Criminology - Rebecca Shaeffer and Celebrity Stalkers

Episode Date: May 3, 2026

In 1989, Rebecca Shaeffer was just hitting her stride as an actress. She was coming off a three-year stint on a television show, My Sister Sam, opposite Pam Dawber. Robert John Barbo had been stalking Rebecca, though she was unaware of it. His obsession would end in tragedy. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Rebecca Shaeffer and other instances of stalkers targeting celebrities. Stalking is a scary thing and often involves a person who knows their victim personally. But in the case of celebrities, stalkers don't really know their target but often believe they do.   You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok  Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford. 

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 408 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, what's going on this week, buddy? Not a whole lot. What's new with you?

It's like 42 degrees here today and I'm not happy about it because- 42? Yeah. We're almost May, dude, and it's 42 degrees. It's like 82 here. I figured it was. I figured it was. Let's go ahead and get into our Patreon shoutouts.

We had new support from Michelle Chappell and Tiffany and White. So great new support. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Michelle and Tiffany. And thank you to everyone else that helps support the show. It helps us out a lot. If you want to get started, you can go over to patreon.com slash criminology. So speaking of 42-degree weather morph, you know,

we just wanted to remind everybody that CrimeCon is coming up in less than than 30 days. And if you're one of those people that puts things off until the last second, don't wait. Book your trip now. CrimeCon Vegas is happening at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, from May 29th through the 31st. And if you want to save a few bucks, booking it, use our promo code criminology when you check out at crimecon.com. That'll save you 10% off your standard badges. And just another reminder, too, that will be on Creators Row. And spoiler alert will be alongside some host to some of the biggest podcast in true crime universe. So that'll be fun. And we'll also want to see listeners stop by, hang out with us at our annual criminology

T-Cat meetup. And that's happening on Saturday the 30th at 8 p.m. in the Vista cocktail lounge right on premises. So please stop by, hang out. It should be a lot of fun. All right. So now that we have all of that out of the way, let's get into this week's case. You know, we recently covered the abduction of Nancy Guthrie. And shockingly to most people, after two months of her being missing, there's still no sign of her. And we're no closer to understanding why she was targeted. But one of the main theories is that it's because of who she's related to. One of Nancy's daughters is Savannah Guthrie, a co-anchor of NBC's Today Show. So this got us thinking about celebrities who have been targeted over the years.

And there have been more than a few. We aren't talking about targeted for a burglary due to their lavish lifestyles or Hollywood homes, but targeted for harm by dangerous people. Simply because they had a face seen on television and movies. Their attackers were drawn to them. And after this episode, you'll probably understand just why. It is that most celebrities are very conscious. and wary of their safety and security.

There are a few different subtypes of people who stock. I think the most common type that comes to mind as a rejected lover, someone who just refuses to believe that it's over and can't let go of the relationship. They still try to be in a person's life. Well, pass, or welcome. Maybe the person they target might have to block them on social media or change your phone number, or in more serious cases, even follow for an order of protection if the person's behavior is erratic or threatening enough.

This type of stalker brings to mind the whole, if I can't have you, no one can kind of thing. In those cases, there usually is a connection between the stalker and the person being stocked. But there's another kind of stalker who fixates on people. They have never met. And celebrities often find themselves the target of this kind of stalker. You know, morph, that whole idea, and we've heard it from many people. If I can't have you, no one can. that is so scary to me.

But it is at the root or at least a big part of, you know, a lot of the cases that we've talked about over the years. Now, I don't understand a lot of the stuff that we get into, right? It's, it's really hard to get into a person's mind who can make the decision to kill someone. but this type, I think for me is some of the more perplexing ones where you seemingly love someone so much that you make the decision to kill them. That's strange. Yeah. So the whole scenario of if I can't have you, no one will. That's a common thing that we hear a lot about in some of these cases.

