The Playboy Murders Season 2 Episode 7
#PrimeUSTV
#PrimeUSTV
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:01Some woman would do literally anything to be in Playboy.
00:05Jillian Spaulding was an aspiring Playboy model.
00:08She had blonde hair, blue eyes, big boobs.
00:12Jillian was extremely focused about her goal,
00:15that her dream was, I'm going to be in Playboy.
00:20I think there definitely can be a dark side to the Playboy mansion.
00:24I don't know if anybody else ever really stepped up to the plate like Jill did
00:28and, you know, spilled the beans and told everybody what was going on there.
00:34For me, that felt like something along the lines of revenge porn.
00:40I don't think Jillian knew exactly what she was getting herself into
00:43when she was pursuing this dream.
00:46It was really the moment where the veil lifted.
00:50This is what happens when no one is watching
00:53and when all the partygoers go home.
00:58I was assigned to the Homicide Investigation Unit in Mesa.
01:18We received a phone call from our sergeant
01:20telling us that we had a homicide investigation.
01:22Mesa is a tight-knit community.
01:27Everyone knows their neighbors.
01:28Everyone knows who should be in the area, who shouldn't be in the area.
01:34As I was driving up, in my head, I'm thinking,
01:37there is no way that there was a homicide here.
01:41This had to have been an accidental death or something
01:44because it was just too nice and too pretty of a location.
01:47When we get to the scene, it's sectioned off with crime scene tape.
01:57When you walk in the front door,
01:59there is a kitchen.
02:01It's kind of like one of those galley kitchens.
02:03You see out into the dining room.
02:05And so when you come around the corner
02:08and you're at the dining room table,
02:09you can see there's a male subject that's on the floor face down.
02:14Then there's another man that was on their back.
02:17When they're clearing the residence,
02:21as they go and come down the hallway,
02:24we find a female subject lying in the bathroom,
02:29clearly had been shot.
02:34It appeared as though she was probably standing at the mirror
02:37when she was shot,
02:39and she fell because she was at an unnatural angle,
02:43but she was on her back so you could see her face.
02:45She was a petite, pretty girl.
02:49I then spoke with the family,
02:51and that's when I learned that she was a Playboy model.
02:55We just have to figure out why did it happen.
02:57Playboy was definitely in flux around the late 90s,
03:09early 2000s.
03:11Hef had just got out of a long-term marriage
03:13and was dating multiple women
03:15and going out all the time
03:16and getting all this publicity.
03:17I was one of Hef's girlfriends at the time.
03:21I had not even been there a full year yet,
03:23so I was still feeling very new.
03:26My close friend Bridget had just started coming out with us,
03:29so we were just meeting each other.
03:30So it was all kind of still a whirlwind to me.
03:33When Hef first started dating,
03:38there was three girls,
03:39and then it turned to seven girlfriends.
03:42I was part of the seven,
03:44and then while I was there,
03:46it went from seven down to three.
03:49And then the three of us
03:50were part of a show called The Girls Next Door.
03:54Bridget?
03:55Bridget is one of my best friends ever,
03:57and my favorite thing about her
03:58is she gets super excited,
03:59and it's just fun to have people like that around.
04:02Playboy's something that I always wanted to do.
04:04My dad used to get the magazine,
04:06and I would thumb through it and think,
04:07my gosh, I want to look just like those girls.
04:11I think what made Hef so special
04:13is just what he built,
04:15the empire that he built, the magazine.
04:19To be a Playboy model,
04:20it was like a coveted title.
04:23It was glamorous, it was beautiful,
04:27and it was this title
04:28that kind of gave you a stepping stone
04:30to do bigger things in life.
04:32I would say there's two different categories
04:34of women who would become Playmates.
04:36There would be the one category
04:37that maybe they were scouted,
04:39or somebody saw them and thought,
04:40oh, you'd be great in the magazine,
04:41or the women who are fans of the magazine
04:43and really wanted to be in it.
04:45And there was no bigger fan of Playboy
04:47than Jill Ann Spaulding.
