A woman would do literally anything to be in Playboy.
Jill Ann Spaulding was an aspiring Playboymodel.
She had blonde hair, blue eyes, big boobs.
[Clark] Jill Ann was extremely focused about her goal,
that her dream was, "I am gonna be in Playboy."
I think there definitely can be a dark side to the Playboy Mansion.
[Supersonic] I don't know if anybody else ever really
stepped up to the plate like Jill did
and, you know, spilled the beans
and told everybody what was going on there.
[Madison] For me that felt
like something along the lines of revenge porn.
[Heinrichs] I don't think Jill Ann knew
exactly what she was getting herself into
when she was pursuing this dream.
It was really the moment where the veil lifted.
This is what happens when no one is watching
and when all the party goers go home.
I was assigned
to the homicide investigation unit in Mesa.
[phone ringing]
We received a phone call from our sergeant
telling us that we had a homicide investigation.
Mesa is a tight-knit community.
Everyone knows their neighbors.
Everyone knows who should be in the area,
who shouldn't be in the area.
As I was driving up,
in my head I'm thinking, "There's no way
that there was homicide here."
This had to be an accidental death or something
because it was just too nice
and too pretty of a location.
[indistinct conversation on radio]
[Haynes] When we get to the scene
it's sectioned off with crime scene tape.
When you walk in the front door,
there was a kitchen.
It's kind of like one of those galley kitchens
you can see out in to the dining room.
And so, when you come around the corner
and you're at the dining room table,
you can see there's a male subject
that's on the floor face down.
Then there's another man that was on their back.
When they are clearing the residence,
as they go and come down the hallway
we find a female subject
lying in the bathroom
clearly had been shot.
It appeared as though she was probably standing at the mirror
when she was shot and she fell
because she was at an unnatural angle
but she was on her back, so you could see her face.
She was a petite, pretty girl.
I then spoke with the family
and that's when I learned that she was aPlayboy model.
We just have to figure out why did it happen.
Playboywas definitely in flux
around the late '90s, early 2000s.
Hef had just got out of a long-term marriage
and was dating multiple women
and going out all the time
and getting all this publicity.
I was one of Hef's girlfriends of the time.
I had not even been there a full year yet.
So, I was still feeling very new.
My close friend Bridget had just started coming out with us
so we were just meeting each other.
So, it was all kind of still a whirlwind to me.
When Hef first started dating
there was three girls,
and then it turned to seven girlfriends.
I was part of the seven,
and then while I was there
it went from seven down to three,
and then the three of us were part of a show called The Girls Next Door.
-[knock at door] -Bridget?
[Madison] Bridget is one of my best friends ever
and my favorite thing about her
is she gets super excited
and it's just fun to have people like that around.
[Marquadt] Playboy is something that I always wanted to do.
My dad used to get the magazine
and I would thumb through and think,
"Oh, my gosh, I wanna look just like those girls."
I think what made Hef so special is just what he built.
The empire that he built, the magazine.
To be a Playboymodel, it was like a coveted title.
It was glamorous.
It was beautiful.
And it was this title that kind of gave you a stepping stone
to do bigger things in life.
[Madison] I would say there's two different categories of women
who would become Playmates.
There would be the one category
that maybe they were scouted
or somebody saw them and thought,
"Oh, you'd be great in the magazine."
Or the women who are fans of the magazine
and really wanted to be in it.
And there was no bigger fan ofPlayboy than Jill Ann Spaulding.
She was a huge fan of the magazine
and the Playmates who were in it
and she really wanted to be one of them.
Jill Ann Spaulding was born in April 1970, in Phoenix, Arizona.
Jill Ann's parents were extremely liberal.
Her grandfather was actually a collector of Playboy,
and so she really grew up
knowing that there was no shame
in a woman's body.
Jill Ann really became driven to start her own Playboycollection.
All of these women were real idols,
and sort of the paradigms of glamor for Jill.
[Marquadt] I think that when Jill Ann saw the magazines,
she saw beautiful, glamorous women who were put on a pedestal,
who had this amazing coveted title of being Playmate,
or inPlayboy magazine,
and it was a very coveted thing to want to do.