But that's not what we're talking about in this episode, right? we're talking about people who really don't know the individual who they're targeting. And that's scary in a different way. And I think it's easy, especially with today's social media, for people to latch on to different celebrities and learn pretty much everything about their lives and backgrounds. I mean, heck, you can do some of that just by reading their Wikipedia pages and following them on Instagram as,

Kendall Jenner, who has been the victim of stalkers in the past, explained to entertainment tonight, being in the public eye is pretty crazy, just because people actually feel like they know you. Unfortunately, some of these starstruck, obsessed, and so-called fans have been able to harm the object of their desire. And one of the most infamous cases of that was the case of actress Rebecca Schaefer. She wouldn't survive her encounter with her stalker. In 1967, Rebecca Schaefer was born in Oregon with big dreams. When she was 16, she spent a summer in New York City working as a model and decided to pursue it more seriously. She stayed in the city and studied at the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.

She was just a bit too short for the professional modeling world, but during this time, she began to book acting jobs. She had a small role on guiding light and went on to spend six months on one like to live. She briefly moved to Japan to try and find model in jobs there, but ran into the same problems. She just didn't have the right look that talents, the agents were looking for. She ended up back in New York working as a waitress and auditioning for acting roles. Her career started to pick up in 1986. After high school, she ended up moving to Los Angeles, California, to work on the show, My Sister Sam.

It was her first real big break, and she'd be working alongside actress Pam Dauber, who had started in the hit show, Mork and Mindy. Things were looking up for Rebecca, but it was also the same year that she caught the eye of a man named Robert John Bardo. He was around 16 years old the first time he saw Rebecca

on my sister, Sam. Bardo had been looking for an outlet with his obsession since the last actress he had been fixated with died tragically in a plane crash. It's not clear how long he had been obsessed with child actress

and peace activist Samantha Smith. But she died in 1985. when she was just 13 years old. Bardo reportedly tried to meet her in person at least once, traveling all the way to May. But he was pulled over for a traffic infraction, and it threw his whole plan up. He left without ever meeting her.

He would have kept trying if her plane hadn't crashed. With Samantha Smith gone, he turned his attention to Rebecca Schaefer. He started out by writing her multiple letters. We know that she answered at least one. sending him a headshot along with a short note. She likely answered most fan mail when she had the chance, especially since it was so early in her career,

and it was probably really exciting for her. In 1987, Bardo traveled from his home in Tucson, Arizona, to Burbank, California, to visit the Warner Brothers studio where my sister Sam was filmed, hoping to be able to meet Rebecca and give her a bouquet of flowers and an oversized stuffed teddy bear. This was likely not his first time there because security were already somewhat familiar with him. They definitely knew that he had been trying to call there a lot by phone.

The head of security at the studio had Bardo sent to his office and explained to him that he wouldn't be able to get to Rebecca, and that they don't deliver gifts like that. A security guard even drove Bardo back to where he was staying in Hollywood, since it was such a long drive. Bardo was taking the bus, and he had been so polite to the security team. The last thing Bardo said to the guard was that he was going back to Tucson. Bardo seemed harmless at the time, maybe just more of an overzealous fan than a stalker. In fact, the guard didn't even report it, even though there was a policy to log and report all encounters like this for the safety of the actors. But just a month later, Bardo tried to get on the lot again, but security stopped him, only this time he had a night, being turned to.

away had angered him. And this time around, unlike the previous time, he did cause a scene. He threatened the security staff. Luckily, once again, he and Rebecca never crossed paths because he was thrown off the property. But more importantly, no one ever told Rebecca about the man who kept showing up at her place of work trying to find her. In hindsight, she definitely should have been made aware of what was happening, angry and dejected. Bardo gave up on Rebecca for a while. He was briefly interested in Madonna, Tiffany, and Debbie Gibson, all very popular pop artists at the time, but none of them really grabbed his attention, like Rebecca Schaefer did. Plus, he didn't really feel like he would be able to get

close to any of them in New York. Rebecca lived on the West Coast and was much closer to his home in Tucson. And more of I think we're starting to get a real picture here of Bardo. And it's a scary one. You know, the thing that really jumps out at me about him is that he does kind of, at times, jump from celebrity to celebrity as far as his fascination slash obsession. Right? We talked about him being obsessed with, you know, this child actress.

