[techno music playing]
[Holly] Playboy in the '90s was a huge part of popular culture.
It was a mainstream, acceptable presentation
of nudity and female sexuality.
Just everything they do is
wow.
You have all kinds of things at your fingertips.
You know, the sky is the limit.
[sinister music playing]
[Holly] But Playboy handles tragedies by burying them
and not acknowledging them.
[Lucia] It's just this downward spiral.
And that's when his behavior
really starts to get out of control.
I remember telling her, "You really should not do this.
I don't think it's a good idea."
Several witness who were later identified
as hearing what they thought was a loud argument.
All the dreams
aren't necessarily what's really important.
All that glitters isn't gold.
[Corinna] It was very scary.
If someone is capable of murder,
they could murder you.
[gunshot]
October 29th of 1991,
I was in a gun shop.
And, uh, an individual came down
and yelled that there was a gun fight going on outside in the street
next to our building.
Myself and another off-duty officer ran out.
We found two bodies lying in the street
with pools of blood around them
and spent casings from the .22 revolver.
This was in the middle of the day in public
so it was a bewildering moment
because it involves a celebrity, uh, Playboy model.
Stacy Arthur.
[indistinct chatter]
[techno music playing]
Stacy Arthur was Playmate of the Month
in January, 1991.
When you thought of Playboy,
you thought of beautiful women,
you thought of nude photography.
[cheering]
A lot of women in the '90s and 2000s, myself included,
saw Playboy as a stepping stone to a career.
[Corinna] Oh, my gosh,
I remember the first time driving through those gates.
And I remember the first time
I ever laid eyes on the mansion.
I thought, "Oh, this place is spectacular."
Just everything they do is wow.
It's just wow.
It's kind of like that like the stars in their eyes.
And you have celebrities wanting you,
you have all kinds of things at your fingertips.
You know, the sky is the limit.
And I think Stacy kind of had that
and she... she thought, "Wait a minute here.
This is everything."
[Holly] The beginning of Stacy's story was so incredibly wholesome.
But there were things
that allowed this to take a much darker turn.
Stacy graduated from high school in 1986.
She was rather quiet.
Uh, beautiful girl.
Very talented in crafts and... and ceramic work.
And then by the spring of '88,
she was the manager of a crafts store in Bellefontaine.
My brother Jim opened a tanning salon on the second floor.
And that's where he met Stacy.
He and Stacy hit it off
and were soon inseparable.
She was 19 at the time and he was 34.
This would've been when Stacy and Dad first got together.
She has sort of this woven romance
uh, with Jim Arthur.
She had been previously married,
had a child from her previous marriage.
Jim, he had been married before as well.
She meets Jim
and is very smitten with him.
[Danielle] I think they...
they both were really happy together
and that they found each other.
[Jana] On June 4th, 1988,
they got married.
And that started it all.
[Stacy] Wait till everybody gets in here. Get your hair... Get your head back.
[Danielle] She was the only mom I ever knew for a long time.
My mom and dad separated when I was young
and Stacy adopted me in 1989.
Like when she came into my life,
I was still very little.
Like, it was no feat for me to call her "Mom."
Because she was there.
I don't ever remember not calling her "Mom."
I think the biggest change for me was
not that there was a new woman in the... in the house,
as much as Stacy brought her daughter with her.
And that was a change
'cause I had just always had an older brother.
- [boy speaking indistinctly] - [woman] Okay.
[Danielle] Her hair was always pretty,
and she had high heels like, the really high heels.
And you know, as a little girl,
those are so much fun to go in the closet
and try on and attempt to walk in them
and fail terribly. [chuckles]
[Jana] She was very photogenic.
She took some great pictures.
And then when they got married,
she decided she'd like to go into modelling.
So Jim became her manager and her support staff.
She started out in a pageant.
She did win 32 different pageants.
She had all kinds of trophies
and things to show what she had accomplished.
[Lucia] He had put her up for more and more pageants.
And as she kept winning, she gained more confidence,
uh, over time.
