Lawrencia Ann Bembenek was born on August 15, 1958, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was the youngest of three daughters born to Joseph and Virginia Bembenek. Her father Joseph worked for the Milwaukee Police Department but left the job after witnessing corruption. After that, he became a carpenter.

Lawrencia was raised in a Catholic household. She attended St. Augustine's Elementary School and then moved to St. Mary's Academy in Milwaukee. Later, she transferred to Bay View High School, from which she graduated in 1976. After high school, she studied at Bryant & Stratton College in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she earned an associate degree in fashion merchandising management.

After finishing her education, Lawrencia returned to Milwaukee. She worked in retail and even tried her hand at modeling. In 1978, she was featured as "Miss March" in a calendar from the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company.

In March 1980, Lawrencia began training at the Milwaukee police academy. While she was a trainee, she faced an accusation of smoking marijuana at a party, which was investigated but never confirmed. During her time at the academy, she became friends with another trainee named Judy Zess. Lawrencia graduated in the summer of 1980 and started her job at the Milwaukee Police Department's South Side Second District.

However, her time with the police was short-lived. Lawrencia was dismissed from the department on August 25, 1980, after being involved in a situation related to her friend Judy. After her dismissal, she discovered compromising photos of some veteran police officers and took them to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). She argued that she was fired for a minor issue while the officers in the photos faced no punishment for more serious actions.

Following her job loss, Lawrencia briefly worked as a waitress at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva. It was during this time that she met Elfred O. "Fred" Schultz, an officer with the Milwaukee Police Department. Fred was divorced and had two young sons, Sean and Shannon. Lawrencia and Fred got married in January 1981 in Illinois. However, their marriage was later ruled invalid because Fred did not wait the legally required six months after his divorce to remarry. They married again in November 1981.

While living with Fred, Lawrencia took up a job as a personal trainer at a health club. By May 1981, she was working as a campus security officer at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

On May 28, 1981, Christine J. Schultz was murdered in her home in Milwaukee at around 2:15 a.m. She was shot in the back with a .38 caliber pistol. The shooter gagged and blindfolded her, and tied her hands in front with a clothesline. Her two young sons were asleep in the house during the attack. When they awoke, they found their mother face down on the bed, bleeding. The older son, Sean, reported seeing the shooter, describing him as a masked man dressed in a green army jacket with a long reddish ponytail.

Christine and Fred Schultz, her ex-husband, had been divorced six months prior to the murder. Fred initially claimed he was busy working an investigation with a partner when Christine was killed, but he later admitted they had been drinking at a bar during that time. When ballistics testing suggested that Fred's off-duty revolver was the murder weapon, suspicion turned to Lawrencia Ann Bembenek, Fred's wife. Bembenek had access to the gun and a key to Christine's house, which Fred had secretly copied. As a result of the investigation, police arrested Bembenek on June 24, 1981.

Bembenek's trial attracted a lot of media attention. The prosecution painted her as someone who wanted Christine dead to relieve Fred of paying alimony and child support. They argued that Bembenek had both the motive and the means to commit the crime. Bembenek’s husband’s gun had blood on it, and she had access to a key for Christine's house, with no signs of forced entry or theft at the scene.

One of the primary pieces of evidence against Bembenek was two human hairs found at the crime scene that matched hairs taken from her hairbrush. Despite this evidence, Sean Schultz testified that he could not identify Bembenek as the shooter. Witnesses claimed that Bembenek had made comments about wanting to kill Christine. Other evidence included her ownership of a jogging suit similar to what Sean had described, and a wig discovered in the plumbing of her apartment that matched fibers found at the murder site.

On March 9, 1982, the jury found Bembenek guilty of first-degree murder, leading to a life sentence in prison. She served her time at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.

After some time in prison, Fred Schultz publicly changed his stance and supported the belief that Bembenek was guilty. Bembenek, however, started to suspect that Schultz had hired someone to kill Christine. As she sat in prison, she filed several appeals, arguing that there had been police errors in handling evidence. She mentioned that one key witness had recanted her testimony, claiming it was given under pressure.

In July 1990, Bembenek escaped from prison, aided by her fiancé. This escape drew significant media attention, and she became somewhat of a folk hero. The couple evaded capture for about three months before being arrested in Canada after a tourist recognized Bembenek from a television show.

After her arrest, Bembenek returned to Wisconsin and received a new trial. To avoid the risk of another life sentence, she pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in December 1992. She was sentenced to 20 years but was released after serving a little over ten years. After her release, she faced various personal and legal challenges, including a diagnosis of hepatitis C and issues with alcohol.

Bembenek continued to maintain her innocence regarding the murder of Christine Schultz. She attempted to fight her conviction, but appeals were denied. On November 20, 2010, Bembenek passed away due to liver and kidney failure while in hospice care in Portland, Oregon.