Celebrities and Their Stalkers

Stalking is a very serious matter. It can be very subtle or it can be very obvious, or somewhere in the middle. Very often it's not taken seriously enough. Those who've either never experienced it or have never been around it don't take the complaints seriously unless the incidents are obvious enough. But often the incidents are very
subtle and can have various other explanations for the situation and don't appear to be what is traditionally considered as stalking.

The worst part about stalking is that the stalker, who is obviously not in their right mind, owns the life of the stalkee. The prey is constantly looking over their shoulder and consciousness about the stalker is never far from every thinking moment. Every action is considered in relation to what the stalker may do. And you ask how I may
know this. Very simple, celebrities don't have a corner on the market of the mentally ill or seriously hostile chasing around after them, shadowing them or lying in wait for them.

My son and I both have had stalkers and our complaints brought us lectures and blame instead of help. It didn't help that my stalker was in my own family. I had to move to the opposite side of the country, wait until the proof was revealed, get a P.O. Box and an unlisted phone number. After my stalker crossed the law in an unrelated situation, my family was finally willing to take me seriously and put a watch on this person to protect my privacy and safety. Fortunately in our situation, my stalker, even though they'd made my life a nightmare and would still do so if allowed, doesn't have the funds and is no longer physically able to come after me except over the phone.

Our son acquired several stalkers. The first one started out as a "friend" who was abusive. When I saw what he was really like we banned him from our family. But, he just haunted us. He's lurk on street corners and turn up where ever we were and insert himself into the groups we belonged to. Since these were publicly accessible,
we didn't have a say over his joining. But we warned the others about his danger to their children and at some point he did cross the line and someone with more recognizable authority than we got the person banned and reported him. I don't know what happened. We never saw him again.

Two others had much more deadly intent. The first shot at both my son and I while we were talking in the yard, in the middle of the night. We just carefully walked into the house and reported the incident. Another attacked our son with a knife when he was out checking on his chickens. Fortunately, I had encouraged our son to always carry a knife with him. He used it to save his life and only came away with a six inch slice on his forearm when he'd covered his throat from being slashed, then stabbed his attacker. The first attacker got arrested for an unrelated incident, spent time in jail and got killed in a fight. The second was killed in another attempt to kill someone else during the same time.

One of the reasons we'd taken our son out of public school and home-schooled him was because of the one who went after him with a knife, who kept beating our son up while in school and getting our son blamed for fighting. We complained about all of these incidents to the various authorities. But all we got were lectures about how our adolescent son had brought all of this on himself or promises that they didn't keep about looking into the incidents. Most of our complaints weren't even registered. We were treated as nuisance complaints.

So, I definitely have a lot of sympathy for what some of the celebrities are going through. Stalking is controlling and attempts to put it's victim into a helpless situation where the stalker basically owns their target to do with as they choose, whenever they choose. And it just doesn't help when no one is listening and are often blaming the victim. In this article I'm including several celebrities who have had encounters with the real life twilight zone of stalkers, what happened to them and their stalkers and in some cases what legal changes were made because of these situations:

Rebecca Schaeffer co-star of My Sister Sam was shot dead at the age of 21 by 19 year old Robert Bardo who had been writing Schaeffer love letters for months.

During that time she was preparing for an audition for a role in Godfather III. Bardo obtained Schaeffer's home address from a detective agency, which, for $250, had gotten the address from California's DMV. On July 18, 1989 He showed up on her doorstep, carrying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye just as John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman had done.

He rang her apartment intercom, but it wasn't working so she came down to see her visitor. She opened the front door as Bardo shot her. Who then walked away. He took a Greyhound Bus back to Tucson where he was arrested for jaywalking on the freeway. While he was in jail one of his relatives notified the LA Police Department
about his location having heard of Rebecca Schaeffer's murder. She told the police that before the murder he told her he was going to see the actress in LA.

He was sent to LA and tried for the murder of Rebecca Schaeffer. He was given life without parole. California Governor George Deukmejian then signed a law, in 1994, that would enable people to prevent the DMV from releasing their personal home address.

The LA Police Department also formed the Threat Management Unit. Which was then the first anti-stalking division in the United States. California also passed the first anti-stalking law in 1990.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/hollywood-crimes/schaeffer/rebecca-schaeffer.html
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-02.html

Theresa Saldana appeared in Raging Bull. In 1982, she was repeatedly sliced by Arthur Jackson who was armed with a knife. He was trying to kill her so that when he was executed they would be reunited in heaven.

Theresa Saldana became a lobbyist for the California bill limiting public access to personal information.

Robert Hoskins who was homeless, insisted that Madonna was his wife. He threatened to cut her throat because she rejected his marriage proposals. He also threatened to kill her bodyguards for preventing him
from seeing her. He got as close as 10 feet of her. He was convicted in 1998.

Steven Spielberg found himself being threatened by 31-year-old Jonathan Norman, beginning on July 11, 1997. The man wanted to show Spielberg a script he had written about "a man raping another man." Norman obsessed over Spielberg and planned to rape him. Norman intended to tie up Spielberg's wife and force her to see him rape her husband. He was arrested outside the Spielberg home with suspicious supplies that included handcuffs, duct tape, a box cutter and razorblades. The jury took less than four hours to convict Norman to 25 years to life in March 1998.

Dawnette Knight became obsessed with Michael Douglas. In 2003 and 2004, she sent threatening letters to Michael Douglas and his wife, which specified claims that Knight would cut Zeta-Jones up and feed her to the dogs. Following a trial in which both Zeta-Jones and Douglas gave testimony, she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-08.html

Rev. David Ajemian, a Catholic priest, sent threatening letters and DVDs to Conan O'Brien who. The priest pleaded guilty in 2007 to disorderly conduct and agreed to stay away from O'Brien. He was placed on leave by the Archdiocese of Boston and later stripped of his priestly duties.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-09.html

Jack Jordan sent Uma Thurman cards with sexually suggestive language and threatening drawings. One had an open grave, a gravestone and a man perched on a razor's edge. He was convicted and given three years probation.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-06.html

Margaret Mary Ray stalked David Letterman for many years, and believed that they were lovers. She broke into his home several times and once even stole his Porsche. She killed herself in 1998.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-05.html

In 1980, actress Jodie Foster became a student at Yale University. She also acquired a stalker the same year. John Hinckley Jr. enrolled at Yale to get close to her. He sent her letters and poems. In one of the letters he revealed his intent to assassinate President Reagan so that he could impress her. On the same day, he went to Washington, D.C., and shot President Reagan and other members of his group. Reagan survived. Hinckley
was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-04.html

In January 1998, Anthony Gary Silvestri broke into TV reporter Kathryn Dettman's home. He'd stalked her for months. Dettman was going from her shower to her bedroom when he attacked her with a knife, killing her with more than a dozen slashes. He's serving a 40 year prison term.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-03.html

Athena Marie Rolando broke into Brad Pitt's Hollywood Hills home and was found asleep in an upstairs bedroom wearing Pitt's clothing. She pleaded no contest in February 1999 to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing, and received three years probation with the requirements that she attend psychological counseling
and community service.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/11/09/entertainment/main69597.shtml

In November 2008, Paula Goodspeed was found dead, in her car, outside Paula Abdul's home from a drug overdose. She'd auditioned for American Idol in 2005 and had been rejected. Police believed that she was a stalker that they'd dealt with several times before. She was found a few yards from Paula's home. She apparently hadn't taken her American Idol rejection very well.
http://thesuperficial.com/2008/11/paula_abduls_stalker_found_dea.php

In 1980, Mark David Chapman went to New York City to kill John Lennon. He got an autograph from Lennon and shook Lennon's son's hand before shooting Lennon in the back several times as he was entering his apartment building. Lennon lay dying on the sidewalk while Chapman stood by reading A Catcher in the Rye. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-01.html

I've included a variety of different stalking cases to show that stalkers go about their controlling behavior by various methods. Not all of them were violent, nor were all of them fatal. Some of them could even be considered by some to be amusing. However everyone of them have a common thread and that is the need of the perpetrator to control their victim according to their own point of view.

That control takes the freedom from the victim and their life is no longer their own. Needing to constantly look over their shoulder can wear a person down. They no longer feel safe in their own home nor in their own skin because a stranger has put a very strange bounty on their life and has taken over their life. they're living in a war zone with unexplainable boundaries.

If you find yourself in a situation similar to these don't disregard it. Take it seriously and do what you need to do to protect yourself and your family. Having once been stalked it is very tempting to become overly protective of one's safety and privacy. But that only makes the stalker the winner by removing you from your freedom.

I've learned to still be free in what I do and to not limit myself in where I need to go. I'm just more watchful and more aware of my surroundings and practice different scenarios in my head, just in case. I've become more careful to make sure that I'm making wise choices about where I do go, how I do it and to be more wise about the choices I make about relationships, to not always fly to the aid of that cry for help that could very well be a carrot to draw me into this person's orbit to my harm. But I also don't turn people down just because they aren't exactly what I would like to expect. I'm just more careful about my choices.

Sources:

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/hollywood-crimes/schaeffer/rebecca-schaeffer.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-02.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-08.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-09.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-06.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-05.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-04.html

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-03.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/11/09/entertainment/main69597.shtml

http://thesuperficial.com/2008/11/paula_abduls_stalker_found_dea.php

http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/crime-countdowns/stalkers/stalkers-01.html