Bembenek and Fred Schultz married in January 1981 in Illinois, but the marriage was ruled invalid because Wisconsin does not allow remarriage less than six months after divorce.
Upon winning a new trial, Bembenek pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in exchange for reduced prison time.
She sued the department, claiming that its officers engaged in sexual discrimination and other illegal activities, but the investigation did not uphold her complaint.
[citation needed] While still at the academy, Bembenek met and became close with Judy Zess, another female trainee.
In her autobiography Woman on the Run (1992), Bembenek later claimed that the MPD was then composed of "brutal, lazy, apathetic and corrupt" police officers.
Bembenek was dismissed from the Milwaukee Police Department on August 25, 1980 because of her involvement in filing a false report related to Zess's May arrest.
"Fred" Schultz (her future husband), dancing nude on picnic tables in Gordon Park, after drinking at a nearby tavern.
She took the pictures to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where she argued that she had been dismissed for a minor infraction, but the male police officers were committing more serious violations (as shown in the photos), and did so with impunity.
[16] The older boy, Sean, saw the assailant, which he described as a masked male figure in a green army jacket and black shoes.
Fred Schultz initially said he was on duty investigating a burglary with his partner, Michael Durfee, at the time of the murder.
When ballistics testing allegedly revealed that his off-duty revolver was the murder weapon, suspicion shifted to Bembenek.
[1] Fred Schultz had previously been investigated in the fatal shooting of a Glendale, Wisconsin police officer, George Robert Sassan, on July 23, 1975.
Milwaukee police officers, including Schultz, responded to the call in suburban Glendale (outside of their jurisdiction), reportedly mistook Sassan for a suspect, and fatally shot him when he turned toward them, holding a gun.
The prosecution portrayed Bembenek as a loose woman addicted to expensive living who wanted Christine Schultz dead so that her new husband would no longer have to pay alimony and child support.
Noting that Bembenek had financial problems, the prosecution claimed that she was the only person with the motive and means to carry out the crime.
But Schultz's eldest son, an eyewitness, said he could not identify Bembenek as the person he had seen in the house and who shot his mother.
[22] While Fred Schultz had initially stood by Bembenek, claiming she was innocent, he later changed his mind and in 1989 publicly stated that he believed she was "guilty as sin.
[20] Horenberger, along with an accomplice, had been questioned days before the murder by a deputy with the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office about an unrelated crime.
[25] After her imprisonment, Bembenek filed three unsuccessful appeals of her conviction, citing police errors in handling of key evidence.
She also noted the fact that one of the prosecution's witnesses, Judy Zess, had recanted her testimony, stating it was made under duress.
Bembenek and her supporters also alleged that the MPD may have singled her out for prosecution because of her role as a key witness in a federal investigation into police corruption.
[citation needed] Following Bembenek's conviction, numerous affidavits were filed that alleged that, while imprisoned, Horenberger boasted to other inmates of having killed Christine Schulz.
[27] In an interview she gave to The Milwaukee Sentinel earlier that year, Bembenek said that Fred had written her a letter saying that he was living with a 19-year-old woman in Florida and had decided to end their marriage.
[31] Bembenek and Gugliatto fled to Thunder Bay, Ontario while sensational stories about their relationship swirled through American tabloids.
On October 17, 1990, the couple were arrested after a tourist saw a segment about Bembenek's escape on America's Most Wanted TV series.
Gugliatto was deported to the United States a month later and was eventually sentenced to one year in prison for his role in the escape.
[27][32] Bembenek sought refugee status in Canada, claiming that she was being persecuted by a conspiracy between the police department and the judicial system in Wisconsin.
[27] Rather than risk a second conviction and in order to get out of prison earlier, she pleaded no contest (nolo contendere) to second-degree murder during a hearing held on December 9, 1992.
In April 2008, Bembenek filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court, seeking a reversal of the second murder conviction.
Bembenek's attorney pointed to evidence withheld in the original trial, including ballistics tests that showed the murder bullets did not match Fred Schultz's gun, male DNA found on the victim, evidence showing that the victim had been sexually assaulted, and the eyewitness testimony of the two young sons who claimed that the intruder was a heavyset, masked man.