10 Celebrities Who Were Murdered By Their Own Fans
9. Rebecca Schaeffer
Rebecca Schaeffer's tragic death at the hands of an obsessive fan prompted the passing of the first anti-stalking laws in the US. Back then, DMV employees could give your address to anyone who asked. This proved tragic for a then 21-year-old Schaeffer.
Her killer, Robert John Bardo, developed an obsession with Schaeffer when she starred in the 1980s sitcom My Sister Sam. He wrote her letters and sent small gifts for two years through her agents and the Warner Bros studio. Bardo got jealous when he saw Shaeffer in a sex scene in Scenes From The Class Struggle in Beverly Hills.
He hired a private detective to find out her address, showed up on her doorstep, and shot her point-blank in the chest before fleeing on July 18, 1989. While running away, he dumped a few things on the roof of a nearby building, including a holster and a paperback copy of The Catcher in The Rye, the same book Mark David Chapman was carrying when he shot John Lennon.
The then 19-year-old Bardo was arrested two days later in his hometown of Tucson, Arizona. He was extradited to California, tried for first-degree murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. He is still behind bars.