And she won Mrs. Ohio in, uh, June 1990.
She was the youngest competitor,
uh, and she swept the competition.
Um, so that was obviously a huge highlight for her career.
[Jana] Usually, people did not win that pageant
on their first time.
She was...
shocked.
Absolutely shocked at when they announced that she had won.
This would be her Mrs. Ohio crown. [laughs]
Every little girl's dream is to have a tiara this big
that's not made of plastic. [laughs]
[Jana] Jim saw beyond what was happening right in front of her
and he wanted to help her reach for the stars.
He wanted to help her achieve
and be the best that she could be.
Which led her to Playboy.
[Holly] A husband wanting his wife to be a Playmate
might seem weird at first.
Like, why does he want his wife to be naked for everybody else to see?
But based on my experience,
I've seen husbands be really excited to have their wives pose
and, you know, to them, it's like a trophy.
There can definitely be another side, too.
It would take a really secure partner
to be able to deal with that
and be confident and supportive.
[Jana] So after she won Mrs. Ohio,
she continued to model.
That led her to a gig in Chicago.
And while they were out there,
they stopped in at the Playboy headquarters.
Jim said, "Let's do it while we're here."
And she said, "Sure, let's go."
I think to outsiders looking in,
Playboy looked like a really glamourous, upscale world.
Playboy was such a huge magazine in the '90s.
And it was very, very mainstream.
I mean, you would see Playboy have a presence in like, family movies.
It was something that was, yeah, it's a little bit racy,
but it was so mainstream at the same time.
ForPlayboy to have a pageant queen as a centerfold
was a really big deal.
That was another thing that kind of legitimized the magazine more.
It's like, oh, this Miss America type person could be a centerfold, too.
[Jana] Jim made arrangements to get a photoshoot
and some videotaping done.
They saw something in her that they really liked.
[Holly] Just a month later,
Stacy was flown out to LA for her Playmate shoot
and that's unheard of.
She was definitely fast tracked.
[Corinna] It's your first taste of celebrity.
A lot of girls do go on to become household names.
I think Stacy wanted that really badly.
All of a sudden, you're the hometown hero.
And everybody, you know, wants to meet the Playmate.
And, "Oh, my gosh, she did Playboy."
[Holly] This must've been a whirlwind for Stacy
to go from being from a small town in Ohio
and just a month later you're being flown out to LA,
you're staying at the Playboy mansion,
you're doing this shoot for a huge magazine.
They used to put the Playmates in the bungalows
if we were doing photoshoots,
sometimes making appearances there in LA.
And have just let the Playmates stay there.
It was '91.
They had me rooming with Stacy Arthur.
Probably because we both came out of Chicago.
And Stacy asked me if I wanted to go into the grotto.
And I said, "Yeah."
You know, I may as well.
It's like a hot tub and cave.
It was really spectacular. [laughs]
[Holly] It's right next to the pool
and the pool kind of flows into it.
So there's all these hot tubs
and then there's like, a little you know, stream you can swim through
and like, tunnels you can swim under.
It's really cool
and, of course, it's also, you know,
the famous place
where supposedly everybody goes to have sex.
And certainly, many people did. [laughs]
[Lucia] It's December of 1990.
Stacy goes to the USSR
to compete in the Mrs. America pageant.
And that's when the story breaks
that she's gonna be a Playboycover model.
As they finished up the Mrs. America pageant,
which she was in the top ten,
Stacy was on the cover ofPlayboy and the centerfold
for the January 1991.
She was one of the few that were ever selected
to be on the cover and the centerfold.
Marilyn Monroe was one other.
In the '90s, the cover of Playboy
was usually reserved for a celebrity pictorial.
Pamela Anderson is the only other example I can think of
who was a Playmate of the month
who was on the cover immediately.
And that was a big celebration.
She was really excited to be this January 1991.
It is unusual to have beauty pageant winners
pose for Playboy.
Stacy was the trendsetter.
She was the first one of that stature to do it.
