True Crime All The Time - The Stalking and Murder of Actress Rebecca Shaeffer

Episode Date: January 23, 2017

Rebecca Shaeffer was an up and coming actress in the late 1980's. She had already landed roles in a soap opera, on a sitcom, and in several movies. She had fans all over the world. But one fan in particular, Robert John Bardo, would develop an obsession with Rebecca that would ultimately lead to murder. Join Gibby and I as we detail out this case that would be the catalyst for many of the anti-stalking laws that are on the books today. Visit our website at http://truecrimeallthetime.com where you'll find all of our contact information. You can click through to our Patreon page if you want to help support the show financially. Please rate/review us on ITunes and don't forget that our new podcast True Crime All The Time Unsolved is out now as well.     An Emash Digital Production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to episode 11 of True Crime All the Time, an E-Mash digital production. I'm your host, Mike Ferguson, and always I've got my partner in crime and co-host Mike Gibby Gibson in studio with me. Gibby, what's going on today? Hey, good morning, afternoon, evening, depending on when you're listening. Or when we're taping. Or when we're taping. You never know.

So before we begin today's show, just a few announcements, we hope that everyone enjoyed our first hometown listener hometown episode that was released midweek we'd like to thank jordan very much for participating in this first one of what we hope will be many listener hometown episodes folks if you if you haven't downloaded this one yet please do it was a great experience to have jordan who actually lives in the town where this crime occurred and was able to fill in all those little details that Gibby, you know, you and I sometimes get criticized, not criticized, but poked fun at sometimes when we don't know some of the local establishments or things like that. But I don't know.

What do you think? You enjoyed it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just that extra knowledge base, you know. It makes a world of difference. Yeah. Yeah.

And I like Jordan. Well, yeah, we like Jordan. but we're really hoping that, you know, this catches on. And we got a few other people lined up and, you know, we want to do it at least once a month. But hopefully when people hear this, they say, oh, man, I want to do that. I got a case that. Yeah. If you got a good case and you got Skype on your phone.

Yeah, that's all you need. We can Skype you in and do it. Just email us at, well, you know how to email us. Yeah, they find you. But, you know, as always, you can find all the social media info for our show at our website, True Crime All The Time.com. You will find our email address there. We love the interaction.

And it just keeps increasing on Facebook and Twitter, Instagram. You know, Gibby and I both love it. So, you know, keep it up. Definitely visit our Patreon page if you want to help support the show financially. and speaking of support, we had three new recent financial supporters to the show. I want to give a huge shout out to April and Rebecca. They pledged their support on Patreon.

And we also had our first monthly supporter through PayPal, which I didn't even know was possible. But that was Jeanette. So thank you very much, Jeanette, for your support. Wow, thank you. Yeah, all three of you, you really have no idea how much it means. That financial support goes a long way towards helping pay for the production costs

and the media hosting and all of that. And, you know, like we tell everybody all the time, you know, you can go to Patreon. You can show your support for the show for as little as $2 a month. So Gibby, when this episode drops, it's going to be a pretty big day for us. You know, we're obviously recording this in advance because at the same time that we, that this episode releases on Sunday, we're also releasing our first episode of the new podcast, true crime all the time unsolved. Right. So, you know, that's a big announcement. We hope we think people are really going to like it.

It's going to be the same format as the show you're listening to. to right now, the only difference is that the cases are unsolved. Right. And, you know, Gibby and I were talking the other day. And, you know, we've been getting a lot of feedback from people that are saying, you know, hey, can you do more shows? And we thought rather than doing more shows on our regular show, we would just start a separate, another podcast, basically the same name with,

unsolved added to it. And that way we're separating, because I do know there are people that will love both of them. But there are also people that like when a case is solved and all the facts are known.

And there are some people that really like the mystery of an unsolved case. And there's some people that drives them crazy when it's unsolved. Right. And they don't like listening to unsolved. But you're like this one. But I think that's one of

reasons why we wanted to separate it. Yeah. You know, you can, you can pick and choose, but hopefully you subscribe to both, listen to both. Now you have, you know, another podcast to help you with your commute to and from, or around the house or at work, you know, if you can't sleep at night, kick it on, listen to it, you know. My voice will put you right to sleep. Or that. Or that. No, if you haven't already, please look for it in the iTunes, you know, on your iTunes, if you, if you're using iPhone or for your Android. Subscribe to the show. That way you make sure you get all the feeds that are coming out.

When you're listening to this show, just know that there's an episode of true crime all the time unsolved that is basically being released at the exact same time. Right. So between those two and then with the added listener participation one that we do. Yep. That should get you through your week. That should get you through your week.

Exactly. All right. So, Gibby, let's talk about this case involves the stalking and murder of actress Rebecca Schaefer. Right. It's probably the first well-known stalker case. Yeah. And I don't know what the demographic exactly of our audience is. Folks that are our age are going to remember this for sure.

Some of the younger listeners may not remember this because they may not even have been born yet. This takes place in 1989. Yeah, 1988. But let's get into it. I think first of all, we have to start talking. We have to talk about Rebecca. Right. You know, so Rebecca Schaefer was born in Eugene, Oregon on November 6, 1967.

she was the only child to Dana and Dr. Benson Schaefer, who apparently was a child psychologist. Right. She was raised in the Portland area and began modeling during her junior year of high school. Yeah. I think she wanted to be a rabbi early on. She did want, yeah, I did read that. Decided somehow she stumbled in some modeling and it went well.