Samantha Smith. Then he turns his attention to Rebecca Schaefer, but in there is also, you know, some of the bigger pop stars of the time. Obviously, Madonna has been a star for a very long time, but it's hard to dismiss how big Tiffany and Debbie Gibson were back then. You know, you think about the mall scene, which is not a thing today, but it was. back then. I mean, some of these pop stars would go to the mall and people would just swarm them. They would actually perform at malls and stuff. It was, it was kind of strange. Have you been to any Tiffany concerts? I have not. I have not. I never, I never did. I was not a Tiffany slash Debbie Gibson fan, but I don't think I was really in their demographic. Yeah, I think they were, uh,

A little bit out of the heavy metal genre that I was listening to. But, you know, on one hand, with this guy being interested in multiple celebrities, I can understand that. I have a big autograph collection that I've accumulated over the years, writing to different actors and musicians and stuff. And just cool to have a keepsake. But where he crosses the line is he's going to these places multiple times to try and meet these people. and then the second time he's bringing a knife.

So there's some signs there that he might not have the best intentions there. Yeah, well, I don't think it's unusual for people to get enamored with celebrities. I mean, that's kind of the whole thing about celebrities, right? But you mentioned it. There are things that people do that are quote unquote normal, right? writing, asking for an autograph, things like that. And then there's definitely crossing the line. And here with this latest incident, we know he crossed the line.

I mean, he's got a knife. You're not bringing a knife and threatening security unless you've got, you know, some bad intentions. And one part I'm surprised about is that they never warned Rebecca that this guy had been there multiple times and that he showed up the knife because maybe she would have taken some precautions if she knew that. Well, and we'll talk about it, you know, probably more towards the end. But I think the case of Rebecca Schaefer changed a lot of things as it relates to celebrities and their safety. I don't think there's any doubt about it.

There was, there's a difference about how things were handled before what we're going to talk about and how things were handled after. In 1989, after the third and what would prove to be the final season of my sister Sam, Rebecca earned a role in the movie, scenes from the class struggle in Beverly Hills. In this movie, her character, Zandrel Lipkin, appears in bed with a man. Bartow watched the movie excited to see Rebecca on the big screen, but he was absolutely furious after seeing her character in bed with another man. He felt she had betrayed him, and he decided,

it was time to teach Rebecca a lesson. And thanks to other stalkers like Arthur Richard Jackson, he knew exactly how he would accomplish his goal. Arthur Richard Jackson was obsessed with actress Teresa Saldana for years before he paid a detective agency to track her down. The private detective there was only able to get as far as a private number for Teresa's mother. Sadly, Jackson was able to trick Teresa's mom into giving up her her home address. He claimed he was an assistant to Martin Scorsese, who was considering her for a role,

but she would be replacing an actress and filming was already taking place in Europe. So it was urgent that he spoke with her. Jackson showed up outside of Teresa's apartment in West Hollywood and waited for her once he saw her, even though it was in broad daylight and there were plenty of people nearby, he stabbed her 10 times. Luckily, she survived the attack. Though it was a long and hard recovery process, she spent four months in the hospital due to a punctured lung. We'll talk more about Teresa and how she helped change laws

to protect future victims later on. The attack on Teresa Seldana made headlines, lots of them. Robert John Bartow, while not fixated on Teresa, had read articles about how Jack and hired a private investigator and how he ultimately did get the information he was looking for. So Bartow hired a private investigator of his own to track down Rebecca Schaefer. He had been unable to get to her at her work twice, and my sister Sam had been canceled, so it was of no use trying to the Warner Brothers studio a third time.

He paid the private investigator $250, and in exchange received Rebecca's Los Angeles home address. The PI used records from the Department of Motor Vehicles to find otherwise private information. Because Bardo was too young to purchase a gun in the state of Arizona, his older brother helped him obtain a firearm, a Ruger GP-100-357 caliber revolver, thinking that his brother wanted to do some target practice. Then at 7 p.m. on July 17, 1989, the Greyhound bus Bardo boarded, headed from Tucson to Los Angeles. He was going to see Rebecca one last time. And, Morf, I don't know if you remember this show. My sister, Sam, but I do. Again, it only ran for, what do we say, three years.

