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Hi, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil. I'm Roscha Pacerrero.
And I'm Yvette Genteeley, and today we're talking about the case of Dorothy Stratton. Y'all might know about this one because it was a big story when it happened back in the eighties.
Yes, I remember this case. Dorothy's case even inspired multiple movies, including the nineteen eighty one movie Death of a Centerfold The Dorothy Stratton Story, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and there were also numerous songs that were written about the case, including Californication by the Hot Chili Pepper's personal favorite of mine and the Best Was Yet to Come by Brian Adams.
Yeah.
I so remember all those songs. But we also have to remember that Dorothy, she was an actress and a playboy motto who dealt with abuse at the hands of her controlling husband, who she was estranged from at the time, and sadly, the story ends in her tragic murder.
Yeah, heartbreaking. And today we want to use Dorothy's story as a jumping off point to talk about intimate partner violence and why it's so prevalent. But first our producer Trevor is going to take us through today's case.
After catching the eye of iconic mogul Hugh Hefner, she was crowned nineteen eighty Playmate of the Year.
She never felt that there was any danger in anything with Paul Sneyer. He pushed her to marry him. She I don't think really wanted to.
She was the meal ticket, but he was afraid that he could lose her.
She did.
Dorothy Stratton was a twenty year old actress and playboy model who was killed by her husband in nineteen eighty in Los Angeles. Dorothy grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and while in high school, she met a man named Paul Snyder. Snyder was a successful promoter for car shows, but he soon took to less than legitimate ways to
make money, namely pimping. In the summer of nineteen seventy eight, Snyder had a professional photographer take nude photos of then eighteen year old Dorothy and send them to Playboy for the Great Playmate Hunt of nineteen seventy eight. Dorothy was chosen as a finalist, and so she and Paul Snyder moved together to Los Angeles, California. The following year, they got married in Las Vegas. At the time, she was
nineteen and he was twenty eight. Dorothy eventually became Playboy's Miss August nineteen seventy nine and started to work as a Playboy bunny. Hugh Hefner decided that Dorothy should act and got her roles in episodes of Fantasy Island and Buck Rogers. Meanwhile, Snyder became her chauffeur, manager, and acting coach. The two reportedly argued daily, often leading to verbal and physical escalation. Roseanne Cayton, a fellow playmate, warned Dorothy to
leave Snyder. Hefner also tried to get Dorothy away from Snyder, calling him quote a hustler and a pimp. In March of nineteen eighty, Dorothy landed a role in the film They All Laughed, a romantic comedy written and directed by Peter Bogdanovitch, and then Dorothy began an affair with Bogdanovich while filming in New York. She wrote to Snyder asking him for more freedom in their marriage, but Snyder called
her and flew into a rage. And then, when Dorothy was on a tour stop in Vancouver, Snyder flew into town and convinced Dorothy to make nightclub appearances instead of fulfilling her playboy duties. Snyder then pocketed all the money she made from the appearances and disappeared. In June of nineteen eighty, Dorothy sent Snyder a letter announcing they were separating. In response, Snyder emptied their bank account and started an affair with an old girlfriend. He also sold off Dorothy's
Playmate of the Year prizes. In July, Snyder obtained a gun and he camped outside Bogdanovitch's house with the goal of confronting Dorothy and the director when they came home, But after hours of waiting, he finally gave up and left. And then on August fourteenth, Dorothy told Snyder she would come by his house to give him some settlement money.
Her business manager had told her she should let her lawyer deal with Snyder, but Dorothy refused the advice and insisted that she'd deal with him personally, saying quote, I'd like to remain his friend. When Dorothy arrived at Snyder's house, his roommates had left for the day. The two spent some time in the living room before they went back to the bedroom. About an hour lefe Snyder shot Dorothy, and an hour after that he shot himself. The story
was a major tabloid sensation. When interviewed, Hefner said, quote, a very sick guy saw his meal ticket and his connection to power or whatever slipping away, and it was that that made him kill her end quote. And So, how does the case of Dorothy Stratton reveal a bigger issue of intimate partner violence and its prevalence in American culture?
Well, welcome back to Facing Evil.
So the issue of intimate partner abuse, of course, is a huge issue that we've talked about many times on our podcast, and Dorothy Stratton is just one of millions of people who have dealt with violence at the hands of a partner. So today we are so honored and humbled to welcome an amazing expert on this issue and that is doctor Junkog Cho, and doctor Cho is an associate professor at Michigan State University's College of Social Science.
He's published numerous studies and journals on the issues of intimate partner violence. So doctor Cho, welcome a Komo may to Facing Evil.
Thanks for having me. It's my great pleasure.
N thank you so much, doctor Choe for being here. We're going to start. First of all, if you could tell us how you got into this work, you know, and in particularly what brought you to the issue of intimate partner violence.