Yeah. Yeah, I left that out because I didn't get the fact. of why she wanted to be a rabbi and then all of a sudden jumped to modeling. I mean, it's good that you bring it up, but I just didn't have much detail. I think it was sort of love for her, you know, the religion that she was. Yeah. So, so then she went on and did some local modeling that she got good responses on that. So yeah, local like department store catalogs, I think, even some local television commercials.

Right. So then they, they go ahead and let her to, they let her move to New York City. on her own. It's around 84, I think. Yeah. Is what I had. And then she does some modeling while she's there. Not great success at it because the fact that I believe she was because she was just too

short, right? She was in the modeling industry. I don't know how it works. Yeah. You know, it's crazy. Because what I read was she was 5'7, which I would think that's a bug. at least average, if not above average. For a female?

Yeah. I would think so. It's got to be at least average. I would think that's probably average. But in the world of high fashion, that's considered to be very short, I guess. That's what I read. And, you know, she even moved to Japan in 85 to try to get some other modeling gigs.

And even they told her she was too short. Right. But, you know, I've never understood the world of high fashion anyway. I don't know who in the world buys all that stuff. I see those people like on TV walking down the runway in some of the, some of the ugliest dresses I've ever seen. Yeah, you know, I think the way I understand it is it sets their concept design and then the big stores, you know, the Macy's, the Bloomingdale's, the Dillon's. Maybe it's because of where we live, but I don't see people. walking around and any of that stuff. No, I think the stores take that concept and then they have, the designers tweak it to be

more mainstream. You know, I'm sure somewhere, somebody wears that stuff, but not here in Dayton. No, people with a lot more money than us. If you're out there wearing this stuff from the high-end fashion show, shoot as a message. So we know there's actually people wearing that stuff. Exactly. But I did want to say the modeling wasn't going well, like you mentioned. Right.

But she did land a role on the soap opera One Life to Live. Yeah, when she was in New York, right? She comes back to New York and she gets that gig there and it kind of leads on to a few other gigs. Yeah, I never watch Soaps, but One Life to Live was probably really popular. It's probably on now. Is it? I don't know. I think a lot of them have died off.

Oh, have they? I'm not sure. I never was a soap person. But her character was called Annie Barnes. and I'm sure there's some people that will probably remember that. Right. If they were, usually if you're big in the soap opera, if that's something that you watched,

you remember a lot of those characters. But, you know, her big break comes in 86. And it's then that she lands the cover of 17 magazine. Right. And that's a big deal. That was a huge deal. Back then, I think 17 Magazine made a lot of people famous, a lot of models.

took them to another level, but it definitely takes her to another level because I believe a TV producer catches that. Yeah. And likes the way she looks. Right. It puts her on the radar of these, like you said, a television producer,

and they're in the process of casting a new show called My Sister Sam. And Rebecca, you know, gets the part. Right. You know, she wins the part of Patty. And she ends up playing opposite, of Pam Dauber of Morkin Mendi fame. Oh yeah.

Who is Sam. Right. And I don't know if you remember the show. I actually don't remember the show. It was short-lived. It was like a year and a half. Yeah, we'll talk about it. But it was short-lived.

I don't remember watching it specifically. But getting this part, you know, leads her from, leads to her moving from New York to to California. Right. which is going to, you know, set up some of the story. But I did have a little clip of my sister Sam just in case anybody remembers it. Hi, I'm Patty Russell. This is my sister Sam.

I just moved in. We haven't lived together since we were kids. I was raised by her aunt and uncle. Things should have changed. I used to dress her. I can't wear this out in public. This makes up for the haircut you gave me when I was three. You don't know what it is, but you know who is for.

So, I mean, if anything, I think the sound. track maybe sounds a little more familiar to me than the show itself. You know, we, you know, this series did put her in the spotlight, though, because it was an actual sitcom on a major network. Yeah, it actually took off fairly well. Yeah, in the beginning it did. It was getting really good ratings. That's what they said, yeah.

And for some reason, the second season, and that, you know, a lot of people talk about the sophomore slump. Right. Which does happen with some shows. Fizzled out. And it did fizzle out in the second season and it was canceled. You know, Rebecca would go on to appear in some other films over the next few years. Nothing that I really knew of or remembered.

Yeah. No, nothing big. Right. Now, if I saw it, I might be, oh, yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Right. But by name recognition. Right.

You know, these were not big movies. and some were even made for TV movies, I think, that she did. But she was an up-and-comer, right? Oh. And she, I mean, to the point that, you know, and you're covered here in a little bit, that, you know, she was getting ready to audition for a huge film. Yeah. You know, The Godfather Part 3.

Godfather Part 3. To be part of that would have been. Which was not Godfather 1 and 2. No, but it still had the... But it was a big picture. Yeah, to be in the same movie would, you know, Pacino and in them that would that would have been huge yeah I you know if for those of you that don't know Godfather is my all-time favorite one and two I could sit and watch all day three I'll watch

yeah it's a little hard but it's not my favorite so I think what we're getting at is like you said she's an up-and-comer you know at this point she's she's still only 20 in a very very early 20s Yeah. Right. And very attractive. She is. She's a very attractive girl. She does modeling. She was just on a sitcom. What this caused is her to have a lot of fans, I'm sure, all over the world. And, you know, that's that's what happens when you become a celebrity. And especially, you know, if you're a very attractive person and on top of that, you're a celebrity. Right. You tend to attract a lot of fans. And she was a sweetheart. Yeah. From all accounts. From all accounts. She really was.

The problem is she had one fan in particular named Robert John Bardo who would take his obsession with Rebecca to the extreme. Yeah. Right. And that's what this case is really all about. So I thought we could talk a little bit about Robert Bardo, just a little bit about his background. He was the youngest of seven children. His mother was Korean, and his father was an officer in the United States Air Force. So the family moved a lot.

