Death of a Groupie: Who Murdered Playmate and Kiss Girlfriend Star Stowe?

She was beautiful, wild, she loved life and liked to overdo it – but her death was brutal and undignified. And above all: To this day it is not clear who strangled the Playmate Star Stowe in 1997.

There are different statements about how Star Stowe got her stage name. Born Ellen Louise Stowe in Arkansas in 1956, the blonde is said to have chosen the alias “Star” because she loved the Rolling Stones’ song “Star, Star.” Or because she had a small, blue star tattooed in her intimate area. Or because she loved the sight of the wide, American night sky so much.

But maybe it’s a lot easier. Perhaps the young woman had a clear goal: to become a star. As you know, you shouldn’t dress for the job you have, but for the one you want. Maybe it’s the same with names. Stowe knew early on that the life she dreamed of would not await her in her hometown of Little Rock. Already as a teenager she packed her things, left her parents’ house and moved first to Las Vegas, then to Los Angeles. She dreamed of a career as a dancer, but only found jobs where she had to pole dance naked.

A Playmate with big goals

After all, the jobs as a stripper brought Star Stowe luck: in a club she was discovered by a scout from “Playboy” magazine – then as now a platform for young women who hope for a real career through the revealing photos. And it actually worked for the then 21-year-old: The fact that she was the first model with a visible tattoo (we already mentioned where) caused a stir in the photo series. Star Stowe was named Playmate of the Month. And since she posed in a picture with a guitar, rock musicians suddenly showed interest in her.

“She liked to have fun,” recalls Playboy photographer Mike Pompeo. Star Stowe had an “adventurous spirit”. Luckily, it was around this time that the model met Gene Simmons – the legendary bassist for the rock band Kiss. Known, among other things, for his allegedly unusually long tongue and for the fact that he has had sex with thousands of women and snapped a Polaroid of each one. As of today, there are said to be 5,000.

Star Stowe enjoyed his time at Rock Olympus

However, Star Stowe seems to have been special for the then 28-year-old – because he turned to her after being in extended relationships with superstars Cher and Diana Ross. And Star also took part in the promotional sessions for the album “Destroyer”, for which she posed with all the band members in a skimpy white wedding dress. The pictures of the young woman with her doll’s face, the big eyes and the pouty lips caused a stir even among people who didn’t read “Playboy”.

But Simmons, at least in the Roaring ’70s, wasn’t a man for life. The relationship ended. And unlike other groupies, Stowe didn’t manage to stay in the scene and land another famous and well-to-do musician. Instead, she met a “normal” man, married, and had a son, Michael. This could have been an unspectacular end to her groupie career – giving up dreams of the wild life for tranquil family bliss. But that didn’t suit Star’s “adventurous spirit.”

Star Stowe never found her place in life

The marriage, concluded in 1981, was divorced after only a few years. Star took her young son and moved to Fort Lauderdale, California with him in 1986 and got the kind of job she used to do to get by: stripping. But this time the work in the shady milieu wasn’t a jump into Rockolymp, but the exact opposite. She came into contact with alcohol and drugs and became addicted. At least after two years she realized that her life was not one in which there was room for a child. She sent Michael to her mother, where he grew up.

And at some point, dancing alone wasn’t enough to pay their bills anymore. Finally, the drugs and numerous parties had to be financed. Star Stowe turned to prostitution, succumbing to hopelessness. Until she met a new man: in 1991 she moved in with a new boyfriend, now 35 years old. She gave up prostitution, allegedly also the drugs – but not the alcohol. Although she spoke to her son regularly on the phone, she rarely visited him. Nonetheless, her life seemed to be stabilizing.

Until the big bang. After five years of dating, a drunken argument broke out between the two, and Star Stowe left – and went back to her old life. From then on, she worked as a prostitute waiting for customers on the roadside in Coral Springs, northwest of Fort Lauderdale. The bitter fall of a fun-loving woman who could sniff the life of the rich and beautiful for a moment. At least now she had the opportunity to look at the night sky, which she loved so much. At least until she was murdered.

A brutal ending

On March 16, 1997, she worked for the last time in her usual area, witnesses saw her there. The next morning, the 40-year-old was found almost naked and strangled behind a pharmacy. The police quickly assumed that the culprit was probably a suitor. Whether he knew who Star Stowe was, what she had experienced, what she had wanted for her life, that she had a son – probably not.

Investigations revealed striking similarities with two other murder cases: a few weeks earlier, another prostitute, Sandra Walters, had been murdered nearby. In November 1997, a woman named Tammy Strunk died. Other prostitutes in the area are said to have been attacked and choked – but the killer, most likely a serial killer, has not been caught to this day.

Sources: “Medium”, blog post, “Reprobate Press”, Facebook

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