'Dr. Phil' guest has foot amputated after two-story fall

MILWAUKEE — A former police officer trying to prove her innocence in a 20-year-old murder case had her right foot amputated Friday after hurting it in a fall from a hotel window, her attorney said.

Laurie Bembenek, 44, fractured two bones and severed an artery in the foot three weeks ago when she fell from a second-story hotel room where she was being kept for the "Dr. Phil" television show, attorney Mary Woehrer said.

Woehrer said the foot developed a serious infection. She declined to disclose where the surgery was done.

Bembenek was convicted of killing her husband's ex-wife, Christine Schultz, in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison. She escaped from prison in 1990 by crawling out a window but was captured months later in Canada.

She sought asylum, but was released in 1992 after pleading no contest to second-degree murder. Her story was made into a book and a TV movie starring Tatum O'Neal, "Woman on the Run: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story."

In August, after the former Milwaukee officer completed a 10-year probation, she asked the court for DNA testing of items including a sexual-assault evidence kit, fingernail clippings with blood on them, sheets and blankets, two guns, a bullet retrieved from Schultz's body and the clothing Schultz was wearing when she was killed.

A judge granted Bembenek's request in October. Results had been expected by Wednesday, but the lab said Tuesday that it needed a few more weeks.

Bembenek, who is hoping that DNA evidence will exonerate her, was in Los Angeles for a taping of the nationally syndicated TV show when the accident happened Nov. 10.

The program had paid for DNA testing and put her under "bodyguard type" surveillance in an effort to shield her from media reports, Woehrer said.

But Woehrer said the restrictions were excessive and triggered memories of Bembenek's imprisonment, causing her to try to escape.

A spokeswoman for the "Dr. Phil" show said Bembenek was free to go wherever she pleased. She also said the only person from the show with Bembenek was a female field producer.

Bembenek, a former Playboy Club waitress nicknamed "Bambi" as a police recruit, insisted colleagues framed her because she was assisting a federal investigation into corruption and sex discrimination in the Milwaukee Police Department.