[Jana] It wasn't against the rules
'cause nothing was stated at the time.
But some of the pageant people were shocked.
[Lucia] She really relishes the attention
she says, you know, there's nothing wrong with it.
The beauty queen should be sensual,
beauty queen should be out there.
And, um, that's something that really resonates.
[Holly] It's interesting how people react sometimes
to a woman posing nude.
All of a sudden it becomes everyone else's problem.
Some of them think
it grants them some kind of ownership of you.
And there's also a dark underbelly.
Then you're not really prepared for that,
and you don't really see that dark side
until you're already in it.
I definitely think that Jim had big aspirations for her.
Well, it wasn't just that Jim was her husband.
He was also her manager.
He was the one who was booking all her appearances.
He was the one, um,
who was kind of making her into this star.
[Danielle] I think in a way she was a trophy for him.
If you look at this,
they look like different people in a way.
I mean, really like, I'm living life in the fast lane.
[Holly] It's a lot to deal with you know,
when you have someone coming from a small town
and one of them is all of a sudden making it big.
And not only are they making it big,
but they're posing nude in a magazine for everyone to see.
So if you get the wrong type of person
or somebody who has the wrong idea about what's appropriate,
it can be really dangerous.
[Corinna] And maybe when you're younger, you don't know that.
You just don't.
You think you're being kind,
you think everybody's being nice.
You don't wanna believe there's monsters out there
or people that snap.
From my understanding,
my dad always wanted her to be a Playboy Bunny.
And that's how we ended up where we are.
I think she did it out of respect for him.
Really.
Wow, a sling for your room!
She, um, was very modest I... I believe.
And we would tell her how beautiful she was
and... and she would think no.
You know, she wasn't good... good enough.
She was trying to get a music career started
in country music.
And she was trying to get established in Nashville at the time.
And Playboy had backed her on that.
So they were trying to help her
with the connections in Nashville.
It was about 18 months timeframe
that they went from Stacy's first pageant
to Mrs. Ohio,
to Playboy.
It was all very... very, very quickly.
But to me, she was my mom.
Looky here!
This is Whisky.
Can you say hi to Whisky?
Yes, this is your new puppy.
She never came off like,
she was, "Oh, I'm all that and a bag of chips."
Like it just never... never came off that way to me.
[in high-pitched voice] ...and I want to give you a kiss.
[Danielle] I saw her as what she was.
You know, a human being who had to get ready like everybody else,
and put one shoe on in front of the other
just like everybody else.
[Corinna] When I met Stacy,
I felt like she was very well spoken.
I felt like she was much more accomplished than I was.
Especially that you know, I was just out of high school.
So I thought, "Wow."
And she was Mrs. Ohio and I looked up to that.
Stacy was on a really clear trajectory.
And I know she was probably thinking about
Playmate of the Year next.
And then on into the entertainment industry.
[Jana] Jim was pretty excited.
He was proud of her.
And proud of the work that she'd done
and was ready to continue.
[Danielle] My dad would do her hair
and her nails and her makeup.
And he just made sure that everything was perfect.
Picture perfect.
[Corinna] It was always about taking care of her.
He would call, "Oh, I understand you're...
you and Stacy are rooming together."
He was so nice
and just very concerned about Stacy.
[Holly] It seemed like he was incredibly supportive,
very secure.
Wanted Stacy to go on to be Playmate of the Year,
and have a country music career,
and all those things.
In the '90s,
when Playmates were competing for Playmate of the Year,
the magazine always wanted to know who the readers wanted.
So they would have this 1-900 number
people could call to cast a vote.
Like, they would press a number for whatever month.
But also there was this component of it where
callers could elect to have a conversation with the actual Playmates.
And actually speaking to the Playmate over the 1-900 number
would make the Playmate seem so much more accessible.
[Holly] "This is news.
This year as in the past,
callers can go on record by nominating their choices for Playmate of the Year,
but they can also hear messages from their favorite
and leave messages for the ladies.