You know, I have some family that are Air Force brats, and they moved a lot. So they traveled a lot. And I'm not using that as a derogatory term. But, you know, they moved a lot and saw the world. and it seems like he may have moved quite a bit. To be military, seven kids, and we all know that the military pay, especially back then, wouldn't have been that great.

So to have seven kids, I'm sure that, you know, and they talk about how he was kind of beat up by some of his siblings. So I'm sure there was a lot of, you know, fighting in between the siblings, Right. So, I mean, they eventually settle in Tucson, Arizona in like 1983. And you mentioned him, you know, by all accounts, he had a troubled childhood. Sure. That should be a surprise to no one because I don't think there's a case yet where we haven't had to say. Right.

No, was there one? No. No. There probably never will be one because a troubled childhood goes a long way towards some of these individuals doing what they do. But you mentioned him, you know, kind of being beaten up by brothers and sisters. You know, I actually had that he was abused by one or more of his siblings. Yeah.

And it got to the point where he had to be put in foster care. Which has got to be pretty extreme to put one of your own kids. In 1983. Yeah. To put one of your own kids in foster care. Yeah. So either, I mean, to the point that he was just. too much to handle.

Yeah. And I guess he had threatened to commit suicide. Yeah. And so that it kind of all boiled over and led into him being put in foster care. And he was only, was that round 15? Yeah. I'm not, uh, because I'm not sure what age it was. What I did have Gibby was, um, according to one of his teachers, they said Bardo was a time bomb

on the verge of exploding. And, um, you know, Apparently, when he was 13, and this may have been even before some of the other stuff we were talking about, he took a bus to Maine in search of Samantha Smith. This was kind of a big deal. Samantha Smith was a child herself. She had become famous for sending a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev. So she had gained a lot of no to write. Yeah, she's like a peace activist back then.

Yeah. So already he's getting into some stalking. Right. And, you know, the authorities find him. They bring him back to Tucson. And, you know, the dichotomy here is that his teachers all said he was a good student. You know, so I think he was somewhat intelligent. Right.

But he had a habit of writing his teachers threatening letters. And as I think we, you know, he had mentioned he was hospitalized a couple times. Right. Because of what I read as severe emotional damage. Right. But again, when you come from that kind of childhood, sure. Your siblings are abusing you. You've threatened to commit suicide.

You know, that he didn't, he didn't have a great nurture part of the equation. Right. Didn't really have a strong supporting system there at home. It doesn't sound like. Right. I mean, to the point, he even drops out of school, right?

Yeah, he drops out of high school. Yeah, ninth grade. Doesn't even make it past the ninth grade. Even though, by all accounts, he was a, I read good student. I don't know how smart he is or what his IQ was,

but, and, so what's he big getting doing? You know, he starts working as a janitor. Yeah. Jack and by. the box.

I know that you know during that time you know he eventually gets arrested a few times right he gets arrested for domestic violence

distorty conduct I mean so it's not a shocker I mean we kind of see this again and again and some other killers that we've talked about that they have you know criminal

you know past there yeah I even I read that some of his neighbors said that he exhibited unexplained, strange, and threatening behavior towards them. That's a neighbor you don't want to have. Yeah. A psych, psychotic neighbor. Yeah. So where are we at? He's 16 years old, give or take. He's working as a janitor, Jack in the Box. And this is the, I believe, the fall of 1980,

he becomes a fan of the television show My Sister Sam. In particular, he becomes obsessed with the character Patty, which we've already said, is played by Rebecca Schaefer. Right. To the point where what I had, the research I had done said,

he built a shrine to her in his bedroom. You know, I don't know what that involved, but I'm picturing that in my head of nothing but pictures and posters. Kind of scary. Yeah, I mean, that's full on, it's getting into full on obsession. Now, think back when I was a kid, I had a couple of posters of Michael Jordan. Farah Fawcett. Oh, Farah Fawcett. Yeah, Charlie's Angels.

All three of them. I'm trying to say how old you are, but, you know. Yeah. But I wasn't obsessed. Right. So, you know, when I think of, those weren't shrines either, right? I had a couple of posters of folks that I liked. I had one of Elvis because I was kind of end Elvis. But, you know, you wouldn't call that a shrine.

No, I mean, this thing over here on your desk with Keith Morrison. Yeah. With all these pictures. That's a shrine. Some of his stuff that he's touched that somehow you got a hold of, I think that's a little probably borderline. If you're listening, that's not true at all.

I'd be worried, Keith. So we're back, you know, let's talk about it. He's got this shrine. But again, you know that Rebecca is getting tons of fan mail, tons of letters.

A lot of the letters that she's getting are from Bardo. He becomes obsessed. Right. Starts writing all these letters to her. You had, made mention that she was a great person. And one of the things that she does is,

like you and I talk about, we try to respond to everything that we get. Now, we don't get near as much as what actual celebrities get, but we get people on social media that email us and, you know, want to have a dialogue.

Right. But what she does is she responds to one of his letters, and writes him back saying that his letter was the most beautiful that she had ever received and on her letter she draws a peace sign,

a heart, and she signs it with love from Rebecca. And right there is the problem. And what does that do to somebody that's obsessed? Right. It just

solidifies that they feel you feel the same way they feel about you. Right. He is, you know, in a warped person's mind, she's telling him that she loves him. Now, you and I would get that and just think that's just somebody trying to be nice.

Right. Of course you'd love me, why wouldn't you? Celebrity does not love me. But to him and the way that his mind is working at that point in time, he thinks it's, well, she loves me. Right. So that very day that he receives that, he writes in his in his journal that he wants to become famous to impress her.

