Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Bjork Has a Stalker // The Ricardo Lopez Stalker Story

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Ricardo Lopez was an obsessed, delusional fan of singer Björk who documented his downward spiral in a video diary culminating in his 1996 incident.

You know that famous pop star Bjork? You know, she was almost murdered by this creep? Now, the guy, his name's Ricardo, and Ricardo's only 16 years old when this story starts, and he's living in Hollywood, Florida. But Ricardo has a problem. He feels lonely and unsuccessful, so much so that he starts to feel angry toward the world,

and these feelings really eat away at him. But then, one day in 1991, he discovers something that's going to change his life. He discovers Gina Davis. You know, the actress, she's in all kinds of movies during this time. So I assume he's watching her movies and he sees her and he thinks she kind of fine. And he becomes obsessed with her. He feels like he loves her. But then, as he's consuming media about her, trying to learn all about her, he discovers that she's going through a divorce with actor Jeff Goldblum. And for some reason, this taints the image of her in his mind and he decides he doesn't like her.

like her anymore. I don't know, maybe he's not a Jeff Goldblum fan. I don't know. Regardless, two years pass, and it's 1993, and he's 18 now. And he's still got a lot of love and feelings to give, and so it happens again. One day he's watching TV, and he sees this music video for this song, Human Behavior. And that is when he notices the singer, Bjork. Bjork is the pop star from Iceland, whose career is blowing up during this time. And, you know, our music. it's actually pretty good. And so he starts thinking, she kind of fine. And he starts listening to her music all the time, and he buys all her albums, and he buys any magazine or just anything that just mentions Bjork, he's got to get his hands on it. And over time, he becomes fully

obsessed with her. He can't stop thinking about her. And about three years go by. And it's now 1996. And she's still on his mind 24-7. And one day, he's reading, Entertainment Weekly, because there's an interview in there with Bjork. And in that interview, she mentions that she's dating this English music producer, Goldie. He also finds out that she had been previously dating this artist, Tricky. Tricky works with the group Massive Attack. And so all this pisses Ricardo off. Not just because she's dating someone, but because both of these guys are black.

And apparently, Ricardo is a really racist guy. But here's the other thing about. him. He's also a really lonely guy and he's always kept diaries and written about his feelings and things going on in his life. And it's around this time that he gets a video camera and he starts a video diary. So he's vlogging long before vlogging was a thing. So now he's making all these tapes and talking about how upset and disappointed he is and Bjork, this woman who doesn't even know he exists. And he's not going to let this go. And he decides that the only thing he can do, is to hurt her over it.

Whose fault is that? That's right. That's her fault. And that's completely unacceptable to me. And I'm just going to have to get her. So he comes up with this diabolical plan to infect her with AIDS by mailing some kind of complex mechanical device hidden inside a sort of hollowed out book. And when she opens this hollowed out book, a hypodermic needle is going to pop out and

stick her thumbs and inject her with AIDS. It's going to be a booby trap. You open. You have to press a series of buttons to open it up. In Ricardo's eyes, mailing her a package is the perfect way to make sure she suffers. But there's kind of a major hurdle with this plan. Where the hell is he going to get blood with AIDS in it? Like, they don't just sell that at CVS?

Well, he comes up with the idea to find a random local sex worker and get it from them. Because I guess he thinks all sex workers have HIV. I don't know. I'm going to get busted for sure because I have one mind and I'm not that clever as I would like to think I am. And so over the course of a few weeks, he meticulously researches and revises his plan. He pays for some kind of service to get Bjork's home address. He gets pen and paper and brainstorms different alibis. He even tries to predict what the police and feds are going to do when they investigate and try and catch the guy who gave Bjork AIDS.

But here's where things are. get really dark. Around this time, Ricardo finds out that Bjork isn't just dating Goldie. She's actually planning on marrying him. Spin magazine, I believe it was last month. A little bit article there. Picture Bjork. Picture of a man by the name of Goldie. A black man. Of course. Well, apparently she's getting married this fall. So I'm just going to have to be it. So he starts really thinking about this plan, a lot. realizes this AIDS thing, it isn't going to work. The virus would never survive the trip. It can't live that long outside the human body. Plus, the mechanical book device would be way too difficult to build.

So he comes up with another plan. He's going to send her a package, a hollowed out book, that's booby-trapped, to spray sulfuric acid on her when she opens it up. And he thinks this is the perfect idea. So he gets some supplies, and he films himself building this contraption. this book that sprays acid on whoever opens it, he also forges a letter to make it look like this book was sent from Bjork's record company. That way she'll be more likely to open the book. And months go by, and he's finally done building it.

And with everything completed, he waits for the right time to strike. And finally, Bjork publicly announces that her tour is coming to an end and she's headed home to London where she lives. Once Ricardo is certain Bjork is back home, he drops off his booby-trapped package at the post office. And with his package on its way, he goes back to his apartment and he prepares to unalive himself. His plan has always been to hurt Bjork and then take himself out. I don't know why that's his plan, but that's his plan. Once he gets home, he writes a message on the wall for the FBI,

which basically tells them that his video diary tapes are documentation of, his crime. This is an actual picture of it. After that, shit really goes off the rails. Ricardo sets up his camera and he starts recording. Then he shaves his head and he paints his face all red. Then he gets a pistol and he unalives himself. So now, with the only person who knows about the package gone, seems like Bjork is about to get a surprise in the mail that's meant to kill her. On two. Four days go by.

And Ricardo's neighbors that live in the unit beneath him, they notice something weird. There's a liquid dripping down from the ceiling into their place. And this liquid looks like blood. So they alert the building manager, and soon the police are called. And so police,

they go to Ricardo's place, and they get inside, and they find him they're dead. And so they start investigating, and they look at the tape and the video camera and the footage shows that Ricardo unalived himself, but it also is a confession about sending that package. And so using the timestamp of the tape compared to the travel time for a package across the Atlantic Ocean, the police realized the window of time to stop this package is about to close, and they need to act right now. So police

reach out to Scotland Yard in London about an active terrorist threat. Scotland Yard immediately starts looking for that package. And eventually they are able to locate it and it had already reached Bjork's local post office. The next stop would have been Bjork's home. But anyway, so at the end of it all, Bjork actually doesn't get hurt from any of this, but she does end up writing a song called So Broken

that is supposedly inspired by this whole incident.