[Tryon] I believe Jill lovedPlayboy
because she just thought it was classy
and displayed the beauty of a woman's body.
After high school Jill moved out of her house
and started her pursuit on her modeling.
She wanted to be aPlayboy model.
Jill was very beautiful.
Very skinny, big boobs.
I guess you have to have that to be inPlayboy.
She had a laugh.
I mean her laugh just put a smile on my face.
[Heinrichs] There's no question that she really wanted more.
She wanted glamor, she wanted fame.
She wanted to be someone who was known to people.
Shortly after Jill leaves home,
she meets Bruce Gifford
and she's 21 years old at the time.
They meet in a bar on Valentine's Day
and he's 22 years older than her.
[Tryon] Jill told me about Bruce,
her boyfriend, on the phone.
She just was saying that she met somebody,
and so, it wasn't until later that I realized how old he was.
[Supersonic] Bruce was pretty amazing.
He was very calm and levelheaded.
I never saw him lose his cool.
He was like this good-looking guy,
and he was just there.
[Tryon] Bruce encouraged Jill to get
all these plastic surgeries
and liposuction and boob job.
[Heinrichs] Obviously this caused some contention
for Jill and her family.
Her father was not thrilled.
All of that contention really drove them closer to each other.
Jill Ann often recalls that Bruce would refer to her as his princess.
Was he a steadfast supporter
or was this a control thing for Bruce
to be her shadow in so many ways?
I met Jill Ann in the early 2000s.
She called me up to ask me to help her train.
She wanted to get ready
for a potential model shoot,
and she wanted to get in the best shape of her life.
Jill Ann was extremely focused about her goal,
that her dream was, "I am gonna be in Playboy."
And she wouldn't say, "Hey, I want to,"
she said, "I am going to be inPlayboy."
And those words always stuck out,
because like, for people who have goals and dreams,
she was already in her mind realizing it.
So, I go over there and I was immediately uncomfortable at her house.
She's wearing short shorts
and a little t-tank top, half shirt with no bra,
and then she's like, "Let's go upstairs to my bedroom."
And I am like, "Okay, that's awkward."
Now, Bruce is with us,
we're working out in her bedroom
which is already a lot to me.
I mean the whole first month
was like a whirlwind of dynamics
of me working out Jill Ann in her bedroom
with her boyfriend sitting there on the bed.
Bruce was just support structure
for Jill Ann.
And I think Bruce recognized right away,
"Hey I just need to stand back and let her do her thing
and we'll be super successful."
[Madison] Over the next few years,
Jill continued to model locally.
To supplement her income
she became a professional poker player,
and she and Bruce also started buying
investment properties around Arizona,
but throughout this whole time
she still had her eyes on the prize.
She still really wanted to be a Playmate.
Jill's drive came from her heart,
from her passion, from everything.
Every inch of being what she wanted to do she was gonna do,
and uh, that's the way she got things accomplished.
So, at 30 years old, Jill Ann decides
she wants to pursue Playboyfull force.
Ultimately it was because she had built confidence.
She had, you know, a team of people who were really behind her
saying, "This is a dream that you can make real."
On December seventh, 2000,
Jill Ann has her first test shoot with Playboy.
[Marquadt] Just a test for Playmate,
there are different ways of doing that,
sometimes they had photoshoots where they were mobile.
There were days that you could go to Santa Monica
and get up nude photoshoots on really quick.
I know Jill mentioned that she did that.
[Clark] I do remember Jill Ann had a test shoot.
The results weren't great.
[Heinrichs] She gets a rejection letter fromPlayboy
saying that, 'Now is not your time."
That letter nailed home the fact that
this is, you know, not an overnight path to fame
and being someone who doesn't do anything less than a 110%,
reads the letter, feels down for a moment,
and then decides, "I'm gonna keep trying."
One of the interesting things about Jill Ann was she was this poker player.
It was interesting to me when we were training,
I would see books on her bed and she's studying poker moves
and she was reading books on poker.
In May 2001, Jill Ann graces the cover of Poker Digest
and the headline is, "Poker's Wonder Girl."
Jill Ann decides that she's going to submit
photos to Playboy.com
fresh of this Poker Digestcover win.
