"Gal" Friday! Anneka Vasta

As I struggled to choose an appropriate "gal" this week, things took a turn into the eerie & bizarre as a notable celebrity cold case murder/suicide/death from January 2011 reared its head in the form of a new public appeal by police charged with investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of the 1975 Penthouse Pet of the Year. Born Marjorie Lee Thoreson, Anneka Vasta (aka Anneka di Lorenzo) was a 70s & 80s pin-up model and actress. She portrayed Messalina in the infamous softcore-porn film, Caligula in 1980.

Vasta & Penthouse Pet Lori Wagner in "Caligula" (1980)

Nine months after her death, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is asking for public help as they continue to probe her death. Vasta's body washed up in San Diego County, and authorities want to know if anyone say Anneka Vasta before joggers found her naked body on a Marine training beach at Camp Pendleton on January 4 this year. She was apparently in such good physical shape that they initially believed her to be a teenage victim. The 58 year old was discovered with a broken neck and back, although she had wounds in her neck - possibly from a steak knife in her car (which was later found at a popular scenic overlook). Vasta was know to be a fragile personality type and was believed to suffer from paranoia, but her family insists that she was not suicidal. Federal agents are not able to say how Vasta got from a vantage point 60 feet above sea level, to the rocky sand below, more than a mile south.

Investigators believe that if Vasta had jumped from the bluffs below her car, her body would not have hit the water, because the tide is not high enough at the location. Although I truly hope that a solution to her unfortunate death can ultimately be determined, lets all take a moment to recall a lovely, vibrant and sexy woman, no matter what name she went by during her brief career.