Yes, I can share some of my stories. So probably my first memory of witnessing patterner of violence was when I was very leader in Korea, so where I came from, So probably I was like five years old or six, and at the time is nineteen sixties or early seventies, so it was not that uncommon in Korea at the time, Like seeing like a drunken, angry man dragging around seeing me their wives on street and beating them and yelling
at them. So I felt very bad, But I don't remember like any person actually stepped in to stop it. Either they were afraid of being harassed themselves or I don't know. But that's rebot the memory, but a little more reasten to one is like them. A couple of my friends, female friends from my college, shared with me their experiences of their like hit by their partners or actually their husbands. So they are highly educated and intelligent and very capable, but stir they were victimized. So I
was very perplexed and I wanted to know more. So it's about the same time I plan to go into a PhD program in the social work, so it's kind of the good match for me to be interested in the topic. And I wrote my destination about it.
Wow, so it was very personal to you, starting from the time you were a child and then as you started to grow up.
Yes, yes it is.
I'm thankful for you because I've never had the opportunity to speak to an expert on intimate partner violence or expert of any kind on abuse. And I know that intimate partner violence doesn't only happen between couples, right like it happens whether you know a parent is abusing a child or even adults you know sadly abusing their elderly parents. But can you tell us a little bit more like how diverse this issue really is like it's not you know, between a man and a woman, right.
Right, right, So you are correct when you mentioned like a lot of different types of violence happening between family members as well as like the caregivers, even for like elderly abuse, or even children can be abused or militreated by their teachers like that. So it's very diverse, and the many research consistently shows that itp is observed from every group, every community, every place of imaginable so legardilis of gender or sexual orientation or age or race and
ethnicity and community types. Also, like the pattern of virons doesn't happen only against women, so men also serve from pattern of virons. But the numbers and the characteristics of
violence experience are somewhat different between men and women. So for instance, like the Russia, you just mentioned a lot of different forms of violence including physical abuse, emotional abuse or psychological aggression or manuperation, controlling behaviors, obsessively limiting where you are and whom to talk to, and of course
sexual assault and ray. All different types of violence are out there, and among those types of violence, women are deported more like sexual assault and severe revels of physical violence for instance, like beating up or like the lipiditid hit by weapons like that, and sexual assault is predominantly against women. Men deported a little bit comparable number and percentages of psychological aggressions, so it can be called emotional
abuse or manuperation. Controlling behaviors, they seem to be comparitive between men and women. And one significant difference between men and women is the negative consequences of virns on their health. So women reported way severe levels of injury like broken bones or fracture or heavy bruises compared to men. So they are like certain differences between men and women. But still we cannot argue against that. So they are out.
There right, can't discount it, right, So you know another question, doctor Choe, I mean, what are the most common stories that you hear about you know, for instance, we are talking about Dorothy Stratton who was a very famous model, you know, playboo model in.
The eighties and she was killed by her controlling, abusive husband. Do you think there's a difference between fame and power money. What are the most common stories that you hear about these behaviors?
Yeah, I believe there's a hot casion to answer, because we're just discuss how diverse I PV is, so like picking a very common story among all those diversities hot cusion. But at this time we can share like a couple of different types of stories that we consistently watch. So we're talking about server groups of all different types of experience. So like that, there are many scholars try hard to create some manager number of server groups. Two or three
types of old IPD based on their similarities. So one of them was created by doctor Johnson. I believe he was a sociology professor at Penn State. So he created like three different types of pattern of violence. First one is probably similar to the case you just lifered. He called it as a domestic terrorism. So one partner having an more power and resources compared to other partner, and they use their enormous advantage in terms of power to
control another partner, including violence. So he observed like that kind of virons predominantly committed by men against the women I see. So about according to his observation, about fifteen to twenty percent of patterner virolens maybe classified into that form of domestic terrorism. Okay, okay, that might be one story may be very close to the case we are talking about today. Yeah. Another form is he called it like a situational partner violence or situational couple of violence.
So in terms of severity or frequency or consequences, it's a reader. Let's a severe compared to domestic terrorism, which is discussed, So let's severe levels of physical violence, like so instead of like a using knife or weapon, or beating, like pushing like it's frequently used, or like throwing a pillow against your partner over some disagreement or dispute or some conflict.
Less severe.
