[upbeat music playing] Playmates from the 1960s
were supposed to be young,
fresh faced, sexy, curvy women,
and Victoria was all of those things.
Victoria Vetri saw whatPlayboy
had done for actresses before her.
She wanted to emulate the likes of Brigitte Bardot
and Sophia Loren.
I'm gonna be a star.
[tape rewinding]
[Stella] There were so many triggers with her life
and what happened to her
and the Playboy lifestyle.
I think it just did things to her
that you can't come back from.
[Holly] The Manson murders were exceptionally gruesome.
The fact that there was a beautiful up-and-coming
actress who appeared inPlayboy
at the center of it, was horrifying.
Victoria was supposed to be at Sharon Tate's home.
The people who murdered her friends
were out to get her.
Victoria's story is really a cautionary tale,
fame and success aren't a cure-all to everything.
[Bob] You have it all
and then when it falls from your grasp,
it's sad to see how a life can unravel.
[gunshot]
[dramatic music playing]
[train honking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[gunshots]
On Saturday, October 16th, 2010,
Los Angeles Police Department
received multiple 911 calls
describing a shooting in progress
with a victim down.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[siren wailing]
When they arrived,
the officers slowly and methodically
approached the location.
It's a two-story multi-unit apartment building.
It looked like a sort of a typical apartment complex
in the heart of Hollywood.
That I wouldn't call it luxury apartments
by any stretch of the imagination.
[indistinct radio chatter]
As they're approaching the location,
they don't know what they're walking into.
The responding units see our victim down
in the outside hallway,
the victim had a gunshot wound
to the upper left chest.
When the investigators were looking in the apartment,
they see evidence of a struggle.
The place looks disheveled
and what they discover is something very odd.
They noticed that there are
torn upPlayboy magazines on the floor.
They come to realize that the woman featured
on thesePlayboy magazines
is Playmate of the Year in 1968,
Victoria Vetri.
[upbeat music playing]
[Stella] Victoria Vetri was a California girl.
She went to Hollywood High.
She was a beautiful girl,
Italian heritage,
and was pursuing a career as an actress.
Her father was a successful restaurant owner
and her mother was a successful model.
[Tom] She'd started in 1962.
For some reason she didn't think
her name was Movie Marquee
and she changed it to Angela Dorian.
[country music playing]
[Tom] She landed a number of guest spots.
I was just looking at myself in the water, Ms. Sarah.
On Ozzie and Harriet, Cheyenne.
She wanted to emulate
the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren.
And she really was making some headway.
She was quite striking, beautiful woman.
And she was starting to get roles.
Do you like it?
There was something called the Hollywood Deb Star Ball.
And they would take nominees from TV shows,
movie studios, talent agencies each year.
And with her first year in Hollywood,
Victoria Vetri was aHollywood Deb Star in 1962,
and that was pretty prestigious.
So she started out really like gangbusters.
I saw you from the window
when you said good evening to senora.
Now, you can say good evening to me.
But for some reason
she wasn't getting the big film roles.
And thenPlayboy came along.
[Holly] WhenPlayboy came out in the '50s,
it was really a revolutionary magazine.
Not only because it featured nude photos,
but because it was done
in the context of a lifestyle magazine.
Nobody had really combined sex and aspiration before.
[tape rewinding]
[applause]
Well, hi, I'm sorry, I didn't see you coming in.
I'm Hugh Hefner, your host.
You really arrived just in time
'cause it's gonna be a wild and swinging evening.
As Playboycontinued to grow throughout the '60s,
the magazine became more and more of a household name.
Therefore, it was more exciting for women to pose
and seen as a bigger opportunity.
And in some cases it could lead to a Hollywood career.
[camera flashes]
[man] The magazine became more than a magazine.
The magazine became a kind of a handbook
for a whole way of life.
[Holly] The first issue ofPlayboy
featured a photograph of Marilyn Monroe,
because of the Marilyn Monroe connection,
a lot of women sawPlayboy as a place
to launch their careers.
[Meghan] Victoria Vetri saw whatPlayboy had done
for actresses before her,
and I think that Victoria sawPlayboy as a springboard
for future success in the fields of acting.