In the 2000s there would generally be
about three different pictorials in each issue of Playboy.
There would be the Playmate of the Month,
which was the centerfold.
There will be a celebrity pictorial
which was typically what was on the cover.
But there'd also be another pictorial
and that would usually be about women
or one woman who had something interesting about them.
Whether it was a unique job
or maybe they were from the military,
maybe they were a police officer or something like that.
I think Jill realized that if she wasn't fitting the mold of a centerfold,
she could get in by having an interesting story
and in the early 2000s
poker was really, really trendy,
and they jumped at the opportunity to photograph her.
[Allocca] Jill Ann Spaulding was created
to go intoPlayboy magazine.
She had the body that Playboy
would like to show,
and I am sure every American man
would like to look at.
[Heinrichs] To Jill Ann Playboy was this utopia
where women were empowered to get what they need,
but fantasy and reality
are two vastly different things.
[Madison] Playboy expanded
in the late '90s to the Internet
and they have Playboy.com
and they needed, of course,
a lot more content for the website
than they did for the magazine.
Jill ended up doing a pictorial for Playboy.com,
and it was featured on the website.
[Marquadt] Being on Playboy.com
is definitely an accomplishment,
but Jill still wanted more,
and she still wanted to be at the Mansion
and she was still pushing.
She wasn't gonna stop at Playboy.com.
Hugh Hefner was an icon to many people.
That very first time you meet Hef
and he's in his robe and smoking jacket,
it just feels surreal, like, is this really happening?
[Clark] To most males, he's probably
one of those powerful people in the world.
He has money.
He has a beautiful house.
He has beautiful women all around him.
If there's some dreamlife for some kid growing up, I think this is it.
Jill Ann decides to write a letter
to the man himself, Hugh Hefner.
[Marquadt] Jill sends a letter to Hef,
with a, I believe it was a nude photo of herself in it,
and he did respond,
and he told her that she could come to the Mansion.
[Madison] When I first knew that Jill was gonna be coming out with us,
it was because Hef in his room
would have this, like, wooden box
and in it would be pictures of the women
that were coming to the Mansion at any given time.
There will be a picture and a little note card, paper clipped to the picture
that would tell him, like the name and where she was from.
[Heinrichs] That April 2002,
Jill Ann arrives at the Mansion,
and she's so thrilled but ultimately learns that
there's a strict no husband, or boyfriend policy.
[Madison] Playmates andPlayboy models were almost never allowed
to bring boyfriends or husbands
unless they happen to be married to somebody famous
or Hef knew them really, really well.
[Heinrichs] So, of course Bruce has to drop her off at the Mansion.
[Clark] I'm sure Bruce is going,
"Why is she with me? I'm 22 years older,"
then all the beautiful people going to the Playboy Mansion.
I can imagine that would play on anybody's psyche
and so I'm sure Bruce felt
a lot of insecurity around that.
So, Jill Ann is just this flurry of emotions.
This is what she has been working for,
for a very long time now.
She wanted to be in that space
and there she was finally in it
but going into it alone.
[Madison] Jill was a hugePlayboy fan.
She had a huge Playboycollection.
I'd been a fan of the magazines,
so when you finally get to step on the property
and see all the Playmates
and meet Hef it's really, really exciting.
[Marquadt] ThePlayboy parties in the early 2000s
were so incredible.
They were super exclusive.
A-list celebrities were there.
It was just everybody put
everything into, into their outfits.
The decorations and the ambience,
you just can't even believe you are in there.
You feel like you have been transported into, like, a fairy world.
[Heinrichs] Jill Ann makes couple of meaningful connections
with some of the models.
She makes it clear, "I wanna be a part of this space."
So, a few months after the party
in June, Jill Ann is invited
to spend a couple of days at the Mansion.
I think the unique dynamic of Bruce and Jill Ann was that he was always there.
I could imagine the dynamic of
her being gone
at the Mansion and boyfriends,
from a couple they were together all the time
to all of a sudden a separation
of no boyfriends at Mansion, Jill's there, Bruce is here.
I can't imagine he dealt with that well
because that was very different
from the way they lived.