So Gibby, you know, in June of 87, this is when Bardo tries to go to Burbank Studios. And my understanding is that, and you know, like you mentioned, he goes a couple times. Because the Warner Brothers, which is in Burbank, the Burbank Studios, the Warner Brothers lot. Which is where my sister, Sam, is being taped. And he tries to get in, past the security guard to see Rebecca. And the first time, the security guard turns him away. No dice. No dice.

Not letting you in. Apparently, he's carrying a five-foot teddy bear and a bouquet of roses. That doesn't say stalker on it. I don't know what does, but okay. Five foot teddy bear. That's a good size teddy bear. That is a good size. But there again, nothing too dangerous right then and there.

Right. But the second time when he comes back a month later, he's got a knife. But again, they don't let him in. They're doing their job. He's got no reason to be on the lot. So. Yeah. So he feels, you know, he's at a loss because he can't get in and see her.

It doesn't know how else to get to her. So I think he gets discouraged. Yeah, he does. And apparently, you know, he returns to Tucson after failing to get to get into the studio. And he writes in his diary. And I, I want to stress this because he says, I don't lose period. With period, the word period spelled out. What's that mean to you?

It's alarming. He's going to do whatever it takes. Right. He's going to make sure. he gets in there. He's not taking no for an answer. Now, what his ultimate goal is, I don't, we don't know at this point, but whatever it is, he's saying, I'm not going to take, I'm not going to lose. I'm going to do whatever it takes. Now, something happens when he's back in Tucson and this is, that upsets him, upsets Bardo. He sees Rebecca Schaefer in a movie.

and the movie is called Class Struggle in Beverly Hills and in this movie Rebecca has a a sex scene or a you know kind of a bed scene with a male actor and that really upsets Bardo you know again in his mind he's not separating the fact of that he's seeing something on

scripted on a screen. I don't think his mind is working correctly at this point in time because he's enraged by the fact that she's kissing or making out with this guy in a movie scene. Apparently, this is what starts to set him off because he decides then and there

that Rebecca has to be punished for her immorality, as he called it. Even going to the point of, you know, taking a diagram, drawing a diagram of her body and marking all the different spots where he planned to shoot her. Wow. And it's at this point that he asks his older brother, Edgar, to buy him a gun.

So he goes to, so I'm just, just following this. So he goes to the studio twice, can't get in, gets frustrated, goes back home, then he kind of stalks Debbie Gibson and Tiffany for a short period of time. That doesn't turn out to be anything. So now he sees this movie she's in, Rebecca, and she's laying in bed next to a guy. He gets furious, thinks she's going to be another. a Hollywood whore. And so now he's asking his brother to go get him a gun. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is where it's strange for me because normally you would think you have an obsession with one person. He had, and I think he had an obsession with or tried to have an obsession with a bunch of different people. for what reason I don't know what was what was the end ultimately I think he just wanted to be famous yeah I think so too there there is some some evidence and and some people talking on the research that I did that said that ultimately he wanted to be famous because why why is he

stalking multiple people figuring out that this person can't be you know can't be gotten to and then going on to the next. Right. Some of the actions that he takes, some of the items he carries, some of the things that he does moving forward kind of make you, it really makes you think that's what he wants.

He wants to be famous. Oh, you're talking about Catcher in the Rye? Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about it. Because ultimately he ends up, you know, with the Catcher in the Rye book. when everything goes down and it's all said and done,

which we're going to talk about here in a minute. Sure. And that just harkens back to Chapman. Hinkley. Hinkley. For whatever reason, Ketra in the Rye is, I don't want to say related, interhooked or intertwined with a lot of these folks. Are they trying to relate to that, the character Holden?

Is that what it is? Yeah, I mean, obviously. the character is... I mean, you've got three copies on your desk there, so I mean... I do have a copy on the bookshelf. Yeah. You know, obviously the character is disillusioned and, you know, so I think it's easy for some of these folks to relate to that character, but it is something that a lot of them

have this book in their possession at the time that they do what they do. Right before we get to that, you know, Bardo is just... just sending tons of letters still to Rebecca, like we talked about. He's got a shrine in his room. He even sent a really kind of crazy letter to his sister who lived in Tennessee. And it said that if he couldn't have Rebecca, nobody else could. Now, that's a warning if I've ever heard. Exactly. of one. And it's really, you know, so at this point, he hops a bus in Tucson and he's heading for Hollywood and he's going to track down Rebecca.

And so we're, you know, we're fast forwarding kind of up to July 17th of 1989. Bardo is in now in California trying to find Rebecca Schaefer. He calls her agent's office. He's trying to find out where she lives. I think he even went as far as talking to people on the street, showing them, her picture. Yeah. And saying, hey, do you know where this person lives? It ends up that he pays a private detective $250 to help find her.

