Rebecca Schaeffer - Death

Death

On July 18, 1989, Schaeffer was murdered by Robert John Bardo, an obsessed fan who had been stalking her for three years. Bardo had become obsessed with Schaeffer after his previous obsession, child peace activist Samantha Smith, died in an airplane crash in 1985. Bardo wrote several letters to Schaeffer, one of which was replied to by an employee of Schaeffer's fan service. In 1987, Bardo traveled to Los Angeles hoping to meet with Schaeffer at the My Sister Sam set, but was turned away by CBS Television City security. Angry, he returned a month later armed with a knife but security guards prevented him from gaining access to the actress a second time. Bardo returned to his native Tucson and lost focus on Schaeffer for a while and became preoccupied by pop singers Debbie Gibson and Tiffany.

In 1989, after viewing Schaeffer's film Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills, in which she appeared in bed with a male actor, Bardo became enraged and decided that Schaeffer should be punished for becoming "another Hollywood whore." Learning that Theresa Saldana's stalker, Arthur Richard Jackson, had tracked Saldana's address via a private investigator, Bardo approached a detective agency in Tucson and paid them $250 to track Schaeffer's home address via California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records. Bardo's brother helped him get a Ruger GP100 .357-caliber handgun because he was underage at the time (Bardo was then 19).

Bardo then traveled to Los Angeles a third time and, after locating Schaeffer's apartment, roamed the neighborhood asking passersby if Schaeffer actually lived there. Certain that the address was correct, he approached the porch and rang the doorbell. Schaeffer, who was preparing for an audition for a role in The Godfather III, answered the door. Bardo showed Schaeffer a letter and autograph she had previously sent him and, after a short conversation, Schaeffer asked Bardo not to come back to her home again. He then went to a local diner nearby and had breakfast. An hour later, Bardo returned to Schaeffer's apartment for a second time. Schaeffer answered the door again with "a cold look on her face," Bardo later said. Bardo pulled out a gun from a brown paper bag and shot her at point-blank range in the chest in the doorway of her apartment building. Schaeffer screamed and collapsed in her doorway as Bardo fled. A neighbor phoned paramedics, who arrived to transport her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Schaeffer was pronounced dead 30 minutes after her arrival. The next day, Bardo was arrested in Tucson, after motorists reported a man running through traffic on Interstate 10. He immediately confessed to the murder.

Bardo was tried by prosecutor Marcia Clark, who later became famous for her role in the O.J. Simpson trial. Convicted of capital murder in a bench trial, Bardo was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.