seeking celebrity broke down in tears.

According to Louise, she reminded him of Dorothy. 

This apparently made Hefner feel guilty about how he handled Snider in the weeks leading up to the murder-suicide.

'My biggest regret was I shouldn't have banned Paul from the mansion,' Hefner reportedly told her.

'It was the only thing he had left, being able to come there. He felt like everything was taken from him and when he came to the mansion [and] was turned away.'

This was the 'last straw' that turned Snider into a killer, she writes.

Her descriptions of life inside the Playboy Mansion blow apart the mystique of a place that was far less glamorous than was understood at the time.    

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She first visited the 29-room property in LA's Holmby Hills when she was just 12.

But on her return to hear Hefner's apology, the glamour was gone and the place 'looked small and tawdry,' she writes.   

'These are the rooms where Hefner’s friends had sex with the bunnies,' she writes.

'The bedsheets were tattered and stained and smelled of alcohol, sex, and cigarettes.'

Frequent guests at the mansion in its heyday — such as James Caan, Peter Fonda, OJ Simpson, Warren Beatty, and Bill Cosby — were 'certainly not innocent,' she adds. 

Louise's revelations flesh out details about a murder that's gripped Hollywood for the subsequent four decades, and become a subject for movies, podcasts, and books.

The sordid details of the case were laid bare in an episode of The Playboy Murders as recently as January.

But Louise's update brings the story forward to the present day, and her life after Bogdanovich's death at the age of 82.

'I'm pretty much alone in Los Angeles with my little dog, Cindy,' she writes.

'Late at night, when it's just Cindy and me on a long walk, I can't help but think back on the extraordinary life Peter and I shared.'