Vicki Morgan was a model

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 and a high-profile murder victim.

Background

Born Victoria Lynn Morgan, Morgan was a girl who went to Hollywood in search of fame. She found work as an usher at Grauman's Chinese Theater and it was there that the teenager met 54-year-old Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

-financier Alfred S. Bloomingdale

Alfred S. Bloomingdale

Alfred Schiffer Bloomingdale was an heir to the Bloomingdale's department store fortune, and the celebrated lover of murdered Hollywood model Vicki Morgan....

, a married multi-millionaire from the famous New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 department store

Bloomingdale's

Bloomingdale's is an American department store owned by Macy's, Inc. .Bloomingdale's started in 1861 when brothers Joseph and Lyman G. Bloomingdale started selling hoop-skirts in their Ladies Notions' Shop on Manhattan's Lower East Side...

 family.

Morgan soon became Bloomingdale's mistress

Mistress (lover)

A mistress is a long-term female lover and companion who is not married to her partner; the term is used especially when her partner is married. The relationship generally is stable and at least semi-permanent; however, the couple does not live together openly. Also the relationship is usually,...

. Her social circle would include politicians, businessmen, and the wealthy superannuated playboy Bernie Cornfeld. On Bloomingdale's dime, Morgan lived a lavish lifestyle that lasted until 1982 when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. With Bloomingdale on his deathbed and his usual flow of funds to the now 30-year-old Morgan no longer coming, her financial situation quickly turned desperate. To protect herself, she hired the famous Hollywood palimony

Palimony

Palimony is a popular term used to describe the division of financial assets and real property on the termination of a personal live-in relationship wherein the parties are not legally married. The term is a portmanteau of the words pal and alimony...

 attorney Marvin Mitchelson

Marvin Mitchelson

Marvin M. Mitchelson was an American celebrity lawyer who pioneered the concept of palimony, calling it "marriage with no rings attached."-Biography:...

 to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit for financial compensation as his mistress. The pre-trial media coverage of the initial complaint revealed details of the couple's sexual relationship that grabbed headlines nationwide, causing considerable embarrassment amongst the Washington D.C. elite. However, when Morgan learned that Mitchelson had dinner and a meeting at the White House with Nancy and Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

, she lost trust in Mitchelson, firing him and hiring attorney Joel Steinberg in his place. Morgan was left without income. Later court documents and news stories revealed that after she began selling off the jewelry and the expensive car purchased for her by Bloomingdale, Morgan was preparing to write a tell-all book which was reportedly going to name a number of wealthy and powerful politicians and businessmen who had participated in her sadistic

Sadism and masochism

Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...

 sex rituals.

Morgan moved from her expensive Los Angeles apartment to a more modest San Fernando Valley

San Fernando Valley

The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...

 condominium, renting a room to a 32-year-old acquaintance named Marvin Pancoast. Three weeks later, Pancoast walked into a police station and confessed to murdering Morgan. Investigators found Morgan dead, apparently beaten to death with a baseball bat. Pancoast was sentenced to 26 years to life and died in 1991 in Chino, California, while undergoing treatment for AIDS-related illness.

Theories

There have been many conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...

 as to why she was murdered. Pancoast's explanation — that he was tired of hearing Vicki Morgan complain that she was tired and worried — scarcely seems a motive for a brutal bludgeon murder; Pancoast had no history of violent behavior. After Morgan's death, publisher Larry Flynt

Larry Flynt

Larry Claxton Flynt, Jr. is an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications . In 2003, Arena magazine listed him as the number one on the "50 Powerful People in Porn" list....

 offered to purchase copies of video tapes showing a number of high-ranking people in the Reagan administration in sexual trysts from Beverly Hills attorney Robert Steinberg. Steinberg later failed to produce the videos claiming they had been stolen from him. In a television interview for KNBC filmed after his incarceration, Pancoast (dying of AIDS) recanted his confession, but station management aired only a portion of Pancoast's denial of guilt, feeling his explanation was too explosive.

The Vicki Morgan story received considerable print coverage and in 1985 author Gordon Basichis wrote Beautiful Bad Girl: The Vicki Morgan Story. In 1990, Dominick Dunne

Dominick Dunne

Dominick John Dunne was an American writer and investigative journalist, whose subjects frequently hinged on the ways in which high society interacts with the judicial system...

, the prominent Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair (magazine)

Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...

journalist, author of several books about crimes involving the rich and famous and someone whose own 22-year-old daughter Dominique

Dominique Dunne

Dominique Ellen Dunne was an American actress.Dunne made appearances in several made for television movies, television series, and films, and played a supporting role as the oldest daughter, Dana Freeling, in the 1982 film Poltergeist...

 had been murdered, came out with a fictional portrayal of Vicki Morgan in his book, An Inconvenient Woman.

Further reading

• Beautiful Bad Girl: The Vicki Morgan Story by Gordon Basichis, uPublish.com (2000) ISBN 0-595-12822-X
• An Inconvenient Woman by Dominick Dunne, Ballantine (1991) ISBN 0-345-43053-0