Playmates will answer some calls personally."
Stacy was very, very serious about getting Playmate of the Year,
and very serious about Playboy
and it being a catapult in her career.
So she took that phoneline very, very seriously
and thought that that was gonna get her
better standing with Playboy.
[phone beeping]
Fans would call in and the operator would punch you in.
And they would pick who they wanna speak to
and, um, and put you through.
Mostly young men that had seen the magazine
and wanted to talk to the girl in the magazine.
And they would really ask,
"Is this really you? Why did you pose for Playboy?"
Simple questions.
So these women were talking to all these anonymous callers
that they don't know
and they're not trained to handle these conversations.
So they could've been asking these women
for any kinds of subtle hints as to where they lived
or where they might be during a certain period of time.
We were all told, "You don't engage.
You've got to be very careful with the...
the things that you say and how you say it."
And they'd get disconnected if they started trying to talk dirty
or... or, you know,
anything inappropriate.
The operator would listen in
and disconnect if anything went wrong.
We made $150 for three hours of...
of being on the phone lines.
And fans paid $3 a minute
to... to speak to the girls.
It was interesting [chuckles softly]
and it was kind of fun.
You could really make a nice extra chunk of change.
So their finances are always very variable,
the Arthurs.
They have big expenses, a lot of travel.
So they start having money troubles around this time
where it's not as steady as they would like.
This was a way, uh, to keep money coming in
and to keep all the lights on
and all the businesses running.
[Holly] The centerfold was always trying to accomplish
not only beauty and sexuality,
but a sense of intimacy with the subject.
So the reader could feel like they really know this woman.
And on the back of the centerfold,
they would have this data sheet.
So this is in her handwriting
and it would tell you all kinds of things about her,
from her favorite foods to what her perfect date would be
and there are pictures of her from when she was a teenager.
So the goal was really for this to be a fantasy woman.
And they could feel like, "Oh, this is the girl next door.
This is somebody I have a chance with but she's stunning."
I think it was a bad idea to have the Playmates be that accessible.
I'm sure so many men called
and then felt like they really knew these people
and it's kind of shocking to me
that the Playmates were asked to do that.
I feel like that's kind of crossing a line.
In March of 1991,
a fan had began to call Stacy.
His name was James Lindberg...
[phone ringing]
...and he loved to talk to the Playmates.
He would call regularly
and stay on the phone for long periods of time.
James Lindberg is a 32-year-old man who lives in California.
He's really a loner.
He doesn't seem to go out that often.
He you know, starts calling this line.
[Corinna] I remember talking to James.
He talked about his grandma.
He's... he's you know,
You know missed his grandma and loved his grandma.
He wasn't inappropriate.
You know, he didn't say anything sexual.
It was just the way he was so emotionally
like serious.
He would you know didn't have a sense of humor.
I noticed that right away
and I thought, "That's not right."
He was the only one that made me feel kind of sad and bad.
In my Playmate issue,
they write up things for the girls in the magazine.
And the writer mentioned we used water balloon tourists
in Las Vegas.
And it would make us laugh.
He would say, "Why would you do that?
I don't understand.
Why would you have done that to people?"
And I said, "I'm so sorry.
[chuckles] I'm sorry.
Yeah, I feel bad about it.
I feel really bad."
He would get very upset...
and mad, like turn on a dime.
[telephone ringing]
That's when he started talking to Stacy more.
They had become friends in his mind for certain.
[Lucia] James Lindberg actually set the record
for the most amount of phone calls.
He had spent over $15,000.
Just on this phone line
and keep in mind, this guy was not making a lot of money.
He worked as a trucker and he was out of work for a while.
So this was a huge amount of cash to him.
And that should have been a red flag right there.
It's almost like if somebody was drinking too much at a bar they might get cut off.
I think with Playboy, profit was coming first
in that situation for sure.
[Corinna] Stacy said, "It's okay.
I'm fine. He's fine. He's harmless."