[Holly] Each issue ofPlayboy in the '60s
reached about 5 million readers,
so appearing as a centerfold in the magazine
could get as many eyes on you
as appearing in a Hollywood movie.
So it was a really big deal.
We don't know exactly who invited Victoria
to thePlayboy parties for the first time,
but a young, beautiful actress like her
always would've been welcome.
[upbeat music playing]
I worked for Hugh Hefner
for four and a half years,
and I started out as his butler.
I saw Victoria Vetri
at the mansion at the big parties.
She was always sought after.
Guys would just chase her,
tell her that, you know, she's beautiful
and they were a producer, showrunner.
They would get her a part.
She had that magnetism.
And she was an actress.
This is the time to show your stuff.
I'm sure if Hef saw Victoria at a party,
she definitely would've caught his attention.
[Meghan] Hugh Hefner offered her the opportunity to pose
and to have her own spread
to be featured in her own edition.
Posing for Playboywas kind of a risk at the time.
[Tom] For the '60s, it was still a bit of a dilemma
for a lot of these actresses 'cause, you know,
they were raised on 1950s values.
The old guard in Hollywood, they were very moralistic.
The actresses deciding if they wanted to
pose forPlayboy had to make decisions.
Do you wanna go in Playboy?
You get the publicity,
but does it really help your career or hurt it?
She was breaking barriers
and hoping that by posing
and also posing in the nude
would lead to success,
but it was a risk that she took.
Victoria first modeled forPlayboy
in September of 1967,
so she was the Playmate of the Month.
[Holly] Victoria's pictorial
was really beautiful and really unique.
There were photos of her
lying out on this tiger rug.
Her centerfold with her
lying in a hammock.
This is the issue
with Victoria's Playmate pictorial.
In the '60s, they didn't publish
very many nude photos
of a woman in her playmate pictorial.
Here's part of her centerfold,
which would've been the main nude photo.
They really wanna show that Victoria's an actress.
They have her here studying a script,
so they want her to appear as well-rounded as she is.
It was just really beautiful and sexy and tastefully done,
and really stood out.
She was a little bit different
than your traditional playmates
because Hugh Hefner seemed to favor blondes.
And Victoria being of Italian descent was darker.
She was a brunette.
Nonetheless, she was an absolute stunner.
And there was just something about her
that was extra, extra cute.
[Meghan] The readers absolutely loved Victoria.
She became so popular
that she was asked to come back
as Playmate of the Year in 1968.
[Holly] Being chosen Playmate of the Year
was really exciting.
You were being chosen as the favorite
from among 12 stunning women.
It was always really something
that every playmate wanted.
In the '60s, the Playmate of the Year
would get a number of prizes,
but one of the prizes was always a car.
And the car would be painted a shade of pink
called Playmate Pink.
[Meghan] Victoria received a pink AMX,
which kind of rivaled the Corvette at the time.
It was a classic beauty just like her,
and she loved that car.
[upbeat music playing]
[Holly] Victoria was already a working actress
when she posed forPlayboy.
But after her centerfold came out
and after she got Playmate of the Year,
she just got more and more attention and bigger roles.
[Stella] She was very lucky
to be at the right place at the right time.
Roman Polanski was makingRosemary's Baby
and she got a part in the film.
[Tom] The role of the friend of Mia Farrow was vacant.
They meet in the laundry room.
Nice to meet you. I'm Rosemary Woodhouse.
We... We're new tenants here.
[Tom] Victoria was the Playmate in 1968 at the time,
but still under Angela Dorian.
AfterRosemary's Baby came out,
she reverted to Victoria Vetri.
Rosemary's Babywas of course
a huge international critical hit,
a box office smash for Roman Polanski
and she got a lot of publicity from that.
So 1968 was a really big year for Victoria.
At that time, Polanski
had been living with Sharon Tate.
Roman, Sharon.
-Hi. -Hi.
This is the very beautiful Sharon Tate.
I'm sure you've seen in films.
And Roman Polanski,
best known for his original film,
Knife in the Water,
which he wrote and directed
and he's also responsible
for Rosemary's Baby.