Now, Mike, why did you do that? I know you got some information on that. Well, I mean, he found out, somehow he found out that the attacker of Teresa Saldeno, am I saying her last name right? Seldano, Saldao. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so her attacker, you know, he paid a private detective to find out where she lived in West Hollywood, and he was able to obtain that information for her.

attacker and So Bardo just copied. Copied the same thing. He paid his detective $250. What another attacker did. The crazy part about it though, and what neither one of them knew is that in 1989, you could just walk into the California DMV office, pay a dollar, fill out a form with a little bit of information, and you could even lie on the form about what you

wanted it for. Right. And you could get somebody's address. That's crazy. Now, we're going to talk when we talk about aftermath like we always do. Right. What changes come about as a result of that case. You know that's one of them. But so they're each of these people paid the detective to 250. The detective probably just went down and paid the dollar kept the 249. So he gets her information. So he's got her address. That's what he was after. Which brings us to the morning of July 18th, 1989, Bardot,

he's wearing a yellow shirt, he approaches Rebecca's building, and rings the doorbell. Rebecca, at that time, I think, lived in Unit 4. You know, like we talked about, he's carrying a copy of the Catcher in the Rye. Rebecca opens the door,

and she talks to him, very politely. as we said, we think she was a very nice person. But she does say to him, you know, I'm really busy. You know, you've got to leave. And this goes back to Godfather 3 because everything I read was she, you know, she's up for this role and she was waiting for the script to be delivered. It was supposed to be left on her front door. And I think it's one of the reasons why.

she had no problem going to the door because she kept thinking it's the script it's the script when the doorbell rang because we understand the buzzard worked the intercom worked as a buzzard but you couldn't communicate through the intercom it was broken that way yeah just the buzz

so she just knew somebody was at the door for her unit right so every time it rang she came because she kept thinking it was a script so well this pissed bardo off even though she was polite she's a celebrity she said you know, I can't really talk to you right now. I'm busy.

He walks away steamed and thinking that she was rude to him, even though she probably wasn't. So what's he do? He goes to Jan's restaurant, nearby restaurant, and he orders up some onion rings and a slice of cheesecake. Yeah. Which I found very strange combo. Just onion rings.

No hamburger, no. No meat, just onion rings and cheesecake. You know, but, you know, like we talked about in the beginning, it's 1989. I just don't think celebrities were taking the same kind of precautions that they were now. I mean, even somebody on a brand new television show would not come answer the door if you running their doorbell, I don't believe. Not today they wouldn't. Not in today's world. But back then, you got to think.

didn't have the same amount of paparazzi. We didn't have the internet and all of these social media outlets that we do today. And basically what that has done in today's world, it lets us feel or let some people feel that they're basically very, very close to their favorite celebrities. And I think you mentioned it early on. He had to do a lot of work to feel like. Like he, you know, sending letters. I mean, who sends a letter?

When's the last time you actually wrote a letter, put a stamp on it and mailed it? Not counting bills, which. Long time. And nowadays, most people don't even do that. I haven't used a stamp for three years. You pay, you know, pay everything's digital online. So he's at Jan's restaurant eating his weird order of onion rings and cheesecake. And when he gets done with that, he goes.

back to Rebecca's building about an hour later, 30 minutes an hour. I read differing accounts. Right. He rings the bell. This time, you know, she, she comes down again. Again, like we said, she probably is thinking that it's this script for Godfather three. She's in her house coat. She opens the door. And this time, I think she, now, I don't know how anybody knows. exactly what she said other than him. And most of the information is coming from him, or people just speculating. Yeah.

But she does, by all accounts, and it's probably his account, say something like, you know, now she's a little more agitated. She says, you're wasting my time. Please leave me alone.

I'm busy. Something to that effect. Bardo responds by pulling a 357 out, and he shoots her. It says something like, I forgot to give you this. Yeah. And I think he had it in a bag or I don't know what he had it in. But so at this point, you know, he shoots her and point blank in a chest, right?

Yeah, I mean, he's close. I mean, at 357, that would do major damage. Yes, a 357, depending on what kind of bullet, it's a sizable round. Some neighbors here, the gunshots. Apparently there was a couple of gunshots. I don't know how many times you shot her. Some report said two. And some really loud screams.

They rushed to Schaefer's front door. They find her body in a clad in a black robe. And at this point, she's twitching in the foyer. So she's technically, she's still alive. Even though when this neighbor checks her pulse, he doesn't find anything. So I'm not, you know, that just nervous, nervous system still twitching or something like that. The paramedics say that when they get there, there's a slight pulse.

That's why they pronounce are dead at the hospital. But, you know, you got, you know, Richard Goldman across the street. He runs over. I don't know if that's the neighbor you're talking about. It is. And I'm sure he may not have been a doctor. So who knows how he's checking for pulse. Right.

But you're right. He hears the, you know, he's alerted by the shot. shot in the two loud screams. And of course, he sees what probably is Bartow running away. Yellow shirt, a guy in the yellow shirt. Yeah, the kinky hair. Then you have the other neighbor, Kenneth Newell. He lives in the building next door.

He also heard the shot and the screams, and he ran to help. But again, the time he got there, it was little he could do. It's just... But you're right, because they do rush her to C. Sinai. Yeah. And it does say that she, for about 30 minutes.

A very faint pulse. They work on her, but ultimately, you know, pronounce her dead. Yeah, I think when you got the people on the scene actually thinking

that she was dead, you know, but, but not pronounced dead. You know, it's kind of. So at this point, Bardo takes off.

And he, and I don't know, know if you have this because I don't have this information, Mike, but he ends up back in Tucson the next day. I don't know if he takes the bus back. I actually didn't see it. Yeah, I don't know how he got there, but he gets back to Tucson. Yeah, I'm sure he probably took a bus or something. He could even hitchhiked. People were still hitchhiking maybe back then, but that's a long way to hitchhike from California to Tucson. Right. But things start to get crazy with him. You know, several motorists call 911 and they're reporting that a man is running around in traffic on interstate 10

and the report is that he's trying purposely to get hit right he's not trying to dodge cars on the highway right he's trying to get somebody to run him over on the highway police get there they take him into custody and he confesses to the murder immediately Yeah. From all accounts. Yeah, he didn't waste anything. I don't even think they knew who he was at that point. But, I mean, they do fax his, as soon as he confesses, they fax all of his information to Los Angeles and witnesses are able to confirm, yeah, this is the man that we saw around the neighborhood and that we saw running.