[Jana] None of us knew the road that she was going
would lead to the dead end that it did.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Jana] Stacy's life really became quite busy
because she was going places to sign autographs,
she was still modeling,
she was doing some PR work for Playboy,
where Playmates would go to car shows or whatever.
So things got a little crazy there for a while.
I can relate to Stacy's experience a little bit,
but I didn't have it happen as fast as she did.
I mean, she was literally going
from a small town in middle America
to overnight in LA,
shooting her Playmate layout.
Probably only a few months later,
you know the magazine was on news stands
and it's one of the hugest magazines in the world, like...
Even I can't imagine how head spinning that would be.
[Jana] She flew to the mansion
or she then would fly to Nashville
and then back home.
And trying to be a mom at the same time.
But she would still sit for hours
talking on the 900 number
where people would call in.
[telephone ringing]
In March, James Lindberg starts calling more and more often
and for longer and longer.
They ended up putting in a time limit
because he spent so long on the phone to her.
When you wanna be Playmate of the Year,
you wanna show you're the hardest worker
and you have the most positive attitude.
She wanted people to keep calling
and asking for her
and this person on the other end of the line
might be getting the wrong idea.
As long as things didn't get too inappropriate,
the Playmates were instructed to just go along with whatever went on on the phone.
But one time, James Lindberg got mad.
Don't know how the conversation started
but he didn't like where it was going and he got mad
and he hung up.
[telephone ringing]
But then he called back like a week or so later
and he apologized to Stacy for his behavior
and then he started calling her again.
He finds out her favorite color is pink
and he sends her 70 pink balloons.
He would kind of latch on to these little details
and then show his love with sort of an over abundance.
He knew about her children,
she told him about her marriage.
They have this pseudo-friendship
and he thinks that this is giving him access
that this is his way of showing his love.
[Holly] It can definitely get dangerous
to make people feel like they know a Playmate.
These are her real interests
and it's her real name usually and...
she's telling people where she's from,
so it's not like the public is even connecting
with like a character in a movie.
Like this is a real person.
I just think it's a really weird line that gets blurred with some people.
In late September 1991,
he didn't call.
And she actually finds his number and calls him
and says, "Are you okay?
Did something happen to you?"
So you're getting these mixed messages back and forth.
She considers it a fan-star relationship,
but to him, it's something more.
To him, it's, "She really cares about me."
She gave him her personal number,
she accepted gifts from him.
She wasn't supposed to do that
as a Playboy centerfold.
She meant it as a way to just kind of check in on him.
But she unwittingly makes this huge error
where she gives him her personal number
and now you know he has sort of direct access.
[Stacy speaking]
Lindberg knew that Stacy and Jim were headed out to the Playboy mansion in September
and he requested that Stacy meet up with him
while she was there.
I remember telling her, "You really should not do this.
You should not go meet with this guy.
I don't think it's a good idea."
But she may have really made a connection with him.
[Holly] I definitely think it's dangerous
to put yourself in a position
where you're never gonna know who you're gonna meet
or what the boundaries are gonna be.
She agreed to it
but once she got to California,
her schedule was too busy.
So it just didn't work out.
[Lucia] They ended up not meeting
and that was devastating to him
and he couldn't handle that.
And it starts this, you know, vicious spiral.
[dramatic music playing]
[James speaking]
It's really this grey line between
healthy and unhealthy behavior.
Some people just naturally
can't stop these thoughts from coming.
[James speaking]
[sighs]
I think Stacy started to realize that James Lindberg may have had some...
unhealthy tendencies.
I think every woman who is in a professional role,
who has a public facing persona
has had this problem.
And she decides, "You know what?
I'm gonna put a stop to this."
[Stacy speaking]
I think Stacy was always kind to people.
She always saw the good in people.
And believed that people were good deep down.
The way Stacy worded that message
makes me think of how women are always taught to be people pleasers
and not offend men
and let people down gently.
And I think that's what she was trying to do.
[Stacy speaking]
[Jana] Jim was always very protective of Stacy.
He thought he could keep her safe from anything.
