Editing Dorothy Stratten (section)

==Murder==
[[File:Dorothy Stratten grave at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Brentwood, California.JPG|thumb|Dorothy Stratten's grave]]
On August 13, 1980 {{ndash}} the second anniversary of Stratten's first arrival in Los Angeles{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=242}} {{ndash}} Snider bought a used [[gauge (firearms)|12-gauge]], [[pump-action shotgun]] from a private seller he found in a local classified ad.<ref name="carpenter"/>{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=232}} Later that evening in a conversation with friends, Snider described how he had purchased a gun that day and finished his story by declaring that he was "going to take up hunting."{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=232}} Snider casually brought up the subject of Playmates who had unexpectedly died; in particular, he spoke of [[Claudia Jennings]], an actress and former Playmate of the Year who had been killed in a car accident the year before.<ref name="timelife">{{cite book |chapter=L.A. Story|title = Death and Celebrity|url= https://archive.org/details/deathcelebrity00time|url-access= registration|series = True Crime| location = Alexandria, VA| publisher = Time-Life Books| date = 1993| isbn = 0-7835-0026-2| page =42}}</ref>{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=232}} Snider made several morbid remarks to his companions related to the problems at ''Playboy'' magazine caused by Jennings' death, including a comment about how the editors would pull nude photos of a dead Playmate from the next issue if there was time.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=232}}<ref name="timelife"/>

Stratten arrived for her meeting with Snider at his rented West Los Angeles house at approximately noon on Thursday, August 14.<ref name="carpenter"/>{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=216}} She had spent the morning conferring with her business manager, and one of the topics the pair discussed was the amount of the property settlement Stratten would offer her estranged husband that afternoon.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|pp=232-3}} The police later found $1,100 in cash among Stratten's belongings in the house, which she had apparently brought for Snider as a down payment.<ref name="carpenter"/> Towards the end of her morning meeting, Stratten's business manager made an observation: that his young client could avoid spending any more time with Snider by handing off the remaining separation and divorce negotiations to her lawyer. Stratten replied that the process would go easier if she dealt with Snider personally, explaining that he was being nice about everything and finally adding, "I'd like to remain his friend."{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=233}} 
 	
Snider's two roommates had left in the morning, so the couple was alone when Stratten stepped into the house that she had shared with her husband until just a few months earlier.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=233}}{{sfn|Bogdanovich|1984|p=151}} By all appearances, Stratten had spent some time in the living room, where her purse was found lying open, before she and Snider went into his bedroom.<ref name="yule">
{{cite book |last = Yule|first = Andrew|title= Picture Shows: The Life and Films of Peter Bogdanovich|location= New York, NY |publisher= Limelight Editions|date = 1992|isbn = 0-87910-153-9|page =164|url= https://archive.org/details/pictureshowslife00yule/page/164|url-access = registration}}</ref>

By 8:00 that evening, both of the roommates had returned to the house.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=234}} They saw Stratten's car parked out front and noted that Snider's bedroom door was closed.<ref name="carpenter"/> Assuming that the couple had reconciled and wanted their privacy, the roommates spent the next several hours watching television in the living room.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|pp=233-4}}

Alerted by Snider's private detective who phoned expressing concern after not hearing from Snider all day, the roommates entered the bedroom shortly after 11:00 P.M. and discovered the bodies of Stratten and Snider.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=234}} Each had been killed by a single blast from Snider's shotgun. Both bodies were nude.<ref name="carpenter"/> According to the police timeline and from the forensic evidence collected at the crime scene, Snider had shot Stratten that afternoon within an hour of her arrival at the house, then committed suicide approximately one hour after the murder.{{sfn|Bogdanovich|1984|p=3}}

Some time after midnight in the early morning of August 15, the private detective telephoned the Playboy Mansion and told Hefner that Stratten had been murdered. Hefner then called Bogdanovich.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|pp=234, 236}} After collapsing at the news, Bogdanovich was sedated.{{sfn|Yule|1992|pp=162, 165}} Stratten's mother was told of her daughter's death at her Vancouver-area home later that morning by an officer of the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police]].{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=242}}

Stratten's body was cremated and the remains interred at the [[Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery|Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery]] in Los Angeles.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=246}} The epitaph on Stratten's grave marker includes a passage, chosen by Bogdanovich, from Chapter 34 of the Ernest Hemingway novel ''[[A Farewell to Arms]]''.{{sfn|Rhodes|1981|p=248}} Three years after the murder, the author's granddaughter, [[Mariel Hemingway]], played Stratten in ''Star 80'', the [[Bob Fosse]] biopic about the doomed Playmate and her husband. Bogdanovich was interred next to her remains following his death in 2022.