The younger sister of Dorothy Stratten is opening up about the iconic Playboy model’s 1980 murder — and revealed that Hugh Hefner broke down in front of her years later before apologizing for the role he felt he played in the 20-year-old Playmate’s death. Louise Stratten was with her sister just moments before her killing, she told Air Mail . She had been in the car with Dorothy on Aug.
14, 1980, as the two made their way to the Los Angeles apartment she shared with her jealous, estranged husband, Paul Snider. The couple had agreed to meet for one last time after she formally filed for divorce. “Then, I changed my mind suddenly,” said Louise.
“To this day, I don’t know why. I remember hearing a small voice inside me telling me to stay behind. So, I had Dorothy drive me back” to filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich’s residence in Bel Air.
Dorothy Stratten, a budding actor who was the 1980 Playmate of the Year, had been having an affair with the director and was divorcing Snider to be with him. Louise was 12 at the time. The pre-teen never saw her sister alive again following that car ride.
After Dorothy arrived at the apartment, Snider raped her before killing her with a shotgun blast to the face. He ended his own life with the same weapon. For the two-parter Air Mail series, Louise Stratten recalled how, years later — after she had fallen in love with and married Bogdanovich herself — Playboy publisher Hefner met with her in 2009 at the Playboy Mansion , and star.