And he definitely wasn't gonna let this person actually see Stacy.
And that's when James Lindberg's behavior
really starts to get out of control.
[Stacy speaking]
Dealing with men could be very tricky as a Playmate.
Because you're taught to not hurt anybody's feelings
and let people down easily
or say, "Why don't we take a break rather than cut it off completely?"
[Jim] I believe that message probably made James Lindberg
feel even more desperate
that may have sparked his impulse
to travel from his home
over to where Stacy Arthur might be.
[Lucia] You have to keep in mind in 1991,
we didn't even have stalking as a crime nationally.
So, you know, you would not be on high alert for this.
[Holly] I've had people come to my home
or somehow they get into the gated community
and they're like knocking at... banging on the door,
like screaming my name and stuff
and it can feel really, really scary.
[Jim] On October 20th,
James Lindberg set off
from Sacramento, California on a train
and then he traveled to Cincinnati
where he rented a car.
And drove to Bellefontaine, Ohio.
And he had checked into a local motel.
It appeared he went looking for Stacy.
[eerie music playing]
James Lindberg has been in this motel for a few days now.
He's come this far, he's been frustrated.
This is a guy who had traveled 2,000 miles to be there.
[Jim] On October 29th,
he went to a local gift shop
and he bought Stacy gifts
and he went downtown looking for Stacy.
But ran into Jim, her husband.
And decided to give him that gift and ask him to give it to Stacy.
Lindberg also wanted to photograph
Stacy and get it autographed.
Lindberg is very set on accessing Stacy Arthur
and James Arthur is essentially trying to swat a fly.
He's like, "Get lost, buddy."
And, you know, things escalate from there.
[Jim] Several witness were later identified
as hearing what they thought was a loud argument.
[Jana] So Lindberg left
and my brother went back in his tanning salon.
And he said,
"If this gentlemen comes looking for me again
or comes in here,
call the police, because he seems agitated."
So then Jim left the salon.
Went out to get in his car
which was parked right out front of the building.
He has some lights for his tanning bed,
he's putting 'em in the trunk of his car.
[dramatic music playing]
James Lindberg is very intent.
His life has culminated up to this point
and this guy is sort of giving him the run around.
[Jim] One witness said
Mr. Lindberg was kind of shifty.
Almost like someone who had been caught with their hand in a cookie jar.
[Jana] And he came running down from the parking lot yelling
and people were starting to come out
and look and see what was going on.
[Jim] Several witnesses witnessed
Mr. Lindberg produce a handgun
and fire multiple times at Mr. Arthur at very close range.
[gunshots]
This shooting happened in broad daylight on a street
in front of tons of witnesses, there's like two dozen witnesses.
Lindberg shot him once in the face,
twice in the chest
and when Mr. Arthur turned away from him,
he shot him three times in the back.
Jim was dead almost immediately.
So James Lindberg runs.
He has had all these shots in the middle of the street,
he runs back to his car.
Mr. Lindberg after shooting Mr. Arthur
ran into a parking lot.
Witness saw him raise the gun,
then he pulled the trigger and shot himself in the head.
I was five.
I had just gotten home from half-day kindergarten.
Had lunch.
I remember there was a car that pulled up.
And two guys got out.
And they said, "Hey, I need to talk to your mom."
Next thing you know,
Stacy goes running out of the house.
[voice shaking] Your daddy's dead. Your daddy's dead.
[sniffles]
[telephone ringing]
[Jana] I remember when I got to the phone
and they said, "Your brother's been fatally shot."
And I remember thinking, "So, is he dead?"
Because the fatal, it didn't register for a minute.
[sniffling]
[sobbing] Nothing can ever prepare you for that.
I remember thinking like...
"How is that possible?"
That my dad's not coming home.
You can't understand the finality of it at five.
When somebody's gunned down in cold blood,
someone that you love...
That's beyond being able to describe
the amount of pain that you go through.
[Jana] I don't believe Stacy ever thought Lindberg was dangerous.
