Lawrencia Bembenek, a former Playboy bunny and Milwaukee police officer whose conviction for the murder of her husband’s ex-wife and audacious escape from prison became tabloid and TV-movie fodder and a cause célèbre for supporters who insisted on her innocence  as she always did  died Saturday in a hospice in Portland, Ore. She was 52.

The cause was liver failure, said Ms. Bembenek’s lawyer, Mary Woehrer.

Known as Bambi, Ms. Bembenek (pronounced bem-BENN-eck) joined the Milwaukee Police Department in March 1980 after a stint as a waitress at a Playboy Club. Within a year she was married to Elfred Schultz, a Milwaukee police detective.

Then, on May 28, 1981, Detective Schultz’s former wife, Christine, was found dead in her bedroom, bound, gagged and shot in the back at point-blank range. Three months later Ms. Bembenek was arrested, and the case immediately became a media sensation.

Ms. Bembenek contended that vindictive colleagues had framed her because she was assisting a federal investigation into corruption and sex discrimination in the Police Department. She had also caused a storm by giving supervisors photographs of off-duty officers (including her future husband) posing naked at a party.