04:48She was a huge fan of the magazine
04:50and the Playmates who were in it,
04:51and she really wanted to be one of them.
04:53Jill Ann Spaulding was born in April 1970
05:03in Phoenix, Arizona.
05:07Jill Ann's parents were extremely liberal.
05:11Her grandfather was actually a collector of Playboy,
05:13and so she really grew up
05:15knowing that there was no shame in a woman's body.
05:18Jill Ann really became driven
05:21to start her own Playboy collection.
05:24All of these women were real idols
05:26and sort of the paradigms of glamour for Jill.
05:30I think that when Jill Ann saw the magazines,
05:33she saw beautiful, glamorous women
05:36who were put on a pedestal,
05:38who had this amazing coveted title
05:41of being Playmate or in Playboy magazine,
05:44and it was a very coveted thing to want to do.
05:49I believe Jill loved Playboy
05:51because she just thought it was classy
05:53and displayed the beauty of a woman's body.
06:02After high school, Jill moved out of her house
06:06and started her pursuit on her modeling.
06:09She wanted to be a Playboy model.
06:13Jill was very beautiful.
06:14Very skinny, big boobs.
06:17I guess you have to have that to be in Playboy.
06:20She had a laugh.
06:21I mean, her laugh just put a smile on my face.
06:26There's no question that she really wanted more.
06:30She wanted glamour.
06:31She wanted fame.
06:33She wanted to be someone
06:36who was known to people.
06:39Shortly after Jill leaves home,
06:44she meets Bruce Gifford,
06:46and she's 21 years old at the time.
06:49They meet in a bar on Valentine's Day,
06:52and he is 22 years older than her.
06:57Jill told me about Bruce, her boyfriend on the phone.
07:00She just was saying that she met somebody,
07:03and so it wasn't until later that I realized how old he was.
07:08Bruce was pretty amazing.
07:11He was very calm and level-headed.
07:13I never saw him lose his cool.
07:16He was like this good-looking guy,
07:18and he was just there.
07:21Bruce encouraged Jill to get all these plastic surgeries
07:25and liposuction and boob jobs.
07:29Obviously, this caused some contention
07:32for Jill and her family.
07:34Her father was not thrilled.
07:36All of that contention really drove them closer to each other.
07:41Jillian often recalls that Bruce would refer to her
07:45as his princess.
07:47Was he a steadfast supporter,
07:49or was this a control thing for Bruce
07:52to be her shadow in so many ways?
07:55I met Jillian in the early 2000s.
08:02She called me up to ask me to help her train.
08:06She wanted to get ready for a potential model shoot,
08:09and she wanted to get in the best shape of her life.
08:14Jillian was extremely focused about her goal,
08:17that her dream was, I'm going to be in Playboy.
08:21And she wouldn't say, hey, I want to.
08:23She said, I'm going to be in Playboy.
08:26I am going to be in Playboy.
08:27And those words always stuck out,
08:29because for people who have goals and dreams,
08:33she was already in her mind realizing it.
08:35So I go over there, and I was immediately uncomfortable at her house.
08:41She's wearing short shorts and a little tea tank top half shirt with no bra.
08:48And then she's like, let's go upstairs to my bedroom.
08:51And I'm like, okay, that's awkward.
08:55Now Bruce is with us.
08:58We're working out in her bedroom, which is already a little odd to me.
09:01I mean, the whole first month was like a whirlwind of dynamics of me working out Jillian in her bedroom
09:06with her boyfriend sitting there on the bed.
09:13Bruce was this support structure for Jillian.
09:17And I think Bruce recognized right away, hey, I just need to stand back and let her do her thing,
09:23and we'll be super successful.
09:25Over the next few years, Jill continued to model locally.
09:35To supplement her income, she became a professional poker player.
09:39And she and Bruce also started buying investment properties around Arizona.
09:43But throughout this whole time, she still had her eyes on the prize.
09:46She still really wanted to be a playmate.
09:49Jill's drive came from her heart, from her passions, from everything.