And I do believe that Jim and Stacy both
thought they could handle whatever came their way.
[indistinct chatter]
[Holly] It wasn't until after James Lindberg's death
that people realized just how obsessed with Stacy he was.
He decorated his motel room with photographs of Stacy Arthur.
There was a calendar where he had circled all her photos
and had a lot of that hanging around the room.
We had found in the motel also that he had recorded
many conversations and had many cassettes
of these conversations in his possession.
[Lucia] He had 31 tapes of all of these conversations
that he had with Stacy Arthur.
And they started to get a better picture
of you know, sort of the insane [chuckles]
intense jealousy
that he has against James Arthur.
One of those tapes was transcripted
and it reads, "This message is for Stacy Arthur.
I want her to know that I'm in love with her.
And that's not a good thing
because she happened to be married this time.
Kind of goofs me up totally.
And it hurts that I'm in love with you.
Just know there you are and here I am
and there your husband."
Lindberg quit his job in October of '91.
Almost immediately after Stacy had left him the message
about taking a break.
His neighbors basically reported
that he was acting a little bit unhinged
and getting a little bit less predictable.
It seems to me that he would in his own logic
would think he'd have to kill James Arthur
before he could get to Stacy.
[Corinna] Like that catapult into madness.
A crazy fan goes and kills your friend's husband.
Your sister Playmate or like sisters.
That's like a sisterhood.
It was very scary.
If someone's capable of murder,
they could murder you.
The family and friends of James Alan Arthur.
Deep inside of us,
there is a feeling of loss and bewilderment.
Death has come unexpected and under tragic circumstances.
[Danielle] Everything was taken from me that day.
[sniffles]
My dad physically was taken from me, but...
My brother was never the same.
My sister was never the same.
Stacy was never the same.
[Jana] Stacy was just devastated.
As we all were.
Stacy lost the love of her life.
She lost her confidant, her lover, her supporter.
Her everything.
She was 23 when my dad died.
I can't imagine having three children at 23
and dealing with the trauma that she was dealing with
with all this.
Like I can't even begin to wrap my mind around it.
You think certain things are such a big deal
and in the scheme of things,
especially you know, your husband
or your family.
That is what counts.
That you know, the other things don't count.
And she learned that the hard way.
So, you know, after Jim's death,
it's just this downward spiral.
She says that she was sexually assaulted
by three bodyguards at the mansion.
Those bodyguards say that it was consensual.
She sees Playboy as negligent
and as using women for mooning their business,
but not taking care of their safety.
And obviously the safety of her family around her.
[Corinna] But she was asking for a substantial amount of money
and I remember that there was nothing to stand on.
There was no real clear, you know, evidence.
But she eventually stops going forward with that case
and it's dismissed without prejudice,
but she never refiles.
This is really the beginning of the end
between Stacy and Playboy.
Playboy handles tragedies by burying them
and not acknowledging them.
Playboy cut Stacy Arthur off
and it was as if she had never existed.
When I look at Stacy and how she was positioned,
to me as somebody who worked for Playboy,
I see that as she was a definite frontrunner for Playmate of the Year
and it's shocking that she didn't get it
and that's the only reason I can think of
is they were trying to distance themselves
and not bring any more attention to the tragedy.
[Lucia] She received all this attention
because of this horrible tragedy.
She had essentially given everything to Playboy
and then they spurned her.
All the dreams
aren't necessarily what's really important.
All that glitters isn't gold.
[Jana] You're never okay.
It's just that time...
heals things a little bit.
But the hole's still there.
You can't fill that hole.
In 2019, Stacy passed away after a brief illness.
[Danielle] She told me, "Your dad was the love of my life."
And she spent the rest of her life looking for my dad.
She just searched for that forever.
"Sure. I'm a dreamer," says Stacy.
"I've been dreaming all my life and I love storybook endings."
I just think it's so sad to read about somebody
who had all these dreams
and it all got taken from her.
Stacy wanted that storybook ending
and she never got it.