[Madison] Jill was very confident.
You could tell she definitely had the eyes on the prize.
That she knew what she wanted.
She was very friendly and talkative.
She was very complimentary.
She was outgoing to the point where
I remember I was taking a shower after a night out
and all of a sudden the door of the shower opens
and she pops her head and she's like,
"I just wanna tell you you're really beautiful."
Which was sweet and everything but I was kind of like,
I am very introverted, so, I was kinda like, "Wow, what's happening?"
Unfortunately Jill Ann happened to walk in
at the very worst time when we were talking about hostility,
and females being competitive against one another.
[Marquadt] At that time there were seven girlfriends who didn't really get along,
and so there was like, uh, different factions.
There was Holly and I and a couple other girls
and then what we called "the Mean Girls."
[Madison] Throughout my time atPlayboy,
I've made tons of really close friends
and had really positive times with other women
but there was something about the years,
like, 2002, 2003,
right after I moved in,
it was just really, really, toxic.
[Marquadt] When I first met Jill Ann it was at the Playboy Mansion
and it was in the Great Hall.
Everybody is very curious when they get there.
But Jill Ann had a lot more questions than the normal person.
It was like, asking about everything, from meals and ordering
and relationships with staff.
Just like, so many questions,
that you started to feel uncomfortable,
like, "Why is this person asking so much stuff?"
She was also very much with her camera
trying to take pictures of every little thing.
Even things that we felt uncomfortable about.
It almost like the press was trying to infiltrate.
[Madison] I know she was very talkative and nice
and asking a lot of questions
and I could tell some of the girls in the group
felt very put off by all the questions she was asking.
A fixture of Jill Ann's stay at the Mansion
was a night out with all of the women
living at the Mansion at that time.
There's a limo, there's champagne bottles popping in the limo.
It's exactly what Jill Ann thinks it's going to be,
up until the point where they attend a club.
Jill Ann learned quickly that you are not to engage
or even look at another man outside of the circle.
You are to give Hef your full attention.
He was extremely controlling,
and had a lot of expectations for these women.
Another expectation was,
"When we are get home
you are all heading up to my bedroom for sex."
[Marquadt] I think there definitely
can be a dark side to the Playboy Mansion.
There is the whole bedroom routine
and that is not for everybody,
and you may or may not be okay with that.
[Madison] Hef expected all his girlfriends
and whatever other girls he could find
at nightclubs or wherever
to join him in the bedroom a couple of nights a week.
But if you're new to the situation,
whether you want to be a girlfriend
or want to be a Playmate or whatever
you don't know what exactly goes on in the bedroom
or what's expected of you, that's never explained.
[Heinrichs] I don't think Jill Ann knew
exactly what she was getting herself into
when she was pursuing this dream.
Jill Ann was by no means...
a dummy.
The problem was Playboy had posited itself
as this positive brand for women.
It had posited itself as a means for women to achieve what Jill wanted
which was financial freedom and independence,
and a place where she could have fun,
and live her life and feel beautiful.
It was really the moment
where the veil lifted for Jill Ann.
This is what happens when no one is watching
and when all the partygoers go home.
We had a very clockwork schedule
at the Mansion around that time.
Everything was the same every week.
Sundays, during the day,
before buffet dinner and a movie,
would be fun in the sun,
so we would all be outside laying by the pool.
Every Wednesday we went out to a nightclub.
Thursday we would go out to dinner usually.
Friday we would go out to a nightclub.
[Marquadt] At the end of a club night,
if you come up to the bedroom with everybody,
there is a certain level of expectation
that you are agreeing to participate.
There is no forced participation or anything like that.
But it's very frowned upon
to be up there and just spectate.
Hefner is really starting to pay attention to Jill Ann.
And he's telling other women in the group,
"I want to have sex with Jill Ann tonight."
And so that expectation is now there.
In her mind, Jill Ann is truly worried that
there's a reality in which she refuses sex with Hefner
and he would force her
that she would be raped, essentially.
And all of these other women would be participants in that.
This is not what she had in mind at all.
She's thinking of, you know,
Bruce's reaction to all of this.
[Clark] She drew a line in the sand,
and Jill Ann said, "This is my line,
and I'm not gonna cross it."
They said, "Well, if you're gonna be here,
you need to erase that line and move it over here."
And she's like, "I'm not willing to do that."
[Tryon] Jill called me and said she got banned
from the Playboy Mansion.
She said that Hugh Hefner has sex
with all these Playboy bunnies.
And, uh, she refused.
Sometimes you meet someone, you idolize them
and you really don't know anything about them.
It doesn't surprise me that she left.
Jill didn't smoke.
She didn't drink alcohol,
and she was in a relationship with somebody.
[Heinrichs] I think Jill Ann's expectation
of the relationship with Hefner
was one like she had with Bruce,
where it was one of mutual interest, mutual support.
One that didn't necessarily have any physical affection.
So, to learn that it wasn't that
and in fact was incredibly disturbing
was a shock to Jill's system,
and by the time she leaves the Mansion
ultimately, she has the feeling of "This is not for me,"
and also, "I am going to find a way to tell this story."
[Supersonic] I was Jill Ann's publicist,
for her book, Jill Ann: Upstairs.
It was a tell-all book on Hugh Hefner.
I don't know if anybody else ever really
stepped up to the plate like Jill did
and you know spilled the beans
and told everybody what was going on there.
[Heinrichs] Upstairs was really one of the first exposes
of thePlayboy brand written by someone
who was actually there.
Wo was actually a participant at the parties.
Who stayed at the Mansion.
And as in every venture that Jill Ann started,
Bruce was incredibly supportive of Upstairs.
He wanted to be a part of it.
He helped her make sure that it was self-published,
and of course in the dedication section,
Jill Ann quite literally dedicates the entire book
to Bruce and his support of her.
[Allocca] I first met Jill on a photoshoot
that I was assigned for from the New York Post,
Page Six.
My job was to go and do a photo feature on her
for a feature story they were writing on her
about the bookUpstairs.
So, I went up and took photos of her and her puppy.
Back then, you know, in 2004,
it was unheard of to come out against
Playboy magazine,
or something like Hugh Hefner.
I was beside myself when I found out that somebody
who was pushing all the buttons, asking all these questions
and being very intrusive and taking all these pictures
turned around and wrote a tell-all book.
I was absolutely livid.
[Madison] For me, the book felt like a violation
because she came into the bedroom,
did not have sex with Hef herself,
but kinda watched everybody else and wrote about it,
and for me that felt
like something along the lines of revenge porn.
I didn't actively consent to have her in the room.
I didn't want her in the room.
I think Hef definitely felt betrayed.
Hef thought he was giving her a hand out
and letting her come to the Mansion
and kind of letting her dreams come true
and then she took advantage.
I don't know what Hef's reaction to the book was in private,
and when he first found out.
But his reactions to me was,
"The best thing to do is to say nothing."
To say nothing.
[Heinrichs] I thinkPlayboy was... affronted
that this person who was begging
to be a part of that circuit
would then have that experience
and dare write about it,
and dare write things that weren't positive.
The allegations that she makes in this book,
the descriptions of certain instances in this book are criminal,
or have criminal implications.
[Supersonic] People were nervous for Jill
that she was talking and saying these things.
And then, "Oh, my God, what's gonna happen to her?
She's scared. Something could happen to her."
That was sort of the end of any relationship
that Jill Ann would have with Playboy.
[reporter] Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has died at the age of 91.
He's known worldwide as a hedonist who revved up
the sexual revolution in the 1950s,
and built a multi-media empire
symbolized by bow-tied women in bunny costumes.
[Madison] Hef was 91 when he passed away.
According to the rumors that I heard,
I don't think he was in very good health
for the past few years.
You know, he started to go in from the parties a lot earlier
or not appear at his parties at all.
[Heinrichs] In 2017 after Hefner has died,
Jill Ann really takes that as an opportunity to recirculate her book.
It really pissedPlayboy off.
It pissed some of the women affiliated withPlayboy off,
and it was not a decision
that was met with warm reception
or even understanding at all.
[Marquadt] She was using Hugh Hefner's death
to promote herself and promote her book
and I just think that that's bottom of the barrel.
[Supersonic] I went back and checked to see
when she was last in the press,
and it was right when he died.
I was like, "Oh, that was the wrong thing to do."
[Haynes] You're always gonna wonder
especially when you have someone like Jill
and what she accomplished in her life
and that book.
That book I'm sure made a lot of enemies.
A lot of enemies.
[Heinrichs] On December 23rd, 2017,
Mesa Police respond to a 911 call
on a quiet residential street...
[indistinct conversation on radio]
...and find three dead bodies.
When we get to the scene
as the homicide investigators,
we knew that they found a third body.
We knew that one was possibly Jill.
One was possibly Bruce.
They did not know who the third person was.
I learned that Jill was aPlayboy model,
and that she had risen
up through the, the modeling career
and now she owns businesses
and she had made something of herself.
[Marquadt] The manner in which she died is shocking.
Regardless of what my relationship was like with her
or how you feel about somebody
that's never okay to hear that about
somebody that you've known.
[Clark] And the immediate thought was,
it's somebody very close to me.
I've spent very near and dear time
with Jill Ann and...
this is someone who I have a bunch of admiration for.
[Haynes] You always have to consider,
when you come to a homicide investigation,
"Did they make somebody mad?"
When I heard about the fact
that Jill had that tell-all book
then I started thinking, "Do they have enemies
that want to do harm to them?
And is it to the point that
they would actually kill multiple people
just to kill their one target?"
[Supersonic] I was trying to figure out the date,
the first thing I thought was like, 'When did Hugh die?"
And what day did she go out there
and start talking about him,
like, the next day immediately?
You have to think about
you're not up against Hugh Hefner anymore
because he's a dead guy.
Now you're up against his estate.
Now, it's a problem, and she is causing problems.
Maybe somebody needed to eliminate the problem.
[Clark] I think without a doubt Jill Ann could have been
a murder-for-hire situation
on outing one of the most iconic brands
in North America, maybe the world.
When we got there, Bruce's children were on scene
because they were supposed to be meeting for dinner.
When they couldn't get hold of him,
they came looking to see,
you know, "Hey, what's going on?"
They see all the police presence and everything.
Bruce Gifford was 70-year-old man.
From what I've gathered, very, very likeable guy.
I learned that Bruce and Jill had recently separated
within a couple of months prior to this incident,
and he actually was staying at Jill's grandfather's house
with Jill for a little bit, while he's figuring out what he was gonna do.
[Heinrichs] At some point afterPlayboy,
and after Jill Ann has made a name for herself
in a lot of other ways,
she has a lot of successful businesses,
she has so much going for her
and is so much more established as a woman at this time,
she decides that Bruce isn't the partner
that she's going to spend the rest of her life with.
[Tryon] In August of 2017, Jill called me.
Her and Bruce wanted to take me to dinner.
They seemed happy together.
I had no idea that they were, like, apart.
[Haynes] The separation according to everybody was amicable.
He's staying at Jill's grandfather's house.
I mean there's obviously no issues if he's still with the family.
When we were briefed patrol had already spoken
to a neighbor that lived across the street.
He had said that he had come home from his run
and he had seen Jill and this unknown male getting out of the vehicle,
and she had walked inside the house with that male.
Ultimately though, it's revealed that that person is not a stranger.
That's Jill Ann's new boyfriend.
[Haynes] Ben Childs was a new boyfriend to Jill.
Bruce and Jill had opened
one of their businesses out in California.
Ben was out in California
and he ended up starting to work for
Bruce and Jill for that business.
[Tryon] And I believe this was
Jill's, like, first real relationship since Bruce.
[Heinrichs] He was a sort of ordinary guy
who had no ties toPlayboy
or any part of that chapter of her life.
He really was a person who
had no interest in chasing any of that lifestyle.
He was content with where he was at,
and so this was the ideal person
that Jill Ann probably needed to be with at this time in her life.
[Haynes] Because we were getting that information
that we knew there was two men and one female in there,
we started figuring out well, that's probably Jill,
probably Bruce and probably Ben that are in there.
So, now we are trying to figure out
who did what.
[Heinrichs] It leads police to wonder,
had there been a lovers quarrel?
Had Ben been upset about something related to the job?
Could something have happened
between Bruce and Jill Ann again
and Ben was there to defend her honor?
All of these possibilities
are running through police's mind.
Geez, did Ben do this?
Is he the one that shot everybody and shot himself?
[Haynes] So, when we first saw Ben's body,
we were still under the theory that he possibly shot himself.
We initially lifted up Ben first
because we thought for sure
weapon's gonna be underneath him.
So, when they rolled Ben over and there was no weapon,
we are like, obviously there was someone else in this residence,
and we have an outstanding suspect.
Probably shouldn't have jumped the gun, if you will, right away
because then we went over to Bruce
and when they moved Bruce we found the weapon.
Everyone was like, "Wow."
Wasn't expecting that because we thought
we would have seen the weapon if Bruce had it.
Um, but obviously they can drop and fall any place
before he falls, he was taller guy.
It ended up falling on the ground and he landed on top of it.
With Bruce, his gunshot wound was clearly self-inflicted.
As it was right hand, he is right handed
and it was at the top of his head, right hand side
and it had gone down, so, the way someone would hold the gun
if they were going to shoot themselves.
[Heinrichs] Medical examiners concluded that
it was in fact not Ben who was the perpetrator in this situation,
but that Bruce had entered the home
shot Jill Ann and Ben and then of course turned the gun on himself.
[Haynes] During the investigation we learned that,
all of the businesses, all of the property,
everything was in Jill's name.
I am sure it just became too much for Bruce.
He had to have felt, "What do I have anymore? I have no money.
I don't have Jill. I don't have my Playboymodel.
What is there to live for?"
[Madison] For someone like Bruce,
he could see Jill Ann as a trophy
because she is a Playboymodel and a prize that he has won,
and when that gets taken away from him
and she is with another man,
he takes it hard.
[Clark] The sheer angst that
he's got a feeling in his mind of her leaving.
My assumption is that the jealousy is so high
that if he can't be with Jill Ann, no one's gonna be.
[Haynes] Bruce seeing Ben and Jill walking in to the house.
I think it was definitely a crime of passion
like it just, it pushed him over the edge.
[Clark] My guess is that he killed the partner first.
So she would know the pain,
like, "I just killed your partner."
[Haynes] I don't think Jill saw it coming
because she was lulled into a false sense of security
that, "Well, no, he would never do this to me. He's not Hugh Hefner.
That guy was just blatant about how he was,
and Bruce isn't.
Bruce takes care of me."
[gunshot]
[Haynes] Whenever it's a murder-suicide,
I don't believe there's ever any justice.
Ben's family was devastated. He has a child,
that is now gonna grow up without her father.
Ben had nothing to do with this.
Just the wrong place, wrong time, wrong person,
and he paid the ultimate price.
[Heinrichs] In many ways Jill Ann Spaulding
was really a progressive woman
who was truly ahead of her times.
She was one of the first women to ever speak publicly
about the disillusionment that she felt
withPlayboy and with Hefner.
[Supersonic] Jill's mission was to bring the truth
to the people about Playboy,
you know through her book.
It was a creative way to tell her story.
[Madison] When I read Jill Ann's book,
I think I was really surprised,
that you know, just how methodical
her plan to get intoPlayboy was
which is great, like I love, ambition and...
that was something I kinda had an idea
about Jill Ann when I met her,
but didn't know all the details.
[Marquadt] After re-reading Jill's book
and all these years have passed,
I understand her passion,
and I understand her drive
and I even understand the obsession
to a certain extent.
I was there. I wanted it, too.
I put a lot on the line to get there.
In a lot of ways our, um, paths were the same.
[Heinrichs] I think there is a discernible tragic note
that often follows women who are associated with Playboy.
Multiple women have alleged
incredibly serious criminal wrong-doing.
Multiple women have wound up dead
who have been associated withPlayboy.
There is a deeply sordid underbelly of the brand.
[Tryon] I think if Jill was still around,
she would be something incredible.
She'd have her own show or a podcast
or... I know she'd be doing something.
Showing off herself.
That's what Jill's about.