So men and women can use such violence occasionally, not frequently. So that's why it's called the situational. So if they are intoxicated or under like the some heavy stress from like childcare or like employment or COVID, then under the high pressure, they might rely on violence to reserve or express their discomfort or frustration. So they're called a situation
a couple of violence. So in terms of a number, about half or more of a pattern of violence may be built as a dead type, so embolving lesser severe violence of still very serious in terms of consequences, but men and women may evolve in a little pretty even percentages. And another line, the type of violence conjured by doctor Johnson is called the violent resistance, which means like involving
self defense. So, for instance, police was called into the domestic violence scene and they found both partners embolved in some kind of physical confrontation and use of violence, so they arrested the both of them. But later on they found actually one partner reacted against like the violence physical force p pictured by another partner. But police didn't have much time to tell difference between whomever like initiate the
violence and who defend themselves against the violence. So they are the types of violence, and in terms of a number, about twenty percent twenty five percent or partner violence probably classify the them. But still Legardi I saw forms of pattern of vironce condgative consequences in terms of health and social function onto survivors or victims very severe, very serious. So we have to treat all forms of patternal violence very seriously.
Yeah, it's all trauma, right, like it's yeah, it's all trauma, yeah, in whatever form. Speaking along those lines with psychology, this is something it's interesting, right, Like I think hurt people. Hurt people, right, and that's the term you know we've been told and hear it facing evil or much more about the like how do you heal from that? And like I thankfully have never repeated any of the abuse that has been done to me. You know, our mom
never repeated it to us. And you know, but that didn't happen for my dad in particular, or I don't know what Dorothy Stratton's a strange husband, what he went through before he you know, did horrible things to Dorothy or anyone.
But why do you.
Think sociologically or psychologically, like why do these people feel the need these abusers, like why do they need to control, manipulate or.
Harm these people that they love?
Like I know again, I'm sure it's a wide variety of answers, But from a scientific standpoint, what do you think, If.
I can be overly simplistic, then the answer is because they can, right, they can use violence without any restriction either like their partner being abused didn't have much power then them, so they feel free to do whatever they want and society or neighbors or even authorities didn't see them as a serious right or even like use some form of violence and conceive that as some kind of expression of love or another form of some loving relationship,
different but private matter, and we don't have it to step in. So because of such like a little bit leniency in terms of social acceptance of a violence. Also like the victim shaming culture. So when we are in pain, then it's natural for us to talk to somebody to feel better and to seek for some health. And but if I share something, then what if my friend or parents or teachers say no, no, no, no, so what did
you do and where are you there? And if they have a repeated experience like that, then we internalize the process of shaming as if we actually embolve in very shame for activity, so we just never sick help ever. Again, so because of such a social environment, perpetrator may feel free. Wow, that's like one interpretation and explanation. Another one is like like a feminist take is like power and control mechanism what they call. So it's very similar to again the
case we are talking about. So if one partner have enormous fame and power not comparably to the other partner, then this partner used their power to control another partner's behavior perception for their gain, to their advantage. Yeah, Historically, like a man seemed to progest much more power compared to women. So that's why, like the most of very severe virons actually porpetraed by men because they had a
more power over women. Right. At the same time, we cannot ignore like the presence of other types of partner violence. Men also suffer the from a partner violence. And some famous like a male egg actually sexually assorted another malectoral or actors allegedly, So it can happen to whatever a relationship, not only for men and women or a heterosexual or same sex. It can happen there. Then probably like power and control can be or cannot be applied.
I feel like this is a therapy session, doctor Joe, I love it.
Another theory may be based on like the some gruel people and they don't have like a good conflicted resolution skills, right, So conflict isn't natural, so it can happen between any patterns because we are different from each other. But some persons or some group people do not have a good exposure to the healthy way of conflicted resolution. So either they were raised in very violent community, then the only
bio option for them to achieve something is use of violence. Right, and when they observe the dead like kind of gang affiliation, like some motivation for youth in the public community as a very few way to go up to the like hierarchical social structure. So there might be another theory. So it's very hard to choose one or two. But I'm just giving you some choices of theory.
Right, which we appreciate. Yeah, we're learning, yeah, very much. So, I mean, we know how prevalent, you know, intimate partner violence is, especially here in America, and we know the numbers are quite high. Do you know, is it higher in other countries compared to here?
May or may not. So it depends on which country are we are comparing us with. So like United Nations released like the formerly port about pattern of violence prevalence across the glove and according to recent the port, United States shows like comparable numbers across like the developed countries. So I mentioned I came from Korea, so I know the numbers are pretty pretty similar between Korea and United States.
But compared to like the like underdeveloped countries or far remote countries like for instance, un identify the ten countries that show the highest prevalence of a pattern of violence. So a couple of African countries, for instance a Congo or Iberia included in the RIST and couple of Pacific island nations including Papua New Guinea or Solomon Islands also show like about half of the population the party some form of violence.
Wow.
So we don't know for sure why. It may be because like the Mail patriarchy, maybe stronger there, or there may be some religious influence if any religion or social loans or community values, socialized community members into certain expectations, certain growth of people can use violence. Whyas another groups of people just have to suffer for some something. The United States not the worst, or we cannot say worse than most of the countries, but very severe in terms
of number percentage. So let me give you a number. Okay, So annually we know that about six percent of or other two women, so in terms of number is about seven million the party the experienced some form of sexual violence fishical views and starking. Wow. And a little smaller number four men, but still about six million. Other men aged eighteen or over also reported the physical violence and
starking victimization. Again, there are differences, right, So women deported the more sexual violence starking whyas men deported the similar levels of psychological abuse.
