- Joined
- Feb 24, 2015
A while back I talked about Ricardo Lopez, the Björk stalker. A similar cow to him would be Robert John Bardo.
Bardo’s case is honestly more tragic than Lopez’s. In Lopez’s case, his family had a feeling that something was wrong with him, and tried to reach out and help him. He brushed them off and assured them that everything was fine, and they didn’t learn the true extent of everything until it was too late. Bardo, however, did not have the luxury of a family who gave a shit. He was a very intelligent young man and did well in school, but was plagued by both mental illness and an abusive family. He was institutionalized at age 15 and never got to finish high school, which meant that he had trouble getting a job.
While working an unfulfilling job as a janitor, he came across the short-lived sitcom, My Sister Sam. He became enamored with one of the lead actresses, Rebecca Schaeffer, and began stalking her. He tried on two separate occasions to visit the set of the show, the first time with a giant teddy bear and the second with a knife. Both times he was turned away by security. He also wrote Schaeffer numerous fan letters. On at least one occasion, she actually answered him back thanking him for his support and telling him that his letter was one of the nicest she’d ever gotten. In hindsight, this was a huge mistake on her part, but there’s no way she could have possibly known this at the time. Seeing as how Senpai had noticed him, Bardo believed that his feelings were reciprocated and he and Schaeffer were meant to be together.
Unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending. Much like how Ricardo Lopez took it as a personal offense when Björk began dating someone (“she’s fucking a nigger!”), Bardo became furious when he saw that Schaeffer had appeared in a sex scene in a movie. Declaring that she’d “lost her innocence” and became “another Hollywood whore,” he hired a private investigator to find out where she lived.
On July 18, 1989, Bardo paid Schaeffer a visit. She had been preparing for an audition for The Godfather Part III, so she answered the door, thinking he was there to drop off her script. Schaeffer was a sweet person, so she told Bardo in the kindest way possible to fuck off and never come back. He left, but returned an hour later. Schaeffer, seeing that it was him again, was not too thrilled and was presumably going to tell him in much plainer terms that he was a creep and she wanted nothing to do with him. Sadly, she never got the chance as Bardo shot her in the chest. He considered shooting himself too so that he’d fall down and die on top of her, but pussed out and just left. Schaeffer was rushed to the hospital but died thirty minutes after arriving.
Bardo was arrested after he was found wandering aimlessly in traffic. He had a book in his possession, that he tossed onto the roof of the house after killing Schaeffer. Three guesses as to what the book was. Give up? It was fucking Catcher in the Rye, because of course it was. Although Bardo claimed that it was just coincidence and that he wasn’t copying Mark David Chapman, that goddamned book seems to be a huge magnet for these people. Bardo was sentenced to life in prison. He was stabbed 11 times in 2007, but survived and remains in jail to this day.
Bardo’s case is honestly more tragic than Lopez’s. In Lopez’s case, his family had a feeling that something was wrong with him, and tried to reach out and help him. He brushed them off and assured them that everything was fine, and they didn’t learn the true extent of everything until it was too late. Bardo, however, did not have the luxury of a family who gave a shit. He was a very intelligent young man and did well in school, but was plagued by both mental illness and an abusive family. He was institutionalized at age 15 and never got to finish high school, which meant that he had trouble getting a job.
While working an unfulfilling job as a janitor, he came across the short-lived sitcom, My Sister Sam. He became enamored with one of the lead actresses, Rebecca Schaeffer, and began stalking her. He tried on two separate occasions to visit the set of the show, the first time with a giant teddy bear and the second with a knife. Both times he was turned away by security. He also wrote Schaeffer numerous fan letters. On at least one occasion, she actually answered him back thanking him for his support and telling him that his letter was one of the nicest she’d ever gotten. In hindsight, this was a huge mistake on her part, but there’s no way she could have possibly known this at the time. Seeing as how Senpai had noticed him, Bardo believed that his feelings were reciprocated and he and Schaeffer were meant to be together.
Unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending. Much like how Ricardo Lopez took it as a personal offense when Björk began dating someone (“she’s fucking a nigger!”), Bardo became furious when he saw that Schaeffer had appeared in a sex scene in a movie. Declaring that she’d “lost her innocence” and became “another Hollywood whore,” he hired a private investigator to find out where she lived.
On July 18, 1989, Bardo paid Schaeffer a visit. She had been preparing for an audition for The Godfather Part III, so she answered the door, thinking he was there to drop off her script. Schaeffer was a sweet person, so she told Bardo in the kindest way possible to fuck off and never come back. He left, but returned an hour later. Schaeffer, seeing that it was him again, was not too thrilled and was presumably going to tell him in much plainer terms that he was a creep and she wanted nothing to do with him. Sadly, she never got the chance as Bardo shot her in the chest. He considered shooting himself too so that he’d fall down and die on top of her, but pussed out and just left. Schaeffer was rushed to the hospital but died thirty minutes after arriving.
Bardo was arrested after he was found wandering aimlessly in traffic. He had a book in his possession, that he tossed onto the roof of the house after killing Schaeffer. Three guesses as to what the book was. Give up? It was fucking Catcher in the Rye, because of course it was. Although Bardo claimed that it was just coincidence and that he wasn’t copying Mark David Chapman, that goddamned book seems to be a huge magnet for these people. Bardo was sentenced to life in prison. He was stabbed 11 times in 2007, but survived and remains in jail to this day.
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