09:53Every inter-being, what she wanted to do, she was going to do.
09:56And that's the way she got things accomplished.
10:07So at 30 years old, Jillian decides she wants to pursue Playboy full force.
10:13Ultimately, it was because she had built confidence.
10:16She had, you know, a team of people who were really behind her saying,
10:20this is a dream that you can make real.
10:27On December 7, 2000, Jillian has her first test shoot with Playboy.
10:33Just to test for Playmate, there are different ways of doing that.
10:37Sometimes they had photo shoots where they were mobile.
10:41There were days that you could go to Santa Monica and get up nude.
10:45Photo shoot done really quick.
10:46I know Jill mentioned that she did that.
10:50I do remember Jillian had a test shoot.
10:53The results weren't great.
10:56She gets a rejection letter from Playboy saying that now's not your time.
11:01That letter nailed home the fact that this is, you know, not an overnight path to fame.
11:06And being someone who doesn't do anything less than 110%, reads the letter, feels down for a moment, and then decides, I'm going to keep trying.
11:14One of the things that was interesting about Jillian was she was this poker player.
11:29And it was interesting to me when we would train, I would see books on her bed, and she's studying poker moves.
11:34And she was reading books on poker.
11:36In May 2001, Jillian graces the cover of Poker Digest.
11:40And the headline is Poker's Wonder Girl.
11:43Jillian decides that she's going to submit photos to Playboy.com, fresh off this Poker Digest cover win.
11:56In the 2000s, there would generally be about three different pictorials in each issue of Playboy.
12:02There would be the Playmate of the Month, which was the centerfold.
12:05There'd be a celebrity pictorial, which was typically what was on the cover.
12:08But 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.
12:22I think Jill realized that if she wasn't fitting the mold of a centerfold, she could get in by having an interesting story.
12:31And in the early 2000s, poker was really, really trendy.
12:34And they jumped at the opportunity to photograph her.
12:52Jillian Spalding was created to go into Playboy magazine.
12:56She had the body that Playboy would like to show, and that I'm sure every American man would like to look at.
13:11To Jillian, Playboy was this utopia where women were empowered to get what they need.
13:18But fantasy and reality are two vastly different things.
13:22Playboy expanded in the late 90s to the internet, and they had Playboy.com, and they needed, of course, a lot more content for the website than they did for the magazine.
13:42Jill ended up doing a pictorial for Playboy.com, and it was featured on the website.
13:47Being 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.
13:56She wasn't going to stop at Playboy.com.
13:58Hugh Hefner was an icon to many people.
14:10That very first time you meet Hef, and he's in his robe and smoking jacket, it just feels surreal.
14:16Like, is this really happening?
14:19To most males, he's probably one of those powerful people in the world.
14:24He has money.
14:25He has a beautiful house.
14:26He has beautiful women all around him.
14:27If there's some dream life for some kid growing up, I think this is it.
14:39Jillian decides to write a letter to the man himself, Hugh Hefner.
14:43Jill sent 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.
14:54When I first knew that Jill was going to 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.
15:06There would be a picture and, like, a little note card, paperclip to the picture that would tell him, like, the name and where she was from.
15:13That April 2002, Jillian arrives at the mansion.
15:23And she's so thrilled, but ultimately learns that there is a strict no husband or boyfriend policy.
15:32Playmates and Playboy models were almost never allowed to bring boyfriends or husbands unless they happened to be married to somebody famous or Hef knew them really, really well.
15:42So, of course, Bruce has to drop her off at the mansion.
15:47I'm sure Bruce is going, why is she with me? I'm 22 years older than all the beautiful people going to the Playboy mansion.
15:54I can imagine that would play on anybody's psyche.
15:57And so I'm sure Bruce felt a lot of insecurity around that.
16:01So Jillian is just this flurry of emotions.
16:10This is what she has been working for for a very long time now.
16:14She wanted to be in that space, and there she was finally in it, but going into it alone.
16:19Jill was a huge Playboy fan. She had a huge Playboy collection.
16:25I'd been a fan of the magazine, so when you finally get to step on the property and see all the Playmates and meet Hef, it's really, really exciting.
16:34The Playboy parties in the early 2000s were so incredible.
16:39They were super exclusive.
16:44A-list celebrities were there.
16:46It was just, everybody put everything into it, into their outfits, the decorations and the ambiance.
16:54You just can't even believe you're in there. You feel like you've been transported into, like, a fairy world.
17:04Jillian makes a couple of meaningful connections with some of the models.
17:08She makes it clear, I want to be a part of this space.
17:15So, a few months after the party, in June, Jillian is invited to spend a couple of days at the mansion.
17:22I think the unique dynamic of Bruce and Jillian was that he was always there.
17:28I could imagine the dynamic of her being gone at the mansion and boyfriends from a couple that were together all the time.
17:37To all of a sudden, this separation of no boyfriends at the mansion, Jill's there, Bruce is here.
17:42I can't imagine he dealt with that well because that was very different from the way they lived.
17:47Jillian was very confident.
17:57You could tell she definitely had the eyes on the prize.
18:00Like, she knew what she wanted.
18:01She was very friendly and talkative.
18:04She was very complimentary.
18:05She was outgoing to the point where I remember I was taking a shower after a night out and all of a sudden, like, the door to the shower opens and she pops her head in and she's like, I just want to tell you, you're really beautiful.
18:17Which was sweet and everything, but I was kind of like, like, I'm very introverted, so I was kind of like, whoa, what is happening?
18:23Unfortunately, Jillian happened to walk in at the very worst time when we're talking about hostility and females being competitive against one another.
18:34At that time, there were seven girlfriends who didn't really get along, and so there was, like, different factions.
18:43There was Holly and I and a couple other girls and then what we called the mean girls.
18:48Throughout my time at Playboy, 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.
19:04When I first met Jillian, it was at the Playboy Mansion, and it was in the Great Hall.
19:12Everybody is very curious when they get there, but Jillian had a lot more questions than the normal person.
19:20It 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?
19:35She was also very much with her camera, trying to take pictures of every little thing, even things that we felt uncomfortable about.
19:47It almost felt like the press was trying to infiltrate.
19:50I 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.
19:59A fixture of Jillian's stay at the mansion was a night out with all of the women living at the mansion at that time.
20:12There's a limo, there's champagne bottles popping in the limo.
20:17It's exactly what Jillian thinks it's going to be, up until the point where they attend a club.
20:26Jillian learns quickly that you are not to engage or even look at another man outside of the circle.
20:32You are to give Hef your full attention.
20:36He was extremely controlling and had a lot of expectations for these women.
20:42Another expectation was, when we get home, you are all heading up to my bedroom for sex.
20:49I think there definitely can be a dark side to the Playboy Mansion.
20:55There is the whole bedroom routine, and that is not for everybody, and you may or may not be okay with that.
21:03Hef expected all his girlfriends and whatever other girls he could find at nightclubs or wherever to join him in the bedroom a couple nights a week.
21:11But 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 exactly what goes on in the bedroom or what's expected of you.
21:20That's never explained.
21:23I don't think Jillian knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she was pursuing this dream.
21:28Jillian was by no means a dummy.
21:33The problem was, Playboy had posited itself as this positive brand for women.
21:38It 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.
21:55It was really the moment where the veil lifted for Jillian.
21:59This is what happens when no one is watching and when all the partygoers go home.
22:08We had a very clockwork schedule at the mansion around that time.
22:20Everything was the same every week.
22:22Sundays 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.
22:29Every Wednesday, we went out to a nightclub.
22:33Thursday, we would go out to dinner usually.
22:36Friday, we would go out to a nightclub.
22:38At 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.
22:56There's no forced participation or anything like that.
23:02But it's very frowned upon to be up there and just spectate.
23:06Hefner is really starting to pay attention to Jillian.
23:18And he's telling other women in the group, I want to have sex with Jillian tonight.
23:23And so that expectation is now there.