Sharon was on set every day
because she wanted to be there.
Sharon Tate was a beautiful girl.
She was a model.
She was the epitome of the '60s doe-eyes,
beautiful face, just a stunning girl.
[upbeat music playing]
[Stella] She was born in Texas.
She was an army brat.
Her father and mother were in the army.
I think her father was a colonel.
And when she was 16 they moved to Italy.
And she was, I believe in Verona.
And they shot a lot of films in Rome, Verona.
The word up was, "Oh, let's go watch them
make the movie."
And she met Jack Palance,
who was a very famous actor.
He was making a film
and he noticed her and he said,
"You know, you should probably get into acting,
you'd be great."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Stella] And they moved back to the United States.
She went to Hollywood and said,
"I wanna get an agent."
And she got an agent.
[Holly] Victoria Vetri and Sharon Tate
both appeared inPlayboy.
They became close friends and bonded over the fact
that they were both stunningly beautiful women
who were at that point usingPlayboy
as a stepping stone in their career.
Sharon Tate's Playboy pictorial,
it's one of my favorites because it's so unique,
it's so camp.
It's not the typical Playboypictorial at all,
but I love it. [laughs]
[Meghan] Roman Polanski
was the photographer for this shoot.
There are some very interesting photos.
One of them features Tate in a bubble bath,
scantily covered.
Other photos feature her face-to-face with a vampire.
An obvious nod to the movie they had just shot together,
The Fearless Vampire Killers.
[dramatic music playing]
[Meghan] Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski
were eventually married in 1968
and they were married at the London Playboy Club.
And then she became pregnant
and they decided to nest here in Los Angeles.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Meghan] Sharon Tate had a couple of her friends over,
Victoria was among those guests.
And this wasn't uncommon.
Victoria was at their home a lot.
And at this gathering, something odd happened.
Tate received a knock at the door
from a stranger.
[knocks on door]
[ominous music playing]
[Meghan] He had long, straggly hair,
a long beard.
You know, in some regards,
he looked a little bit disheveled.
He seemed a little bit scary.
And it was Victoria who said something to the effect of,
"This guy is creeping me out."
[tense music playing]
[Meghan] As it would turn out,
the man at the door was none other
than Charles Manson.
[intense music playing]
[ominous music playing]
I'm Sara Levine, I'm the co-host
of Not Another True Crime Podcast.
Charles Manson was kind of a hippie
running this group called The Family.
[Stella] Manson was living out on the Spahn Ranch
out in the valley,
and he had a lot of followers,
young girls, hippies.
They were living on a commune.
He was a charismatic person to them,
and he had them under his spell.
[Sara] He would target people that were very vulnerable
and just kind of speak to their vulnerabilities,
and he would just play on people's insecurities
and seduce them.
[intense music playing]
[Sara] Victoria said something to her friend to the effect
of, "This guy's a creep."
And she thought Manson overheard her,
and that must have angered him.
[ominous music playing]
[Holly] Tate was entertaining
a couple of guests at her home.
Victoria was invited to Sharon's house that night
but had been feeling sick earlier in the day
and decided not to go.
The Manson family members arrive up to the house
at 10050 Cielo Drive.
They park at the bottom of the hill
and begin walking up the driveway.
They cut the phone lines,
they made it impossible
for the people to call for help.
Manson told his tribe,
he called it his tribe,
he said,
"I want you to kill everybody that is there."
[ominous music playing]
[Stella] I mean, it was gruesome.
You can't even imagine
how horrible it must have been.
They strung up,
tied up Sharon
by the legs and the hands.
They slashed her to death, killed her baby.
I mean, it was so sick and so deranged.
[Sara] Sharon Tate, her good friend,
Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger,
Roman Polanski's childhood friend,
Wojciech Frykowski,
they are all brutally killed
by the Manson Family.
I think if any murder is evil, it's this one.
I mean, they targeted complete strangers
who they didn't know, killed a woman
who was eight and a half months pregnant
in the most absolutely gruesome way possible.
Do we have any solid leads?
It's anyone's guess, of course, at this point.
Two days later,
Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary,
were brutally killed
by members of the Manson Family.
[reporter] The Los Angeles Police Department
have seven people who are dead,
and they have no solid suspects.
The Manson Murders were truly graphic and horrifying,
and of course, the fact that there was
an up-and-coming actress who was extremely beautiful
and appeared inPlayboy at the center of it,
garners a lot of attention.
[Meghan] When Victoria found out about these murders,
she was absolutely horrified.
She was supposed to be there that evening,
so she realized that she could have
easily been one of the victims.
[Holly] It was very scary.
Everybody in Hollywood was on alert.
Everybody was getting guard dogs
and alarm systems,
everybody was scared.
[tense music playing]
[man] Today, warrants have been issued
for the arrest of three individuals
in connection with the murders on Cielo Drive
in West Los Angeles.
The named suspects and others
lived at the Spahn Movie Ranch.
[Sara] The Manson Family members got caught
because members of the family
were stealing cars.
There was a raid on Spahn Ranch.
Charles Manson, Tex Watson,
Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel,
and Susan Atkins,
they were arrested in this raid
related to auto theft.
And while in prison,
Susan Atkins started confessing
to a few of the people
that she knew in prison
that she had committed the murders
and how they committed the murders.
People were feeling huge amounts of relief
when Manson was arrested.
Los Angeles and even other parts of the country
had been on edge for months.
[Meghan] Charles Manson was unique
and that most people dub him a serial killer,
but the fact he never killed anyone.
He commanded others to do so.
[Holly] I thinkPlayboy would generally keep itself
far away from a story like this
and not weigh in or not comment on.
It's not really the type of attention
they're looking to attract.
[Stella] Everybody in Hollywood,
everybody that ran on that circle
were terrified.
It really changed the culture.
After that murder,
there was no more hippie-trippy love,
it was really the end of the '60s
in so many ways.
Everyone started buying guns
because they thought, "My God,
they could come to my house
and it could happen to me."
[Meghan] Victoria Vetri was so afraid of Charles Manson
and his followers.
She remembered those words that she had uttered,
that this guy had creeped her out,
and Victoria was concerned
that the reason her friends were murdered
was revenge.
She thought that the people who murdered her friends
were out to get her.
So she lived in a constant state of fear.
[Sara] Even after Manson's arrest,
Victoria did not feel safe.
She was worried that Manson
or one of his followers would come after her.
[Holly] According to Victoria, not long after the murders,
Roman Polanski gave her a gun
so she could feel like she could protect herself.
She was a recognizable actress,
a former Playmate of the Year,
and easily felt like she could be the next target.
[dramatic music playing]
[Holly] The Manson murders really shook Victoria.
She didn't work for a while, she had a lot of paranoia
about possibly being the next to be attacked.
It affected her very deeply.
[Meghan] Victoria's career, while once thriving,
really stalled.
It was likely because of this fear that she had of Manson,
and the PTSD that she suffered.
Victoria did start to work again
but she found the role she was getting cast for
were more and more the type of sexy roles
compared to what she'd been in before she posed for Playboy.
[narrator] When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth.
[screaming]
They thought of her like a sex symbol,
which is why she was offered and accepted
When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth.
She's a blonde cave girl of a blonde tribe
where they're dominated by the dark-haired people,
and she was supposed to be sacrificed.
When a woman poses forPlayboy,
it's always a risk
because yes, you're getting all this exposure
but also you risk being seen as just that naked girl.
Not everybody is going to take you seriously.
It must have been really frustrating for Victoria.
AfterWhen Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth,
she had the lead roles in two, uh, B movies.
One was called Invasion of the Bee Girls,
about these women who are basically,
uh, bees and they have sex with men and kill them.
And then she was in another B movie
calledGroup Marriage,
which was a sex romp about,
you know, open marriages at the time.
And then she sort of just did a couple more TV things.
In the 1975, she stopped acting
and just faded away.
[dramatic music playing]
[Meghan] Victoria's kind of retired at this point.
That being said, she would get a very big opportunity.
In fact, Playboy would come back into her life.
In 1984, Victoria was invited to participate
in a special edition
called "Playmates Forever! Part Two."
This is really a compilation of the top Playmates
throughout all time.
After being out of the public eye for, like,
nine years, she was coaxed by Playboy
to do another pictorial for them.
[upbeat music playing]
[camera shutter clicking]
[Holly] Victoria was thrilled to pose again forPlayboy.
Not only was it validation,
but she also looked stunning and, you know,
it made her feel like she still had that magic.
After that new pictorial, Victoria was named
one of the Top 100 Centerfolds Of All Time.
The special edition was something that you had
to get voted into, so it's probably just
reinforced the fact that the readers
really loved Victoria.
It must have been really exciting for Victoria,
that must have felt really validating, you know,
amongst all these beautiful women,
you're chosen as one of the top.
Unfortunately, the tragedy of Sharon Tate
and the murders always loomed over Victoria.
She was haunted for the rest of her life.
After Playmates Forever,
Victoria's career dropped off again.
Victoria took a job waitressing at a cafe,
and this marks a different time in her life.
[Bob] Bruce Rathgeb met Victoria
when they were working together
at a restaurant in Los Angeles.
So that's where their relationship starts.
[Meghan] Bruce was a chef and part-time musician.
The two became a hot item pretty quickly.
And they began a romance,
and I believe within a couple of years, they were married.
[man] Victoria [indistinct] this man to be [indistinct]
In 1987, the pair would marry
at Bruce's father's home in La Jolla, California.
You can see a video of the wedding.
They're cutting the cake, they're smiling,
they're laughing.
They look really happy.
She had this wonderful relationship that blossomed.
-[Bruce] Come here. -[woman] [indistinct] Bruce.
Looking back at that video,
that happy couple that was smiling, beaming...
-[woman] Plastered it in. -[Bruce] Well, wait, wait.
-[man] Look up and smile. -[camera shutter clicks]
[Meghan] However, Victoria Vetri
never could leave the Manson Family murders behind.
She couldn't really move beyond her feelings
about the crime and the trauma.
She lived in a state of perpetual fear.
[tense music playing]
[police siren blares]
[Bob] There's a lot of chaos at a scene like this.
You have a shooting, shots fired, victim down.
You have the paramedics
providing life-saving treatment,
but law enforcement has the role
to gather as much information
that you can about what happened.
At this point, the police are canvassing
the apartment building, speaking to the neighbors.
None of the neighbors saw what happened,
they were all heard only,
heard signs of a struggle, heard a lot of movement,
a lot of loud noises, and then a loud pop.
[gunshot]
[tense music playing]
The neighbor heard a lot noise which resembled a gunshot,
and then he came outside and saw Bruce Rathgeb
lying on the floor with a gunshot wound to his chest.
[tense music playing]
They see Bruce laying in a pool of his own blood,
obviously in a very weakened state,
barely conscious.
[Bob] Bruce was still alive.
Paramedics transported Bruce
to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
[ambulance siren blaring]
[tense music playing]
This could be a potential homicide,
and they began to work the case
while maintaining status of the victim
as he's going through medical treatment at the hospital.
[dramatic music playing]
[Meghan] At this point, the police enter
Victoria and Bruce's shared apartment.
[Bob] It did have signs of a struggle.
Things had been pushed over and knocked over.
They have a limited amount of information.
They don't know what they're gonna find.
What they come to realize pretty quickly
is that none other than 66-year-old,
Victoria Vetri is standing right before them.
[dramatic music playing]
[siren wails]
[Bob] The detectives are focused on getting good,
solid information from the witnesses.
Victoria was able to provide a statement.
"What did you hear? What did you see?"
Victoria gives a statement
about what happened, that a drug dealer
by the name of Lee had shot Mr. Rathgeb
because Mr. Rathgeb had owed the drug dealer money.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bob] When you come to a scene like this
for the officers that are responding,
you've got an immediate statement that says
that there's a drug dealer involved
and it's a drug-related shooting.
And a good detective doesn't lock in
on the easiest path through the investigation.
They're gonna follow every lead they can
to gather as much evidence.
[John] When police are examining
where Mr. Rathgeb is found on the ground,
they find of what appears to be a bindle
containing a white powdery substance
resembling methamphetamine,
and they find a .38 caliber shell casing.