But I definitely remember it. I was a huge Morkin Mindy fan back in the day. So, you know, Pam Dobber was a known commodity, a known actress. And I remember Rebecca Schaefer very well. I probably would have been maybe 14, 15 years old at the time. And I remember kind of having a crush. on her. Now, of course, this was back at the time where you really only had a, you know, a handful of channels. There wasn't as much to watch. And so a lot of us watched, you know,

one of the, the big three networks, a lot more than people do today, for sure. Yeah, I was a big Morgan Mindy fan too. And I knew Pam Dauber, but I didn't really know Rebecca Schaefer. So she was a a fresh face. And maybe since Rebecca Schaefer was sort of new to the scene of acting and being on TV, maybe that's why Bardo was drawn to her. When Bardo arrived in Rebecca's West Hollywood neighborhood, he spent some time walking around, he asked around, trying to figure out whether the information he received from the private investigator was

accurate, he likely blended in with other sights ears around L.A., walking around the area with a headshot of Rebecca and asking people if they had seen her in the area. Once he felt sure that he had the right address, 120 North Sweetser Avenue, apartment four, he walked right up and rang the building's doorbell. Rebecca answered it because she had been expecting a courier to deliver an important script.

She also had to answer it because the building's intercom system was broken at the time. She would usually be able to figure out who was outside from the safety of her own unit, but not this particular day. And she couldn't risk missing that very important package. Rebecca was planning to meet director Francis Ford Coppola later that day to audition for the role of Mary Corleone in the Godfather Part 3. So when Bardo showed up at her doorstep with a Manila envelope, she eagerly opened the door. But inside the envelope, there was no script, just a photograph of her which she had autographed and the letter she had sent back to him. Rebecca was taken aback when she realized that a fan had been able to find her private home address.

And though she was dating director Brad Silverling at the time, she was living on her own. It wouldn't just be annoying to have to be always on because a fan could pop by any time. It was a little creepy. And as we know, because we're discussing Rebecca on this episode, it's dangerous. Rangers. Rebecca, obviously upset by the intrusion, asked Bardot not to contact her that way in the future, so he left. He walked to a nearby dinner and sat there and ate a meal. He thought about their interaction and how she wasn't grateful he showed up. As he ate, he probably thought about how angry it made him to see her in bed with another man in that movie. At home, Rebecca was

getting ready for her big meeting that afternoon. Sadly, she would never make it there, because Bardo decided to head back to her place once he was done at the diner. At around 10.15 a.m., Rebecca answered the door for him again. According to L.A. Times, Rebecca, surprised to see Bardo there again, said, you came to my door again and hurry up. I don't have much time. Which Bardo thought was a very callous thing to say to a fan. He was angry. And this was the last draw for him. And in response to this perceived slight. He pulled out the Ruger 357 caliber revolver that his brother helped him by. And he shot Rebecca in the chest from just inches away. According to Bardo, Rebecca began screaming,

why? Why? As she collapsed, Bardo fled the scene and ultimately got on a Greyhound bus back to Arizona. One witness who was a neighbor who lived across the street from Rebecca was interviewed. It was interviewed on entertainment tonight and said, I heard a shot followed by two cries, cries of pain. The neighbor ran back home to grab towels to try to stop the bleeding. Rebecca was immediately taken to Cedar Sinai Medical Center, but it was already too late. After 30 minutes in the emergency room, she was officially pronounced deceased. The bullet had struck her right in the heart, causing irreparable damage. the cold and senseless murder of the 21-year-old actress was shocking to everyone who knew her.

Her agent, Jonathan Howard, later told the LA Times that she didn't have an enemy in the world. So obviously, more if this is a tragic scene that unfolded that we're talking about, there's a couple of things that really jump out at me. The first is that, you know, Rebecca spent three years. on this television show. I mean, it was a fairly big show. Shows were just bigger back then. Because there wasn't, like I said,

as much or as many options. But yet, she's living in this apartment with seemingly very little security. And the fact that the intercom wasn't working makes it even less secure. And then you have the actual, shooting itself. I mean, a 357 from inches away.

I mean, 357 is a no joke caliber. It's not the biggest, but it's a sizable caliber. And shooting someone in the heart from just inches away is almost certain death. And obviously it was in this situation. Yeah, 357 is a very serious weapon. Maybe she could survive if you shot in the shoulders. something, but unfortunately it was the heart. But I want to go back to the security aspects you mentioned, because as an actress,

you know, you kind of have in your mind that maybe she's going to have some kind of security team, some kind of things in place to protect her from fans that might not have the best intentions. And I wonder if maybe part of that is because she wasn't an A-list actress yet. maybe she didn't have the income to allow her to have better security, maybe live in a more secure place. Maybe that would have been coming up in her future as her career progressed. That could have something to do with it as well as back then. It just doesn't seem like stalking was as big a thing that we hear about now because it's all over the place you can hear about it with all the news, apps, things at your fingertip on your phone. Back then,

you probably didn't hear about it as frequently. she probably wasn't as concerned as an actress might be today. Yeah, I think all of those are valid points. Police were tasked with trying to find the man who had murdered Rebecca Schaefer in her doorway. When Barrow fled from the scene and to the bus station, he tossed a copy of the Catcher in the Rye onto the roof of the Beverly Palms Rehabilitation Center on Beverly Boulevard. At the corner of Crescent Heights and Beverly Boulevard, he threw a long-sleeve yellow T-shirt onto the roof of Target cleaners,

and Stroud's Lennon. Investigators also recovered a holster from a rooftop about a block away from the location of the book he threw. The copy of The Catcher in the Rye may have been a nod to Mark David Chapman. He was the obsessed fan who killed John Lennon while carrying a copy of the same book. It could have also been a nod to John Hinkley Jr. who tried to murder President Ronald Reagan. He had a copy of the book as well.

And you know, this book, Catcher in the Rye, it used to be required reading. it was when I was in high school. I don't know if it is anymore, but it is strange. How many killers and even some serial killers, some well-known serial killers, were in possession of this book, Catcher in the Rye. Bardo made it back to the Tucson area, but he didn't make it all the way to his home. He may not have been captured immediately if he had played it cool and simply walked away from the bus stop. Instead, he started running through traffic on Interstate 10, which made people call the police. According to Entertainment Tonight, he was apparently also screaming at passing drivers that he had killed Rebecca Schaefer.

He would later explain that he was trying to take his own life by getting hit by a car. Interestingly, it was actually authorities in Tennessee who were first looking at Bardo as a suspect in Rebecca Schaefer. murder, thanks to a letter he mailed to his sister in Knoxville before heading to L.A. to carry out his deadly plan. Tucson police took Robert John Bardo into custody without incident, and it was quickly pieced together that he had murdered the young actress. Investigators never recovered the gun he used to kill Rebecca. Bardo chose to have a bench trial rather than face a jury and allow them to decide his fate. According to Entertainment Tonight, Bardo tried to blame the song Exit by U2, which includes the lyrics, the pistol-weight heavy heart beating for causing him

to murder Rebecca. It was so central to his defense that the song was actually played during his trial. He rocked in his chair, played airdrums, and seemed to really enjoy the whole thing. On October 29, 1991, Bardo was found guilty of first-degree aggravated murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. And you know, one thing that we haven't talked about yet, and I don't know that there's a ton of information out there on it, but I think you have to ask the question more. What was Bardo's mental health during all of this? I mean, obviously there's the fixation on Rebecca Schaefer.

there's the thought in his mind that she, for the lack of a better term, cheated on him in a movie scene. And then after the murder, this scene plays out where he's running across the interstate, according to him, trying to get hit by a car, but also yelling out that he killed Rebecca Schaefer. It's kind of hard not to think that he was not experiencing some type of mental health issues. Now, I don't know what the extent was, but he's also trying to blame the murder on a song by you too. Yeah, that aspect of the case is somewhat familiar because I remember that, you know, a parallel sort of how in the 80s there were cases in which heavy metal music was played in courtrooms because the person that was accused or on trial was influenced supposedly by

them and there was a whole pushback on things that could be played in heavy metal music. So that part of it, you know, was something that was going on. But probably not too hard, right? for a judge to weigh the evidence and find him guilty. And I think his sentence was justified, life in prison with no possibility of parole. I mean, this is the type of individual to me that should not be, you know, walking around ever again. It was clearly premeditated. He took a bus to get there.

He had a plan. tried to contact her multiple times. So this clearly wasn't a case of something that happened in a split second decision that he made. In July of 2007, nearly 18 years to the day that he killed Rebecca, Robert John Bardo was stabbed 11 times by a fellow inmate. At the time, he was being housed in the maximum security unit of Mule Creek State Prison in California. He was in the prison yard heading to breakfast when he was attacked, authorities found two handmade shibs at the scene after the incident. Articles note that the inmate who attacked him was serving a sentence of 82 years to life on a charge of second-degree murder, but his name isn't listed in any articles. Bardo was able to

survive the attack. And now at 56 years old is still serving his life sentence behind bars. He's currently housed at Avenal State Prison in Avenal, California. And it's kind of hard morph to believe that, you know, this guy's only 56 years old. And I say only because he's around our age. I mean, this happened so long ago. But he wasn't that old when he took the life of Rebecca Schaefer. Yeah, the fact that he's just a little bit older than we are kind of puts in perspective that maybe while we were out doing what we did our age, hanging out with friends, going to school, having fun, he was already in the stocking pattern trying to meet and eventually kill Rebecca Schaefer. The takeaway from Rebecca Schaefer's murder is that you never know

who a disturbed person might latch onto and target. Rebecca had never met Robert John Bardo, and besides sending him a letter and photo, never had any interoperable. interactions with him until he showed up at her door. It proves you really never know who a stalker might target as part of their twisted reality. Obviously, the person a stalker is actually obsessed with should be concerned for their safety. But just because you're not the target of the stalker doesn't mean you won't end up tangled in their web. For example, in 1981, John Hinkley Jr. tried to kill President Ronald Reagan because he thought it would impress actress Jody Foster, who he had been stalking. She caught Hinkley's attention in the movie,

taxi driver, which does feature a plot to assassinate a presidential candidate. Before trying to kill President Reagan, Hinkley wrote multiple letters to Jody Foster and even left messages on her answering machine. It was when these letters and messages failed to get her attention, that he decided he would have to do something more drastic if he ever wanted her to notice him. Before trying to carry out his assassination plan, he wrote one last letter to Joe. according to famous trials.com, it read in part, as you well know by now, I love you very much. Jody Foster had never responded to any of his letters, and he wasn't under the false impression that Jody was in love with him.

He actually knew she wasn't and didn't care, that she didn't actually like his letters. The last time he wrote to her, he said, by hanging around your dormitory, I've come to realize that I'm the topic of, of more than a little conversation, however full of ridicule it may be. Knowing that Jody Foster didn't return his feelings, his goal became only to try to change her mind and make sure that either way they would be linked together in history. As Hinkley prepared for his trial for the assassination attempt on President Reagan, he learned that Jody Foster would be in the courtroom to testify. about the lack of a relationship with Hinkley.

John Hinkley was thrilled by the news, telling his parents, mom, dad, I'll be right there in the same room. John Hinkley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. In 2022, after spending 30 years in psychiatric care, Hinkley was deemed to be rehabilitated insane and was released and is now a free man. There are other cases of celebrities who were stocked.

One of them involved Monica Sellis, a tennis player who was stabbed by the stalker of one of her rivals. Gunter Parche, a fan to say the least, of Steffie Graff. He was so desperate to see his favorite player make it to the top, but Monica Sellis was in the way of that. So at the Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany, Gunter waited until a break in one of Monica's matches, and then rushed at her while her back was turned to the sidelines. He stabbed her right between her shoulder blades with a boning knife. His only goal was to take Monica out of the competition so that Steffi could be number one. Partier was found to be mentally ill and given a sentence of two years of probation and psychiatric treatments.

Thankfully, Monica Sellis survived the attack. And I do remember the attack on Monica Sellis. I mean, it was big news. But attacks on celebrities are always going to make the news. and you just don't think that some of these things are going to happen, right? We watch sports all the time. There are spectators, right? You think about a basketball game, a tennis match.

There's a bunch of spectators there. You don't think about somebody rushing onto the playing surface and stabbing one of the athletes. But that's exactly what happened to Monica. Yeah, a lot of times when somebody runs out onto the field, it's to get like 15 seconds, if that of attention, because most of the time they don't show it. But it's usually not to attack somebody that's out there. Yeah, I always like it when they kind of rush the football field. And one of the big guys just tackles the, you know what out of them?

That always cracks me up because, I mean, what do you think is going to happen? There's a bunch of 300-pound dudes. in equipment. Somebody is going to lay you out. Now, there is a delusional disorder called erotomania, which sometimes ties into stalking cases. People with erotomania experience the strong belief that someone is in love with them, often secretly.

When the object of their fixation is more of a public figure, there's usually a belief that they're doing or saying certain things, as kind of a special private message to the person with erotomania. One of the earliest recorded cases of erotomania was described as a patient who believed the king of England was in love with her. The proof was that sometimes the curtain in the windows of Buckingham Palace would move. To her, this was obviously the king, sending her a message that he was thinking of her. Rejecting stalkers with Eratomania does not deter them in most cases, but it does enrage them. In 1996, U.S. Army veteran Gerald Atkins met a woman in a bar, and she became the object of his obsession.

She wasn't into him the same way, though. She wasn't really into him at all, and she told him that very clearly. According to UPI.com, she actually called him a pest and said to him, Why don't you move on down the road because you're not going to get any. She was annoyed by his refusal to take no for an answer. But he didn't believe her. He felt that there must be something or someone getting the way of their relationship and keeping them apart. So one morning he went to the Ford Assembly plant in Wicksham, Michigan, where she worked, ready to propose to her.

And I truly don't know how Atkins could have expected that this woman's answer was going to be yes. I guess that's why you would classify this as erotomania and not just a lack of. of common sense, but he showed up expecting that everything would go perfectly. But the security guards at the plant didn't let him in. He didn't work there and had no real business being there. He was furious that he wasn't allowed into the plant. So he came back with an AK-47 and just opened fire. He killed the plant manager, shot at responding officers, and even shot at passing cars.

as he fled into nearby sewer tunnels, he was taken into custody and he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, basically admitting that he did attack the plan, killing the manager and wounding others, but also asking for mercy because he wasn't in a good state of mind when he did it. At trial, he tried to claim that the attack was an attempt to save the woman. He was obsessed with the jury didn't believe that. Atkins was insane at the time he attacked the Wixom assembly plan. He was found guilty of first degree murder and multiple other charges and sentenced to life in prison. According to San Diego psychologist Jay Reid Malloy in a San Diego Reader.com interview, believing the other party loves you

is a key to Eratomania. You have to actually believe in the face of evidence to the contrary that you are loved by the other. You have to be delusional to believe it despite a tremendous amount of data to the contrary. Though the defense of Rodomani was used in John Hintley's trial, to some he doesn't actually seem to fit the definition of someone with the disorder. He was fully aware that Jody Foster wasn't in love with him. He decided the assassination would be a way to show her he was important. He may have had delusions and his actions were certainly anything but rational, but he didn't believe that Jody was in love with him. Be it mental illness or something else that was responsible for Rebecca Schaefer's death, her friends and family focused on reform.

They wanted to change things. To stop other Robert Bardo's from murdering people, they seemed to have left Bardo in the past, not even allowing him to take up the required space in their brain, to be angry at him. Rebecca's mother, Dana Schaefer, told the L.A. Times, I'm angry at the system that allows things like this to happen, that allows a deranged person to get his hands on a deadly weapon. In 1989, the California governor ordered that DMB offices begin to withhold or make it hard to get certain bits of information about people.

According to Entertainment Tonight, in 1989, actor Mark Carman, who's married to Rebecca Schaefer's My Sister Sam Coster, Pam Dauber, said, whether that will prevent anything, who knows, you know, know, but through Rebecca's death, people are forced maybe to take a little bit of a different look at the structure of how things are done. In 1990, the first anti-stalking loan in the United States was enacted in California, thanks in part due to what happened to Rebecca Schaefer and Teresa Salda. In 1994, Congress passed the Driver's Privacy Protection Act, which prevents the DMV from giving out a driver's personal information to just anyone. Now, a private investigator can't just track

down your mom and help someone trick her or hand out your address right to your killer just by looking at your car's registration paperwork or calling the DMV. And more of, you know, we do talk about this quite a bit, but, you know, these changes that are made in the wake of tragedies, they're usually good changes. I think the problem is we are, you know, a very reactionary society. right we react to things we make changes because of things it would be great if we could change some of these things before the bad things happen but obviously that's not how life works yeah it seems in general that as a society were reactive instead of proactive and obviously you know these changes didn't solve or eradicate the problem of stalking it continues to

affect people every day and with so social media and various technology advances, stalkers actually have more tools at their fingertips to target people, not just celebrities and not just women. You never know who will decide to fixate on you. And that's part of what makes it so scary. There's definitely a lot of work to be done, to keep stalking victims safe and actually get to a point where something can be done legally. but before someone is harmed. However, we have come a very long way since 1990 when stalking laws were first put on the books. Now the DMV can't give out your personal information, but does that mean no one can get it?

No, obviously not. Look at the number of people finder websites that will pull up addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and even people associated with the person you're looking up. Personal information for many people is just a Google search away. And with modern maps, stalkers can even scope out pretty much every inch of an area without having to actually visit and alert anyone to their presence. Let's just hope that there are no more cases

with tragic outcomes like that of Rebecca Schaefer murdered on her doorstaff at the age of 21 by a deranged fan. And we did talk about, a number of other people, but I don't want to lose sight of Rebecca Schaefer 21 years old. And we mentioned it, right? She had stints on a couple of different daytime soap operas. She had this three-year stent on a major network television show. There's no way to tell what she would have gone on to do. She was only 21 years old.

And I want to go back to, you know, the situation that kind of led to her answering the door. Right. She was waiting on this very important script for a big movie, Godfather 3, huge director, right? Francis Ford Coppola. I think more if the role that she would have been auditioning for actually ended up going to Coppola's daughter, who is now a big time director. A lot of people are critical of her performance in that movie. And, you know, maybe Rebecca Schaefer, if she had gotten that part, could have pulled

it off, better, gotten good reviews for it. Maybe that would have led to other roles. She would have, you know, gone up the ladder a little bit as far as, you know, her acting chops and her resume. Yeah, we talk about it a lot. but when somebody is murdered young, it's hard not to have that thought of what would they have gone on to do. And with a person like Rebecca Schaefer, she'd already done so much at the age of 21. She was just barely getting started. I think the term the sky is the limit definitely applies to her.

She had amazing things ahead of her. and her life was was cut short and it is tragic, no doubt about it. But this idea of stalking or having a stalker, again, to me, it's a very scary thing, whether it is stalker of a celebrity or it's just an everyday person who's not famous. But like we said, someone gets it in their head because they had a relationship with the person that ended, that if that person can't have her or him, right, it can work both ways. Nobody else can. Yeah, and it's, it's frightening her as an actress being on a TV show seen by millions of people that would shine more of a light on her

and open her up to potential stalking, anybody that's on the TV show. And as podcasters, I know several podcasters who have had so-called stalkers, run-ins with stalkers. I've had my own issues with people that, you know, we're not on TV, but we sort of are known to people. And I think any time you're putting yourself out there, you do open yourself up to interacting with people that don't have the best intentions, or maybe they have the aptitude to do bad stuff. So I think you really have to be careful if you're putting yourself out there, even

if it's behind a microphone like we're. Yeah, that's why I always say you got to keep your head on a swivel, whether you're known to people or not. But that's also easier said than done, right? In some situations, you know, Rebecca wasn't doing anything wrong. She wasn't putting herself in a situation where she would be more likely to be harmed. This wasn't late at night. She wasn't in an area that she shouldn't have been in.

She wasn't doing something she shouldn't have been doing. And that makes it to me just, you know, that much more tragic. But that's it for our episode on Rebecca Schaefer and other celebrity stalkers. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a rating and review. All of that helps. Also, keep telling your friends, word of mouth about the criminology podcast really good. goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. So just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. And for news, old episodes and more, head over to our website,

criminology podcast.com. And if you want to join a discussion group about the show and the cases we discuss, head over to Facebook and search for Criminology Podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morf. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone.