from www.heraldsun.com – POLICE are searching for an unidentified man who witnesses say left a Miami nightclub with Paula Sladewski, a former Playboy model whose badly burned body was found in a dumpster.

Lieutenant Neal Cuevas of the North Miami Police Department confirmed to FoxNews.com that video surveillance captured Sladewski leaving the club at 7:21am (local time) on January 3 – hours before her body was found burned beyond recognition.

Investigators are looking for a “black male” whom witnesses say walked away from the front of the club with Sladewski.

Sladewski, 26, was last seen partying with her boyfriend, Kevin Klym, at the Miami nightclub.

Mr Klym, 34, has since become a target of suspicion – partly because an ex-boyfriend said Sladewski had been sending him text messages during the time she was dating Mr Klym saying he was “trying to kill” her.

“She used to text me all the time in trouble asking for help,” ex-boyfriend David Coleman told FoxNews.com.

Mr Coleman said the last time he heard from Sladewski, who appeared in Playboy: The Ultimate Playmate Search, was in a text message she sent him after midnight on New Year’s Eve.

He said there was nothing alarming about her message and he said it did not seem like she was drunk.

Mr Coleman, who lives in Rancho Cucamonga, California, 10 minutes from the home of Sladewski and Mr Klym, said he and Sladewski dated in the late 1990s and had remained close friends.

“We always had each other’s backs,” Mr Coleman said.

FoxNews.com found Mr Coleman’s name on California’s sex offenders registry for an unknown offence.