Stalkers. Jean Ritchie

(see the cases of Bob and Kathleen Krueger and Janey Buchan).

      Analysis of the backgrounds of stalkers has shown that although they come from across all levels of society (with a slight predominance of better-educated individuals) one common factor appears to be an absence of a father figure in their childhood, plus a hot-and-cold relationship with their mothers, sometimes adored and sometimes ignored. With women stalkers (who generally latch on to celebrities or strangers) there is a general absence of any loving relationship in adult life. Women stalkers are usually more clearly recognizable as social inadequates; men may be holding down good jobs and have an outwardly successful life.

      This book looks at every type of stalking, from the sort of harassment that is more of a nuisance than anything else, to the most sinister and dangerous stalking of all – that which ends in death.

PART ONE

       THE PRICE OF FAME

‘YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE’

      A COYOTE’S HEAD, some dog’s teeth, a bed pan, a syringe of blood, a toy submarine, a half-eaten chocolate bar, eight tubes of red lipstick, a shampoo coupon, a disposable razor, a photograph of the victim’s home, a map of the victim’s home town and a set of medical photographs of corpses with the victim’s face pasted over the head – this is just a small sample of the items sent to Hollywood celebrities in their mail.

      The kind of letters they get are just as bizarre:

      I am afraid I made a mistake when I told you I was your father. Some guy showed me a picture of you and your father standing together when you got your award. I was so proud when I thought I was your pop. I guess that means that my daughter ain’t your sister either … I asked your manager to borrow ten thousand dollars, I hope she lets me have it. Before I go I just want to say that the only reason I thought I was your pop was because I used to go with a person that looked like you

      wrote a middle-aged man to a young pop singer.

      Another man wrote to a female celebrity:

      Hello darling this is youre New friend … we will soon be together for our love honey. I will write and mail some lovely photo of myself okay. I will write to you Soon, have lovely Easter time hoping to correspond … here is a postcard for you … honey how are you doing … wishing to correspond with you Soon … hoping we do some camping and Barbecueing Soon okay.

      Yet another fan wrote to a television personality:

      I would like to Have lots of pictures of you sex symBol woman like you are all the times if you don’t mine at all if you take off your clotHes for me and I can see wHat you Got to the world then ever that love any How I would like to know How LonG is your breast anyHow I would like to know How mucH milk Do your carry in your Breast anyHow I would like to know How far does your Breast stick out on you anyHow I by playBoy Books all the times … I would like you to put up your legs and take pictures of you in the nude … I would like Have larGe pictures of you in tHe nude lots of them then ever were so I will take with me and have lots of women in tHe nude I like sex symBols womens to look at all the times.

      One habitual letter-writer to a Hollywood female celebrity was a mental patient who had been found guilty of committing a murder, and who had also been involved in a gunfight with police after escaping from hospital, stealing a gun and ammunition and attacking the police who he believed were starving the star. He wrote afterwards:

      Please disregard the other letter I sent to you. Disregard this letter if your are married or have a boyfriend as I don’t want to break up an existing relationship. I would like to be one of the following to me a) a lover, b) a girlfriend or c) a wife. I want it to be a forever thing, if we have faith in each other and don’t cheat. You must fulfil the following: 1) you must be vegetarian 2) you must not have another boyfriend 3) you must not hold hands or do anything beyond that point with another unless I give you permission 4) I believe in birth control devices and (foetus removal) abortion, to take the fear away form women so they can have a complete orgasm. Men never have to worry because they don’t have the baby. 5) You must not wear pants unless the temperature drops below 50 degrees F or you engage in hazardous work (like coal mining) 6) you can view pornographic movies.

      … I was in a gunfight with the police because I thought you didn’t have to eat food. I was real sick at the time. I was arrested but should be getting out soon. I’m in a hospital for observation. I was wounded as was one policeman. We are both okay now. A bystander was wounded by another policeman … Let’s sit in a little room together. Let’s drive to the end of the world. Let’s look in each others eyes. Let’s magnetically attract each other from close up. Let’s talk till we want each other more than anyone else … Please call or write or come here by February 6th or else I’ll have to look for someone else …

      One famous actor’s wife received the following letter from a woman who claimed the actor was father of her child:

      I know that Jason is my beautiful baby and that [the star] is the daddy. I never been in love and I always been a queen … I don’t know much of anything other than the fact I love my son and [the star] very much. I don’t know very much about life I was never told about life or how to love or be loved … I know that I don’t deserve a man like [the star]. I know that I hurt him so much by writing to people all over the world about his son … Tell him to come get Jason and take him Home with you and the boys.

      These samples of the sort of letters that pour constantly into the homes and offices of major stars are taken from the archives of Gavin de Becker Inc., a Los Angeles-based security consultation agency – the security consultation agency for California’s hundreds of celebrities, where the problem of stalking has been known about for over thirty years. It was in the 1980s that the threats to stars – and attacks on some – escalated, and de Becker’s business boomed. Unlike so many security firms, de Becker offers far more than just muscle: he collects, files and classifies all the suspicious mail his clients receive; he analyses the content of it through a computer program; he sorts out the really dangerous ‘fans’ and he goes into reverse-stalking mode – his staff track down and watch the movements of any stalker they regard as likely to carry out threats to attack celebrities. His experience coupled with the help he has had from the leading medical expert in the world on the subject of stalkers, Dr Park Dietz, means that he can frequently anticipate the actions of a deranged fan. He worked hard to get the law changed for the protection of his clients, but even before stalking was criminalized in California, de Becker was able to advise police forces just how they could nail stalkers under obscure and forgotten laws.

      When Dr Dietz, who is clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioural sciences at the School of Medicine at the University of California, was called in to prepare a 600-page report for the US government on ‘Mentally Disordered Offenders in Pursuit of Celebrities and Politicians’, it was to de Becker’s files that he turned for the raw material he needed for his five years of research. De Becker has more than 200,000 items of correspondence on file, all indexed and cross-indexed to show up which stalkers were pursuing more than one celebrity.

      Some of the really big Hollywood names have as many as five hundred individuals writing to them what de Becker classifies as ‘inappropriate’ letters (a top star will regularly receive as many as 4,000 genuine fan letters per month). All the staff in his clients’ offices are primed to send on to him any mail that is sinister, disjointed, bizarre, unreasonable or threatening, and to help them decide what falls into these categories they are specifically asked to be on the lookout for letters containing references to death, suicide, weapons, assassins, obsessive love or special destiny.

      Dietz and colleagues analysed a scientifically chosen sample of mail from persistent letter writers in a bid to see if they could draw up a profile of the kind of writer who actually shows up at the celebrity’s home or workplace, and the conclusions are fascinating.

      Obviously, those