The Playboy Murders

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.

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.

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.

You have it all

and then when it falls from your grasp,

it's sad to see how a life can unravel.

On Saturday, October 16th, 2010,

Los Angeles Police Department

received multiple 911 calls

describing a shooting in progress

with a victim down.

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.

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.

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.

She'd started in 1962.

For some reason she didn't think

her name was Movie Marquee

and she changed it to Angela Dorian.

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.

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.

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.

The magazine became more than a magazine.

The magazine became a kind of a handbook

for a whole way of life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The readers absolutely loved Victoria.

She became so popular

that she was asked to come back

as Playmate of the Year in 1968.

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.