Laurie "Bambi" Bembenek (PICTURE): Playboy Model Convicted of Murder Dies in Ore.

MILWAUKEE (CBS/AP) Playboy Club model Laurie Bembenek, who gained national notoriety after she was convicted of murder and then escaped from prison, has died in Oregon.

Bembenek, who was also a former Milwaukee Police officer, was convicted in 1982 of fatally shooting her police detective husband's ex-wife Christine Schultz and sentenced to life in prison. She escaped in 1990 and fled to Canada, where she requested refugee status.

Supporters cheered her flight, selling "Run Bambi Run" T-shirts and bumper stickers.

Bembenek was returned to Wisconsin, but was later released after pleading no contest to second-degree murder in a new trial. Her story was made into a TV movie starring Tatum O'Neal.

Bembenek's attorney Mary Woehrer says she died Saturday at a hospice care center in Portland, Ore. Woehrer says the cause of death was liver failure.

She was 52-years-old.