23:25In her mind, Jillian is truly worried that there's a reality in which she'd refuse sex with Hefner and he would force her that she would be raped, essentially.
23:41And all of these other women would be participants in that.
23:44This is not what she had in mind at all.
23:49She's thinking of, you know, Bruce's reaction to all of this.
23:52She drew a line in the sand and Jillian said, this is my line and I'm not going to cross it.
24:02And they said, well, if you're going to be here, you need to erase that line and move it over here.
24:07And she's like, yeah, I'm unwilling to do that.
24:11Jill called me and said she got banned from the Playboy mansion.
24:15She said that Hugh Hefner has sex with all these Playboy bunnies and she refused.
24:26Sometimes you meet someone, you idolize them, and you really don't know anything about them.
24:36It doesn't surprise me that she left.
24:38Jill didn't smoke.
24:40She didn't drink alcohol.
24:42And she was in a relationship with somebody.
24:45I think Jillian's expectation of the relationship with Hefner was one like she had with Bruce,
24:53where it was one of mutual interest, mutual support, one that didn't necessarily have any physical affection.
25:02So to learn that it wasn't that, and in fact was incredibly disturbing, was a shock to Jill's system.
25:10And by the time she leaves the mansion, ultimately she has the feeling of, this is not for me.
25:17And also, I'm going to find a way to tell this story.
25:21I was Jillian's publicist for her book, Jillian Upstairs.
25:35It was a tell-all book on Hugh Hefner.
25:37I 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.
25:48Upstairs was really one of the first exposés of the Playboy brand written by someone who was actually there, who was actually a participant at the parties, who stayed at the mansion.
26:02And as in every venture that Jillian started, Bruce was incredibly supportive of Upstairs.
26:09He wanted to be a part of it.
26:12He helped her make sure that it was self-published.
26:14And of course, in the dedication section, Jillian quite literally dedicates the entire book to Bruce and his support of her.
26:23I first met Jill on a photo shoot that I was assigned for from the New York Post, page six.
26:33My job was to go and do a photo feature on her for a feature story they were writing on her about the book Upstairs.
26:42So I went up and took photos of her and her puppy.
26:44Back then in, you know, 2004, it was unheard of to come out against a Playboy magazine or something like that or Hugh Hefner.
26:54I 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.
27:07I was absolutely livid.
27:09For me, the book felt like a violation because she came into the bedroom, did not have sex with Hef herself, but kind of watched everybody else and wrote about it.
27:21And for me, that felt like something along the lines of revenge porn.
27:27I didn't actively consent to have her in the room.
27:30I didn't want her in the room.
27:33I think Hef definitely felt betrayed.
27:34Hef thought he was giving her a handout and letting her come to the mansion and kind of letting her dreams come true.
27:41And then she took advantage.
27:43I don't know what Hef's reaction to the book was in private and when he first found out, but his reaction to me was,
27:51the best thing to do is to say nothing.
27:54To say nothing.
27:55I think Playboy 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.
28:13The allegations that she makes in this book, the descriptions of certain instances in this book are criminal or have criminal implications.
28:24People were nervous for Jill that she was talking and saying these things.
28:30And then, oh my God, what's going to happen to her?
28:33She's scared that something could happen to her.
28:38That was sort of the end of any relationship that Jillann would have with Playboy.
28:43Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has died at the age of 91.
28:56He is known worldwide as a hedonist who revved up the sexual revolution in the 1950s
29:01and built a multimedia empire symbolized by bow-tied women in bunny costumes.
29:09Hef was 91 when he passed away.
29:11According to the rumors that I heard, I don't think he was in very good health for the past few years.
29:17You know, he started to go in from parties a lot earlier or not appear at his parties at all.
29:26In 2017, after Hefner has died, Jillann really takes that as an opportunity to recirculate her book.
29:33It really pissed Playboy off.
29:37It pissed some of the women affiliated with Playboy off.
29:40And it was not a decision that was met with warm reception or even understanding at all.
29:46She was using Hugh Hefner's death to promote herself and promote her book.
29:51And I just think that that's bottom of the barrel.
29:55I went back and checked to see when she was last in the press.
29:59And it was right when he died.
30:01And I was like, oh, that was the wrong thing to do.
30:03You're always going to wonder, especially when you have someone like Jill, and what she accomplished in her life in that book.
30:12That book, I'm sure, made a lot of enemies.
30:17A lot of enemies.
30:18On December 23rd, 2017, Mesa police respond to a 911 call on a quiet residential street.
30:42And find three dead bodies.
30:44When we get to the scene, as the homicide investigators, we knew that they found the third body.
30:53We knew that one was possibly Jill.
30:57One was possibly Bruce.
31:00They did not know who that third person was.
31:08I learned that Jill was a Playboy model.
31:11And that she had risen up through the modeling career, and now she owns businesses, and she had made something of herself.
31:24The manner in which she died is shocking.
31:28Regardless of what my relationship was like with her, or how you feel about somebody,
31:33that's never okay to hear that about somebody that you've known.
31:36And the immediate thought was, it's somebody very close to me.
31:42I've spent very near and dear time with Jillian, and this is someone who I have a bunch of admiration for.
31:50You always have to consider when you come to a homicide investigation, did they make somebody mad?
31:58When 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?
32:10And is it to the point that they would actually kill multiple people just to kill their one target?
32:15I was trying to figure out the date.
32:18The first thing I thought was, like, when did Hugh die?
32:21And what day did she go out there and start talking about him?
32:24Like, the next day, immediately?
32:26You have to think about, you're not up against Hugh Hefner anymore, because he's a dead guy.
32:30Now you're up against his estate.
32:33Now it's a problem, and she's causing problems.
32:36Maybe somebody needed to eliminate the problem.
32:38I think without a doubt, Jillian could have been a murder-for-hire situation on outing one of the most iconic brands in North America, maybe the world.
32:55When we got there, Bruce's children were on scene, because they were supposed to be meeting for dinner.
33:02When they couldn't get a hold of him, they came looking to see, you know, hey, what's going on?
33:06They see all the police presence and everything.
33:10Bruce Gifford was a seven-year-old man, from what I've gathered, very, very likable guy.
33:17I had learned that Bruce and Jill had recently separated within a couple months prior to this incident.
33:24And he actually was staying at Jill's grandfather's house with Jill for a little bit while he's figuring out what he was going to do.
33:32At some point, after Playboy and after Jillian has made a name for herself in a lot of other ways, she has a lot of successful businesses.
33:40She has so much going for her and is so much more established as a woman at this time.
33:46She decides that Bruce isn't the partner that she's going to spend the rest of her life with.
33:51In August of 2017, Jill called me.
34:02Her and Bruce wanted to take me to dinner.
34:06They seemed happy together.
34:08I had no idea that they were, like, apart.
34:10The separation, according to everybody, was amicable.
34:14He's staying at Jill's grandfather's house.
34:17I mean, there's obviously no issues if he's still with the family.
34:25When we're briefed, patrol had already spoken to a neighbor that lived across the street.
34:30He had said that he had come home from his run, and he had seen Jill and this unknown male getting out of the vehicle.
34:40And she had walked inside the house with that male.
34:46Ultimately, though, it's revealed that that person is not a stranger.
34:50That's Jillian's new boyfriend.
34:55Ben Childs was a new boyfriend to Jill.
35:00Bruce and Jill had opened one of their businesses out in California.
35:04Ben was out in California, and he ended up starting to work for Bruce and Jill for that business.
35:11And I believe this was Jill's, like, first real relationship since Bruce.
35:17He was a sort of ordinary guy who had no ties to Playboy or any part of that chapter of her life.
35:23He really was a person who had no interest in chasing any of that lifestyle.
35:30He was content where he was at.
35:32And so this was the ideal person that Jillian probably needed to be with at this time in her life.
35:37Because we were getting that information and we knew there was two men and one female in there,
35:47we started figuring out, well, that's probably Jill, probably Bruce, and probably Ben that are in there.
35:54So now we're trying to figure out who did what.
36:00It leads police to wonder, had there been a lover's quarrel?
36:04Had Ben been upset about something related to the job?
36:09Could something have happened between Bruce and Jillian again?
36:14And Ben was there to defend her honor?
36:17All of these possibilities are running through police's mind.
36:20And, well, geez, did Ben do this?
36:24Is he the one that shot everybody and then shot himself?
36:39So when we first saw Ben's body, we were still under the theory that he possibly shot himself.
36:45We initially lifted up Ben first because we thought for sure the weapon's going to be underneath him.
36:54So when they rolled Ben over and there was no weapon, we were like,
36:58obviously there was someone else in this residence and we have an outstanding suspect.
37:03Probably shouldn't have jumped the gun, if you will, right away,
37:06because then we went over to Bruce and when they moved Bruce, we found the weapon.
37:11And everyone was like, wow, wasn't expecting that because we thought we would have seen the weapon if Bruce had it.
37:19But obviously they can drop and fall any place before he falls.
37:22He was a taller guy.
37:24It ended up falling on the ground and he landed on top of it.
37:26With Bruce, his gunshot wound was clearly self-inflicted as it was right-hand, he's right-handed,
37:37and it was at the top of his head, right-hand side, and it had gone down.
37:41So the way someone would hold a gun if they were going to shoot themselves.
37:44Medical examiners concluded that it was in fact not Ben who was the perpetrator in this situation,
37:51but that Bruce had entered the home, shot Jill-Anne and Ben, and then of course turned the gun on himself.
37:58During the investigation, we learned that all of the businesses, all of the property, everything was in Jill's name.
38:15I'm sure it just became too much for Bruce.
38:19He had to have felt, well, what do I have anymore?
38:21I have no money.
38:22I don't have Jill.
38:23I don't have my Playboy model.
38:25What is there to live for?
38:26For someone like Bruce, he could see Jill-Anne as a trophy because she's a Playboy model and a prize that he's won,
38:41and when that gets taken away from him and she's with another man, he takes it hard.
38:47The sheer angst that he's got to feel in his mind of her leaving, my assumption is the jealousy is so high
38:55that if he can't be with Jill-Anne, no one's going to be.
38:59Bruce seeing Ben and Jill walking into the house, I think it was definitely a crime of passion.
39:06Like it just, it pushed him over the edge.
39:09My guess is that he killed the partner first.
39:17So she would know the pain, like I just killed your partner.
39:20I don't think Jill saw it coming because she was lulled into a false sense of security that,
39:29well, no, he would never do this to me.
39:30He's not Hugh Hefner.
39:33That guy was just blatant about how he was.
39:37And Bruce isn't.
39:39Bruce takes care of me.
39:40When ever it's a murder-suicide, I don't believe there's ever any justice.
40:07Ben's family was devastated.
40:09He has a child that is now going to grow up without her father.
40:14Ben had nothing to do with this, just the wrong place, wrong time, wrong person.
40:20And he paid the ultimate price.
40:25In many ways, Jill-Anne Spaulding was really a progressive woman who was truly ahead of her times.
40:32She was one of the first women to ever speak publicly about the disillusionment that she felt
40:37with Playboy and with Hefner.
40:41Jill's mission was to bring the truth to the people about Playboy, you know, through her book.
40:47It was a creative way to tell her story.
40:51When I read Jill-Anne's book, I think I was really surprised at, you know, just how methodical her plan to get into Playboy was, which is great.
41:02Like, I love ambition.
41:03And that was something I kind of had an idea about Jill-Anne when I met her, but didn't know all the details.
41:12After rereading Jill's book and all these years have passed, I understand her passion, and I understand her drive,
41:21and I even understand the obsession to a certain extent.
41:24I was there.
41:25I wanted it to.
41:26I put a lot on the line to get there.
41:28In a lot of ways, our paths were the same.
41:34I think there is a discernible tragic note that often follows women who are associated with Playboy.
41:41Multiple women have...