But still very high.
Yeah, doctor Chol, like you spoke earlier about shame, right, and just sharing from my own experience, Like I didn't tell a soul that I was.
Physically, verbally and emotionally abused until I was twenty one years old, and that was because that last time I almost died, And I think I kind of like flipped and I'm like, oh, I can't not tell everyone, you know, but I didn't press charges.
I didn't report it out of shame.
Just by you saying all that, Like, I can only imagine what it's like in all these other countries where culturally maybe they're not supposed to report it.
Right, and probably there they don't have the resources as well. Right, I think this is probably the most important question. How do we break the cycle?
I believe like making our society egalitarian and more diverse and inclusive and equitable is the probably the most important thing we have to pursue. But it's a wrong term goal, right. We cannot expect like our society is a change overnight. Okay, all women are like equal to and we have to pay equal amount of money to regard it with their gender sexual orientation, we cannot expect that, but still we have to try hard. So and another area that we can make it for this education, so let them know.
So it's much better if we can start early because the norms values about healthy relationship or like the how bad it is to rely on violence. It can be educated or it can be socialized very early on. Then we can keep that ressent and valuus all our lifetime. So like the about the nature of violence, or what would be the healthy relationship look like? And what can be done if your witness something going on or your friend share this thing is going on, or your friend
said nothing but you felt something different. Not not questioning them or not intimidating them, not overly charged the way, so that that kind of education training can be done very early on, because like repetition is the key also education because we can be forgetful and as we live on we are exposed to all different types of environment and probably one lesson we took from early education may not be suitable for another situation, like workplace harassment is
very different from like dating violence at school or tempus. So we need like a continuous education of training, and of course we need a resource to keep that education going on. Yes, some of you mentioned like the nobody did anything or I mentioned that right, so I witnessed the pattern of violence. Most of us that don't know how to embolve in that situation. Either we are very afraid of we can be another victim, or we know both partners so we don't know how to tell them.
So I stand the intervention is one of the most effective way to come back everging present pattern of violence. We shouldn't know how to intervene into a pattern of violence, either share the one or happening in front of us.
So that kind of education training also the key. And probably like the every of us should know something about pattern of violence, how to talk to or if your friend, share them, how to listen to, how to respect and that question that challenging, just the trust and believe and how to support shaming, yeah, not shaming, and let them feel supported.
So so beautiful, you have laid it all out for us, doctor Chow. We so appreciate your expertise, your knowledge, your wisdom. Thank you for sharing your story, you know, from when you were younger, because a lot of times it's so personal to us, you know why we end up where we are and Russia and I you know here on facing evil. It is very personal story of how we got here, and we just want to share with people, you know, resources on how you can overcome and move
onward and upward. Mahalo nuiloa from the bottom of our heart.
Yeah, it is my honor and pleasure to be here. So and I'm really thankful for Lasha for sharing the painful story and let us let us just the part of your story and listen to some of you the podcast. So I really appreciate your evil to make this kind of like a violence victimization, like insightful stories about it. So let us know, let the public know about the stories about it, the sufferings, and some potential ways to fight against it. Are really grateful for you to do this job.
Oh exactly why we're doing this.
Yes, Oh my gosh, thank you so much, Thank you so much.
It's a mygret pleasure. I hope to see you again.
For today's message of hope and healing. Our eymore goes out to the right shining light of a human that Dorothy Stratton was. Dorothy was kind, talented, loving, and a self proclaimed curious soul.
We never got to see Dorothy blossom into her full potential, but the beauty and the raw talent she shared with the world will linger on forever.
The light in the darkness of Dorothy's story has inspired so many other survivors of domestic violence to finally break free.
We want all who are suffering to be heard. We should all follow the advice of the National Domestic Violence Hot Life. If you see something, say something. Domestic violence thrives in silence, and if you or someone you know needs help, please call them at one eight hundred seven ninety nine seven two three three, Onward and upward, Emua emua. Well, that's our show for today.
We'd love to hear what you thought about today's discussion and if there's a case you'd like for us to.
Cover, find us on social media or email us at Facingevil pod at tenderfoot dot tv.
And one small request if you haven't already, please find us on iTunes and give us a good rating and a good review. If you like what we do, your support is always cherished.
Until next time. Aloha.
Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. The show is hosted by Russia, Paccuerero and Avet Gentile. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams our executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio, with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk, Donald albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmadge.
Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on social media or email us at facingevilpod at tenderfoot dot tv. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows