The Playboy Murders: Who killed Michael Tardio and Chris Monson?

Michael Tardio, the 35-year-old model and doorman at the Garden of Eden, was found shot to death along with his best friend, Chris Monson, on September 2, 2002. Tardio had been seeing one of the Bentley twins, Sandy, at the time and had been trying to help her by selling some of her jewelry in exchange for cash.

The Los Angeles Police Department set out a $75,000 reward for any information in the case but eventually found no leads to a killer. There were no identifiable fingerprints or physical evidence inside the Mercedes SUV they were found in.

The Playboy Murders episode titled Double Trouble aired on January 22, 2024, at 10 p.m. on Investigation Discovery and chronicled the double murder in Hollywood. The synopsis reads,

"In the late '90s, Playboy twins Sandy and Mandy Bentley's fame soars until an affair with a Vegas High Roller leads to a fall from fame, stolen jewels, a shadowy buyer and a brutal double murder in the Hollywood hills."

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How were Michael Tardio and Chris Monson killed?

Sandy Bentley and her identical twin, Mandy Bentley, had been residing in the Playboy Mansion along with their alleged contractual boyfriend, Hugh Hefner in 1999 and 2000. Around the same time, Sandy had been going out with the financier and Wall Street hedge funds manager, Mark Yagalla, who left no stone unturned to please her with expensive gifts.

Yagalla used his client money to keep Sandy happy with gifts such as a $3 million house in the Las Vegas' Spanish Trails, sports cars such as a red Ferrari Spyder and Cadillac, designer clothes, one-of-a-kind jewelry, Rolex watches, and expensive furs. However, all his assets were to be seized as he was arrested in October 2000 and a USA federal receiver was appointed to recover them.

In a bid to liquefy as much as possible, Sandy Bentley hatched a plan with her new boyfriend, Tardio, to sell some of the jewelry from the Spanish Trails house. Per CBS News, Michael Tardio and Sandy Bentley had already made approximately $1 million from the furs and jewels before Tardio set out on his last transaction which proved to be fatal.

Even though Sandy had claimed that it was Tardio's idea following his death, Attorney Eugene Licker videotaped the inventory after Sandy faced eviction and remarked,

"The Pretty Woman necklace wasn't there. It was definitely worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Canary diamond ring wasn't there and I know [it] was at least invoiced at a half a million dollars."

While Sandy had told Licker that the missing jewelry had allegedly been stolen, she smuggled another piece of jewelry to her boyfriend, Tardio, who tried to look for connections to potential buyers through Garden of Eden.

Michael Tardio had approached Linda Kim, an international weapons broker who became the center of a s*x and bribery scandal in South Korea. She refused to make the purchase assuming that it had bad energy.

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Who killed Michael Tardio and Chris Monson?

Tardio had allegedly found a potential buyer at the Garden of Eden nightclub with whom he had an appointment scheduled. The retired Los Angeles homicide Detective Bill Cox spoke to CBS News saying,

"Michael Tardio had been talking to a guy at the nightclub and the person said he knew someone was interested in the jewelry. So Michael Tardio asked to set up a meeting. He's got a lotta money. He drives fancy cars. Michael found out that this deal was set up for the Labor Day weekend."

Michael Tardio made their way to the meeting at a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard with his best friend, Chris Monson, where they were supposed to meet a "Mr. Big." However, Tardio and Monson's Mercedes SUV turned up at Studio City in the early hours of September 2, 2002, riddled with bullets and partially set on fire. Both men were shot at point-blank distance.

Cox said that there were no identifiable fingerprints or physical evidence to tie a suspect to the double homicide leaving the question of who killed Michael Tardio and Chris Monson unanswered.