French entertainer and socialite Claudine Longet likely caught some mourners off guard when she attended a memorial service in Aspen to grieve her dead boyfriend, the Olympic skiing champion Vladimir “Spider” Sabich. After all, just six days earlier she had shot him to death under questionable circumstances.
On March 21, 1976, following time on the slopes, Sabich, 31, returned to the home he shared with Paris-born Longet and got ready to shower. What happened next remains in dispute. Longet claimed Sabich was showing her how to use an imitation .22 German Luger when the World War II firearm went off and a bullet struck the sports hero in the abdomen, piercing his pancreas and stomach.
Longet, then 34, insisted the shooting wasn’t intentional, but in the days, weeks, months and years that followed, Aspen locals questioned her innocence and turned against her in droves. The social cache she previously enjoyed because of her entertainment career and still-close relationship with her former husband of 13 years, the singer and actor Andy William, quickly proved worthless.
The debate raged around town: Was Sabich dead because of a tragic accident or something far more sinister? Rumors swirled Sabich was seeing other women and on the verge of leaving his reportedly jealous girlfriend. Saturday Night Live skewered Longet in a sketch that showed an actor portraying her “accidentally” shooting skiers at a slalom competition. Even the Rolling Stones weighed in on the controversy, recording the song “Claudine” with lyrics that include “There’s blood in the chalet” and “Washed her hands of the whole damn show.”
Whatever the case, Aspen police charged the chanteuse with felony reckless manslaughter weeks after the deadly shooting, and she went on trial in January 1977. On the stand, Longet testified that the day of the slaying, “I picked up the gun and walked toward the bathroom, saying to Spider, ‘I would like you to tell me about this gun.’” According to Longet, her boyfriend reassured her the shoddy weapon wouldn’t go off. It did.
Frank Tucker, the district attorney who prosecuted the case, later called Longet an “over-the-hill glamour puss” and suggested a possible motive for the shooting: She “was not going to lose another man.”
Tucker would have a tough time proving Longet was culpable. Procedural errors during the investigation made potentially damaging evidence against Longet inadmissible, from a blood test that came back positive for alcohol and cocaine to alleged entries in her diary that purportedly contradicted her version of events. Instead, Tucker had to rely on an autopsy report to contend it was impossible the shooting was accidental since Sabich was bent over and not facing the gun when it discharged from what a ballistics expert estimated was up to six feet away. Longet’s attorneys, paid for by her famous ex-husband, Williams, countered all evidence presented in court was purely circumstantial and proved nothing.
Some jurists agreed, and a panel of her peers found Longet guilty of the lesser charge of misdemeanor criminally negligent homicide. The judge handed down a mere $250 fine and 30-day prison term, which he allowed the defendant to serve at the Pitkin County jail on weekends.
In 1985, Longet married Ronald Austin, one of her trial defense attorneys. The socialite and her husband opted to continue living in Red Mountain in Aspen despite her ostracization from the local community. The 80-year-old recluse has never spoken openly about Sabich’s murder, only hinting once: “I went through a very painful and difficult time…in 1976.”
Sabich’s brother, Steve Sabich, saw it a bit differently. “It’s a shame, because Spider accomplished so much in his life,” he has said. “Claudine accomplished only two things: marrying Andy Williams and getting away with murder.”
Read GRAZIA Gazette: Aspen featuring cover star Jourdan Dunn:
