Playmate Dorothy Stratten Thought She'd Escaped Danger by Leaving Husband. Then He Killed Her in Murder-Suicide

A new episode of Investigation Discovery’s The Playboy Murders airing Monday tells the tragic story of a Playmate-turned-actress who was murdered by her jealous, estranged husband.

Dorothy Stratten was Playboy’s Playmate of the Year in 1980, the year she filmed her first movie, directed by the late Peter Bogdanovich. It’s also the year she was killed by her husband, Paul Snider, who then turned the gun on himself.

Stratten and Snider met in her native Vancouver, where he set up and paid for a nude photoshoot that helped her get discovered by Playboy when she was 18. Her star rose quickly and soon she was living in the Playboy Mansion.

In an exclusive clip shared with PEOPLE, The Playboy Murders executive producer and former Playmate Holly Madison and former Mansion hostess Stella Tetenbaum discuss Stratten’s first time posing nude.

“There was a lot of pressure on her,” Tetenbaum says in the clip. “She wasn’t used to posing nude, she wasn’t really groomed yet for that and she had a shyness about her.”

Madison, who lived in the Mansion decades after Stratten, empathized with how the young Dorothy must have felt.

“It must have been scary for Dorothy taking those photos for the first time,” Madison says in the exclusive clip. “When it’s your body you feel like you’re going to be the one to mess it up. Like, if your photos never got published, that was just kind of terrifying.”

As Stratten’s profile continued to grow, so did Snider’s apparent jealousy. The abusive Snider, whom Stratten married in 1979, spent a lot of time around the Mansion, which irked many people, including Hugh Hefner. 

When Stratten was cast in the movie They All Laughed, she began an affair with Bogdanovich, and Snider hired a private investigator. She eventually filed for divorce.

The pair agreed to meet and talk things out on Aug. 14, 1980. That’s when Snider fatally shot her with a shotgun, which he then used to shoot himself in the head. Stratten was 20 years old.

“Dorothy was involved in a very controlling, abusive relationship,” Madison tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview. “For the moment, she didn't feel like she was in danger. She felt like it was one last meeting. She was going to give him a little bit of money, and that's when he took her life.”

The incident made headlines, and sparked scrutiny into the lifestyles surrounding the Playboy empire. In response to the murder-suicide, Bogdanovich wrote a scathing book about Stratten’s death, blaming Playboy and Hefner.

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The impact of Stratten’s murder has reverberated through the years, spawning multiple movies about the case. 

“So many people were just devastated by it,” Madison says. “By all accounts, she was the sweetest person and had so much potential.”

The Dorothy Stratten episode, “Falling Star,” of The Playboy Murders airs Monday, February 26 at 10/9c on ID.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.