They, they, the police in Tucson, Arizona, obviously couldn't have known or even asked him if he was the man. that shot Rebecca Schaefer. They wouldn't even have known. So for whatever reason, he did what he wanted to do, what he felt like he needed to do. And he was going bad shit crazy running around the highway. He obviously wanted to get caught or killed. And the minute he's caught, he confesses to the murder.

So I got a little tape from, from Bardo. You know, it's pretty powerful stuff. I didn't have an identity of what I wanted to do in life. I was always looking for my greatest source of happiness, and it always would be that public figure, and that's what happened with Ms. Schaefer. They never met the guy, never seen the guy, but they want him. It's like they want to have a personal relationship with him. Marshall advertising her show, and her personality came on.

She was, you know, very open with her personality. She's still a stranger. And it interested me and interested me in the show. I read it. I read the magazine articles in person. When I read those magazine articles, I feel like I know them, you know. The way they talk about themselves, about their family life, about the bonds that they had and lived, what they took for them to become famous.

You feel like you know these people. It's not like they're strangers because you see them on TV or the movie or see them on the movies. These people feel like it's like they've been with you all your life because you're always hearing about them. And it's like you always hear about when, you know, they have a relationship with another person or whatever happens in their life. It's like you're long for the ride in their life. And to me, my victim wasn't a stranger

because I read up so much in the magazine articles. I saw the person on the TV all the time. I felt like a person was accessible. All right. So, you know, that was Bardo years later. talking about giving a little bit of insight about, you know, his connection and how he felt and, and things like that. There was actually one other audio clip that I really wanted to include Gibby,

and I know you liked it, but. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I don't even think people could have heard it so i thought maybe you could just i mean i kind of have a re-account of it you know or barto you know when he's describing the his you know the owner as he's describing the incident himself right he's saying she had this kid voice sounded like a little brat or something said i was wasting her time wasting her time no matter what i thought that was very callous thing you know for her to say to a fan you know i grabbed the door gun still in the bag, I grabbed it by the trigger, I come around and capow. And she's like screaming,

ah, screaming why, ah. And it's like, oh God. So this is what, you know, the tape that he's on and saying, to hear it from him, it's freaky. It would be better. It's just I could not find a good enough copy that I think people could have even understood it. If you really want to hear it, you can go out on the internet and find it and try to decipher what he says. And there might be some that subtitle it. Yeah, but just to see his face and his expression as he's saying it. Because the difference is the one that we played happened. That was years later. That's older bardo. And the one that you're talking about is from much, much sooner right after he's. Right. This is when he's being interviewed by the, I guess it's the state psychologist or the county

psychologist to determine if he's. Because he's extradited to. California from Arizona. His defense attorneys were pleading that he had an unstable mental condition due to childhood abuse. I don't know if that's true, but he definitely was unstable in some capacity. The issue always becomes, did he know right from wrong? The very interesting thing about this one is that the prosecutor in this case was a young Marsha Clark who would later, obviously everybody knows, become famous for her work during the O.J. Simpson trial. And I got some great audio of her that I want to play. I get completely involved and completely committed in all my cases. There was an emotional aspect of this case because of the nature of the victim.

You know, this was just such a sweet, innocent, vulnerable victim who did nothing but spread joy and light to everyone around her. And to have that life snatched away so brutally is an incredibly horrible and depressing experience. The first time he went to her door, he expected to speak through the intercom, did not expect to see her. And unbeknownst to him, her intercom didn't work. She came directly down the hallway and opened the door and startled him. He was unprepared for her personal appearance. And when she came out straight to the door, he couldn't respond in time. She took control of the situation and he was intimidated.

It was at a very intimate contact that he engaged in in order to commit the murder. He went up to her face-to-face. He strode up to where she stood as she opened the door as she was leaning over. He grabbed her by the arm to hold her still, to emotion. to mobilize her to make sure that he would succeed in hitting the target. And then he raised this very large gun, firing it, hearing the loud report of a 357 magnum. That sounds like a cannon, especially in the acoustical conditions he fired it in, directly into her heart. And he saw the spurt, the arterial spurt of blood as her heart literally exploded in her chest.

Vardo's motivation in killing Rebecca Schaefer was the quest for fame. the quest for fame. He wanted to be famous. He knew of no skill he had or talent he had that would make him shine. And so he chose the easy way to the top, if you will. And the one way he knew of to get fame was to kill someone famous and attach himself in a parasite-like fashion to the fame that that person had. I feel like setting up a hit on Diane Cannon at her Hollywood Hills home. This is all fantasy, of course, but so was my love for Rebecca, and she's dead. He considered Madonna, rejected, considered Tiffany, even went to her concert, but wrote about how he noticed the heavy security and rejected it. Debbie Gibson was another one that he tracked all the way to New York, found her to be inaccessible, rejected her.

Then came Rebecca Schaefer. I know where she lives. I can get to her. I don't know why, but it sounds so much better when Marcia talks about it. Oh, yeah. Number one, she's a hell of a lot smarter than we are. But Madonna was one, that was one that I did not see. Yeah. And that we didn't talk about. And Diane Cannon.

Right. Now, Madonna was a huge star. Yes. I mean, that was her, I mean. Well, I guess 89. Late 80s, yeah. Yeah, she was getting very, very big. Yeah, it was climbing up very fast.

