Milwaukee ? A former police officer trying to prove her innocence in a murder case had her right foot amputated Friday after a fall from a hotel window, her attorney said.

Laurie Bembenek, 44, severed an artery in the foot three weeks ago when she fell from a second-story hotel room where she was being kept for the “Dr. Phil” television show, attorney Mary L. Woehrer said.

Woehrer said the foot later developed a serious infection.

Bembenek, a former Playboy club waitress nicknamed “Bambi,” was convicted of killing her husband’s ex-wife in 1982. She escaped prison in 1990 but was captured in Canada.

She was released in 1992 after pleading no contest to second-degree murder. Her story was made into a book and a TV movie starring Tatum O’Neal, “Woman on the Run: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story.”

Bembenek, who is hoping that DNA evidence will exonerate her, was in Los Angeles for a taping of the nationally syndicated TV show when the accident happened Nov. 10.

The program had put her under “bodyguard type” surveillance in an effort to shield her from the media reports, Woehrer said. But Woehrer said the restrictions triggered memories of Bembenek’s imprisonment, causing her to try to flee.