Victoria says that Bruce was actually headed
to get money out of her account
to pay this guy back,
and this is when Bruce was shot in the hallway.
[gunshot]
[dramatic music playing]
[John] At that point in time, Bruce is still unconscious.
He's intubated, he's on a ventilator.
Bruce's injuries are quite severe,
and at this point, it's not clear if he's gonna survive.
In the mindset
of the detectives at the scene,
they're treating it as if it's a homicide.
[dramatic music playing]
Victoria gives the police the address
of the supposed drug dealer,
and police officers head out immediately
to go question this man.
[dramatic music playing]
They did locate and identify the drug dealer
that Victoria had said was the shooter.
He cooperated and went to the station
to provide a statement.
So he said he knew him
and he could explain the relationship.
He provided a... An alibi
with witnesses on where he was,
and they verified that his alibi
was, uh, solid.
The detectives didn't feel that they needed to go
further down, uh, the road of looking into him.
So at this point now, Victoria is a suspect.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bob] Detectives go back to Victoria.
Victoria was transported to the station
and she's in a holding tank.
Then she started in with another story.
[dramatic music playing]
She's telling them about her life with Bruce.
[Bob] They'd been married, uh, over 20 years.
She, uh, had a history in the entertainment world
that she was a former Playboy model
and a former TV star,
and that he was a musician,
but they had on and off against struggles
with addiction and money issues.
[Meghan] Victoria carried with her
a tremendous fear of Manson.
She was debilitated in many ways.
She tells detectives
that they had a very good relationship,
a strong relationship, until around the year 2000.
And that's when drug use began to interfere
with their dynamic in their relationship.
This was a former Hollywood superstar,
but at this time in their lives,
they were just another couple
struggling with substance abuse issues.
Essentially what Victoria has to say
is that she's broke.
[dramatic music playing]
Victoria was gifted a, uh, AMX vintage,
uh, car by Hugh Hefner,
and unfortunately, she was in financial ruins.
Um, she felt it necessary to sell this vehicle.
[Meghan] She's down to her last $800,
and they're living off of social security
at this point.
Her marriage was breaking down.
She was in dire financial straits.
[Holly] Being Hollywood as a woman can be tough.
In fact, so many playmates
die from drug overdoses and suicide.
So something about that lifestyle
can easily feed into substance abuse issues.
If you look into Playmates and Bunnies,
the casualty rate for mental health
and drug addiction and alcoholism
is one of the highest of any job in the world.
It was horrible.
And that's what happened in Victoria.
[dramatic music playing]
[Meghan] Victoria is pretty clear
that she blames Bruce for their financial problems.
Victoria says that they had split up
and Bruce had left the home,
but he came back in an effort to reconcile.
However, things didn't quite go that well.
The pair have a couple of drinks,
but unfortunately, after a couple of drinks...
-[Victoria] It's over. -[Bruce] It was over.
[Victoria] Everything is over.
Things get ugly quickly.
-[Bruce] What about my life? -[Victoria] Everything--
This is when Bruce started damaging some of her items.
[Victoria] Get out of here. Stop it.
-[Bruce] I will. Don't hit me. -[Victoria] Stop it!
She starts describing that, uh, Bruce had torn up
herPlayboy magazines
and they were arguing over money.
She admitted that he had said he was leaving
and he was going to the elevator,
and, uh, she wanted to have no more of this,
and she just shot him.
[gunshot]
[dramatic music playing]
[Holly] When the news broke in 2010
that Victoria had shot her husband,
it was very shocking.
You're always surprised to hear
that a Playmate of the Year
was involved in something like that.
It's a little bit of a cautionary tale.
Just making it in Hollywood doesn't solve every problem.
It doesn't make every relationship perfect.
It just doesn't match up with the dreams of what,
you know, having a life in Hollywood
or being a pin-up model means to most people.
[phone rings]
[Bob] She had admitted to doing it.
The next thing is, "Where's this gun?"
So, they asked her and she said
the gun was in the apartment in a box,
and they received her written consent
to go back into the apartment to recover the evidence.
A Walther PPK .380 auto pistol.
[Holly] There's an irony to this shooting and the gun,
because this was the very gun Roman Polanski
gave her in 1969 in order for her to defend herself
against Charles Manson and his followers,
and it's this very gun
that she uses to shoot her husband.
Some of the neighbors report
that after Victoria shot Bruce,
and just before she walks away,
she says to Bruce, "No more Charlie.
No more Charlie."
It appeared that Victoria may have been confusing Bruce
with Charles Manson.
She thought that Charles Manson,
the people who murdered her friends
were out to get her.
She believed that she would be targeted at some point.
Victoria never really got over the murder
of her friend Sharon Tate, and unfortunately,
that ended up setting the stage
for another brutal crime.
[Meghan] In a way, you might argue that Manson
is almost responsible for the shooting of Bruce.
It was Manson's actions that seemed
to have precipitated lifelong tragedy,
trauma, and fear in Victoria Vetri.
She was so, either far gone mentally,
and there were so many triggers with her life
and what happened to her,
and her journey and the Playboy lifestyle.
For whatever reason, and I don't understand it,
she tried to kill her husband.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bob] The primary detective now, uh, goes back
to the hospital to try to follow-up
and do an interview with Bruce.
He's lucky to be alive.
3 inches closer to the center
of his chest and he'd be dead.
[Meghan] The detectives asked Bruce
about his relationship with Victoria.
According to Bruce, he felt that Victoria
was experiencing mental health issues,
and that she was kind of paranoid
about him cheating on her,
and she was constantly accusing him,
even though he says that he was always loyal.
Unfortunately, when the pair sat down together
and tried to work things out, they began arguing again,
and it escalated to something much more serious.
[Victoria] Don't you dare walk away from me.
You stop right now!
[Meghan] The trauma of her past,
the trauma of that moment...
Stop!
all of these factors may have just produced
a delusion that she was being harmed
or that she was about to be harmed by Charles Manson.
[dramatic music playing]
[Meghan] At this time, Victoria was facing
25 years in prison for the attempted murder.
Essentially, Victoria pleads guilty
to attempted voluntary manslaughter
and receives a sentence of nine years in prison.
Some might think that nine years was kind
of a light prison sentence for an attempted murder.
The court considered Victoria's mental health
when they delivered the sentence.
When you think about the story
of Victoria and Bruce
and from where they came,
and especially, where she was,
and the substance abuse and the mental health
resulting in her, eventually, shooting him
there in the hallway, um, you have it all.
And then, when it falls from your grasp, it...
It's sad to see how a life can unravel.
Victoria's story is really a crazy Hollywood tale.
You start out with a stunning working actress.
Poses forPlayboy,
gets chosen Playmate of the Year,
becomes best friends with one of the most famous actresses,
now, who sadly was killed by the Manson family,
and then, to later have a tragedy happen,
you know, between her and her husband.
[Meghan] This case is a tragedy all round.
You have someone who was shot.
He almost lost his life.
But you also have a woman who lived her life in fear.
She lived under the shadow of an event
that she simply could not escape.
[dramatic music playing]
[Meghan] Victoria and Bruce would ultimately divorce
while Victoria was still in prison.
Victoria was released from prison in 2019
and she moved to Arizona.
She wanted to put the whole incident behind her
and start a new chapter in her life.
Victoria was able to track down the person
who purchased that pink car from her.
[Holly] After everything that happened,
Victoria's been given a second chance.
Victoria was reunited with her pink
Playmate of the Year car
and makes appearces at car shows with it.
I'm not a spring chicken. I just had a birthday
and I'm... I think I'm in my 70s now, 74.
I think it's nice that Victoria's
getting a fresh start in life
and making positive changes
and enjoying doing the car shows
with her Playmate of the Year car.
You feel like you share a sisterhood
with these other women who have posed
for the magazine, feels close to home.
Then you want everybody to have that happy ending.
[dramatic music playing]
Barbie was tall. She was thin.
Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse.
For bunnies, there is no real protection
when they are not working.
The murder was a humongous sensation.
A good segment of the population believes cover-ups did occur.
Then the question was "Who did this?"