But I think it does corroborate what you and I were talking about, which is, you know, he fixated on Rebecca Schaefer, but, you know, he was, he tried to fixate on other people. Yeah, who, I think anybody he thought that he could get access to, he was going to, I mean, just think about how those people feel. How lucky they, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, you know. Because by all accounts, it could have been them. It could have been them. Yeah, I like to hear Marsha talk. you know, she puts it together in a way that she's a very smart, very smart prosecutor.

But of course, she was involved in all of it. So she's got a lot of the details. So I think we, you know, the trial was, you know, as you would imagine, the trial would go. You know, he's convicted of capital murder. He opted for a non-jury trial in exchange for, I believe, them taking off the death penalty. Correct. Is that what you had, Mike? Yep.

So no jury. They argued, both sides argued in front of the judge. And he's stonefaced through the whole thing. Yeah. Except. Except for when they play, what was it? U2's song. Called Exit.

And he is, he's jamming. Oh, it's just, when you're watching him, and he's in that chair and he's, I mean, he's, he's, you know, saying the lyrics. It was like karaoke night at a bad karaoke bar. Yeah, he was just, all of a sudden, when that music came on

that they played, it's like something took over in his body, and you can just see him, you know, rocking back and forth with it, saying the lyrics.

And, it was very strange. It was definitely, definitely strange. I don't have that in audio, but you can definitely find that on it. I think the big part

of the song that they hear is it talks about, you know, hand in the pocket, finger on the steel. the pistol weighed heavy, his heart he could feel was bearing, beating, beating, oh my love. And that's what they kind of relate back to why he liked it. So he's ultimately sentenced to life without parole on December 20th, 1991.

Bardo, you know, kind of had some words for the judge that were, you know, quote, the idea I killed her for fame is totally ridiculous. I do realize the magnitude of what I've done. I don't think it needs to be compounded by a bunch of lies because she's an actress. I don't know what you make of that. He's basically saying that I didn't kill her for fame. So what is that? Why did he kill her?

Because he was obsessed with her and he was mad that she was in a love scene. I just Yeah, I don't buy The whole thing is Yeah You know But there again We've talked about this before

How do you jump into the mind Of somebody that's not having Rational thoughts And then try to put the puzzle pieces together To make them fit Right It's very tough Yeah, can't do it

You can't make sense of What somebody's doing When In their It makes sense to them in their head, but it wouldn't make sense to anybody else, I guess, is what I'm saying. So we talked a little bit, Gibby, about the aftermath of this case. And there was a lot that happened because of this case. And one of the big consequences of Bardo killing Rebecca Schaefer

had to do with what we talked about his methods or the methods that were used to obtain Schaefer's address. Right. And because of that, the U.S. government passes the Drivers Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits state departments of motor vehicles from disclosing the home addresses of their resident. Which is in all 50 states now. You know, and why wouldn't that?

Right. Why wouldn't they have had that before? You know why? Because nothing ever happened. Or if it did happen, it wasn't a big enough deal to force a change. Now, this was, this was a huge celebrity stalking murder. The other thing it did, because, you know, we used the word stalking, it caused California in particular to pass an anti-stalking law. And that was passed in 1990, became.

effective, I think January 1 of 1991. That law was the first of its kind. Now, ultimately, all, like you said, all the states would mirror that one as well. They jump on it and carry it through. And also Canada put in a national anti-stalking law that kind of mirrored that. And same around that time. Within a year of her passing, you know, Los Angeles Police Department began. and their threat management unit to deal with stalking harassment cases as well,

which makes sense. I mean, that's the majority of the, you know, if you've got to think about stalking back then, it was stars and that's where the stars was, you know. And even now,

I mean, California is, yeah, you know, where most of the stars are. Yeah, they instituted that threat management unit. And then the one thing that,

that I found interesting about the law, that law that they passed, the anti-stalking law, it helped convict this guy named, Jonathan Norman, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempting to carry out threats against director Steven Spielberg. Really? And I don't know if that was the first instance or just the most famous instance of the

application of that law. Yeah, I think there's been some after that too, some pretty big stalking cases out there. Oh, I'm sure there have sense. So, you know, just a, you know, something good. that came out of something so terrible. It is. And because of that, you know, because of the stalking aspect, I did want to talk about that a little bit.

So I have a clip from an expert who goes into it, the stalking a little bit. And I thought it would be informative. In my experience, a stalker is a person who sets his mind on pursuing a specific person. He wants to control that person. He wants that person to be intimately involved with him. He will not take no as an answer.

He is uncompromising in his zeal to enter into and maintain a relationship with this person, no matter what obstacles he encounters. He will ignore considerations of law. He will ignore the potential impact on the person he's pursuing. he is a law unto himself when it comes to this pursuit that's stalking so i think mike that was some you know some good information about stalking and from what that guy was saying i mean that fits bardo to a t absolutely it does right he didn't give a rat's ass about any consequences no you know he wrote in his diary that you know he wasn't going to lose period

he was going to do whatever it took. And I guess when somebody gets it in their head like that, that's when it becomes tough to stop somebody. Because when there's a person that wants to do some harm to you and they have no fear of consequences, you know, that's a dangerous, dangerous. It's always dangerous when somebody wants to do harm to you. But when they're in that mental state,

where the consequences don't matter and they're willing to either go to jail or trade their life to get to you, that's, that's scary. And I think that's where he was at. I just don't think he cared. No, he didn't care. What happened to him? And now he's serving life in prison. He is life in prison.

So because we do want to talk about, you know, we did talk about the victim, Rebecca Schaefer, but I also found some other clips of some folks that had been victims of stalking, not killed, but they just a little bit of them sharing their, what they went through. And I found it very interesting. We've worked with the police, but there's honestly not so much they can do. They can't assign somebody to stay with me 24 hours a day. And that's basically what it would, what it would entail. This is she?

He's threatened to slash my throat. But usually it's not me that he threatens. He's threatened to kill my husband. He's threatened to kill girlfriends of mine. Any male friends especially make him hostile. There was a dead animal left on their doorstep. We've gone through tires and tires, tires left nails in the tires,

and he uses a brass roofing nail. So we always know it's him that's left the nail there. Lots of times he'll just call and tell me he's seen me that day and what I'm wearing and that I look nice. I had a job where I needed to be on top of things and I couldn't be. It took me a long time to even try to catch up with my work. I stayed by myself a lot. I retreated. I just was very alone and that's the way I wanted it.

My friends would try and get me to come out. My mother tried to get me to stay with her. I stayed alone in the house and I took the attitude. that if he really wants to get me, he's going to manage to do it. So there's no point in running and hiding anymore. I'm going to stay put. My situation involved an individual who picked me out of a crowd and developed apparently some sort of love obsession.

And in the beginning, it actually initially started nine years ago, or ten years ago now. My contact with him was limited to phone calls. He had gotten my name and was calling my home and leaving messages for me. And they were pretty benign. They were innocuous invitations to dinner and that sort of thing. And I didn't accept any of them. I never acknowledged the phone calls.

I never returned the phone calls. And this went on for about three months. And I also got a couple of notes, love notes, or sort of flattering little cards from him. I didn't think too much about it other than to be annoyed by the attention because he was not a person I wanted any kind of attention from. from. In other words, the stalking might start with a phone call, which is a fairly remote type of contact, and then it might escalate to a letter, and then it might escalate to sending a photograph,

and then it might escalate to coming to the person's employment, and then it will escalate to come into the person's home, and then to a face-to-face encounter, and then ultimately to murder. Obviously, there was three different women kind of recounting the experiences that they've had, had with stalkers. And that's, you know, that's pretty scary. I'm betting that there's one or two of our listeners that, if not more, that's been through some form of stalking experience. I'm sure there is.

Some may be more extreme than others. Yeah. So, you know, I'm definitely sorry that if that happened to you, you have to go through that because that's a rough time for sure. I mean, you can hear it, especially, the first the third woman sounded very strong. I think she was putting on a very strong bravado. Sure.

But the first two, you could really tell, and especially the second one, what kind of toll something like that takes. And I don't know if she said it, but the first woman that talked, I think it had been 10 years and going on for 10 years. A long time. And what kind of toll that just takes on your life? it would take over everything. You heard from the second woman where, you know, she was afraid to leave the house. It can just really, you know,

could really destroy your life, basically. And what can be done about it. Now, nowadays, much more, but still, if they don't know who it is or you can't prove... It's, and it's tough to prove, you can go to the court and you can get restraining orders and things like that.

But, you know, even growing up, you know, my babysitter had an older sister that her ex-boyfriend stalked her and eventually murdered her. So. Well, and, you know, restraining orders are one thing. Restraining orders are for people that obey rules. Right. I guess I would say. It's only a piece of paper.

Yeah, it's a piece of paper. So if you have somebody that doesn't obey rules and like we talked about is willing to, doesn't, or willing to at all costs risk whatever consequence. even up to death, you know, a restraining order is not, I don't want to say it's not worth it, but It's a legal step you have to take. Yeah, you have to take that step, but it can't stop everything. So, you know, I, I wanted to play some of these. I found them kind of heart-wrenching. Yeah. And because we were talking about a case that involves stocking. I think the one, the other good thing about this Bartow case besides the anti-stalking laws and things like that is that there is a little payback down the road for him.

I don't know if you read that how he, you know. You're talking about in prison? Yeah, you know, 2007, you know, another inmate that's in there for life finally gets a hold of him and stabs him 11 times. Of course he survives. Yeah. But still, it's a little payback. you know 11 times 11 times it survives that

how do you survive 11 stabs stab wounds yeah it's probably one of those homemade shanks yeah or is it shiv I always forget one's a verb and one's a now shiv a shank shank a shiv whatever right

they're not long enough to do much damage shiv somebody with a shank or you shank somebody with a shiv I forget anybody out there it's been in prison no right mic and let them know what it's called

yeah but yeah right so we can laugh about this part because two inmate made weapons were found at the scene. You know, he was treated, like you said, survived. He's returned to prison. The other, the suspect was serving 82 years to life for second degree murder, which that's a pretty serious sentence for second degree, 82 to life. But, I mean, currently as of as of right now, he's still serving a life.

sentence, correct? He is. At the Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, California. Unless some... California taxpayers are taken care of them. Yeah, unless something has changed. But, um... All right, Gibby, you got anything else on the, on the stalking and murder of... No, even though it was such a long time ago, it's still kind of depressing, man, to think

about some young, beautiful person's just a beautiful person's life being taken. I think what you think about is, and, you know, you know, So it kind of goes back to the, um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the into case, right? You think about somebody that's, that's, that's, and obviously she was even younger, but what would that person have accomplished? Right. Now, Rebecca Schaefer was poised to do.

She'd probably be one of the biggest stars. She could have been. Who knows? Yeah, we don't know. It's a problem. We're never known. And, and I always had that feeling when we were doing the, the, um, the, the, um, the Melissa Huckabee case.

with the murder of Sandra Cantu because just in the back of my mind, I always think, you know, what would this person be doing? Yeah, what would she be today, you know? Had somebody not done, you know, taken their life. So, so I guess we'll sign off. Yeah. You know, I'm Mike Ferguson. Gibby.

That's Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.