Dorothy Stratten’s sister opens up about Playboy Playmate’s 1980 murder — and Hefner’s ‘regret’ about tragedy

The younger sister of Dorothy Stratten is opening up about the iconic Playboy model’s 1980 murder — and revealed that Hugh Hefner broke down in front of her years later before apologizing for the role he felt he played in the 20-year-old Playmate’s death.

Louise Stratten was with her sister just moments before her killing, she told Air Mail.

She had been in the car with Dorothy on Aug. 14, 1980, as the two made their way to the Los Angeles apartment she shared with her jealous, estranged husband, Paul Snider.

The couple had agreed to meet for one last time after she formally filed for divorce.

“Then, I changed my mind suddenly,” said Louise. “To this day, I don’t know why. I remember hearing a small voice inside me telling me to stay behind. So, I had Dorothy drive me back” to filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich’s residence in Bel Air.

Dorothy Stratten, a budding actor who was the 1980 Playmate of the Year, had been having an affair with the director and was divorcing Snider to be with him. Louise was 12 at the time.

The pre-teen never saw her sister alive again following that car ride.

After Dorothy arrived at the apartment, Snider raped her before killing her with a shotgun blast to the face. He ended his own life with the same weapon.

For the two-parter Air Mail series, Louise Stratten recalled how, years later — after she had fallen in love with and married Bogdanovich herself — Playboy publisher Hefner met with her in 2009 at the Playboy Mansion, and started crying the instant he saw her.

Hefner had introduced Dorothy to Bogdanovich, who ultimately blamed Hefner for the predatory environment that led to the starlet’s murder.

Hefner later spread rumors about the movie director, claiming he had groomed Louise when she was a teen.

“He went on to tell me how important Dorothy had been to the Playboy ‘family,’ and how she was poised to become a big star,” Louise told Air Mail.

She revealed that Hefner apologized, saying his “biggest regret I shouldn’t have banned Paul [Snider] from the mansion. It was the only thing he had left, being able to come there. He felt like everything was taken from him and when he came to the mansion for the Midsummer Night’s Dream party accompanied by a friend, he was turned away.”

Louise Stratten and Bogdanovich married in 1988 and divorced in 2001. The two, she said, connected over their shared grief. He died in 2022.

She dispelled the “grooming” claims, adding she found them ironic, coming from someone “who built his whole empire on turning young women into sexually available ‘bunnies’ for him and his friends.”

Louise also recounted her life after Bogdanovich passed and how she had to “navigate the love, legacy, and wreckage he left behind.”