The Playboy Murders season 3 episode 1: A detailed case overview
The Playboy Murders season 3 episode 1 explores the story of Kimberly Fattorini, a casting assistant for Playboy, who mysteriously died at an apartment in West Hollywood. It was on July 21, 2017, when she was found dead on a couch at one of her friends' apartments.
Reportedly, on the previous night, she went to a Los Angeles Nightclub with one of her friends, Monica Maass, who was a Playboy model. The Playboy Murders victim was reported to have been doing cocaine before falling asleep. Initially, the death of Kimberly Fattorini was considered to be a drug overdose.
However, in 2019, the victim's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit, claiming that Fattorini was assaulted before her death.
The Playboy Murders season 3 episode 1, titled Last Dance, explores the complete investigation into the murder. The first episode of The Playboy Murders season 3 is set to release on May 5, 2025, at 9 pm EST on Investigation Discovery.
What happened to The Playboy Murders episode subject Kimberly Fattorini
As reported by Elle, the night before her death, The Playboy Murders subject Kimberly Fattorini had visited a newly opened nightclub named The Highlight Room.
When investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department began to interrogate the victim's friend Monica Maass, she revealed that both of them had been drinking alcohol and doing cocaine the previous night.
Reportedly, they reached her apartment at around 5:00 am in the morning, and Kimberly fell asleep on the couch. Around 3:15 pm in the afternoon, when Monica discovered her friend, still lying on the couch, was not breathing, she called 911.
When the investigators reached the crime scene and searched the apartment, they didn't find anything that was suspicious. Though the victim had bruises on her legs, the forensic examiner ruled it out.
The toxicology report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner revealed that, along with alcohol and cocaine, a date r*pe drug named gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB) was found in her system.
Initially, it was considered that the The Playboy Murders subject Kimberly died of a drug overdose. However, on July 21, 2019, Kimberly Fattorini's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that their daughter was assaulted before her death, as reported by Elle.
The death lawsuit of The Playboy Murders subject Kimberly Fattorini
As reported by Elle, in the death lawsuit, the Fattorini family claimed that on the night of her death, the two women met another girl. As per their story, Kimberly and Monica met a Playboy model named Stefanie after they came out of the nightclub at 2 am on July 21, 2017.
The three women were invited by a nightclub promoter, Eli Wehbe, to his residence. The lawsuit said that the women didn't know that Eki Wehbe had called two other men to the house. One was former NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman, and the other was a car dealer named J.P. Castro.
Investigators found texts from Eli Wehbe's phone, which showed that he invited both Merriman and Castro, to have s*x with the three women. As reported by NBS Sports, it was Shawne Merriman who mixed the GHB drug in her drink.
From the text messages, investigators found a person saying:
“Shawn killed her a*s, what a f--king idiot,” and another person saying of Merriman, “That dumb*ss been drugging girls for years.”
As per Elle, Kimberly's lawsuit gained major traction on social media. As reported by Elle, the lawsuit doesn't provide any kind of information about whether the suspect, Shawne Merriman, was present at the apartment when Monica Maass called the 911 emergency.
Investigators later discovered that both Merriman and Castro were present in the apartment when the emergency call was made. The lawsuit over Kimberly Fattorini's death still remains unsettled.
The Playboy Murders episode titled Last Dance is set to further investigate the mysterious death of Kimberly Fattorini.
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