- Fans have always sought
a personal connection
with their favorite stars,
and today that desire seems to be at epic proportions.
- Every celebrity has
Twitter lines, YouTube channels.
- But instant access through social media
can create a false sense of intimacy that
may cause some troubled fans to turn threatening.
- Believe me, your stalker is monitoring
your Twitter account, your Facebook pages.
They're seeing everything.
- Sometimes the chase for fame exacts a heavy price.
- A disturbed young man obsessed
with an international music star
plotted to kill her from across the ocean.
- Bjork, Bjork, Bjork!
- He wanted to be infamous,
and he wanted Bjork to know who he was.
And he succeeded.
- Everything about Bjork's case is just so chilling
like a horror movie.
- In the case of "The Voice" contestant,
singer Christina Grimmie,
her stalker planned to get as close as possible.
- There is actually a lot more guy fans than I thought.
But they're just so cool.
- Before he acted out his twisted fantasy.
- It was his turn to go meet her.
She had literally opened her arms to him
and... shot.
- There's so much more information
for the general public to have
at just a touch of a smartphone
that it really opens up these celebrities
to so much more stalking.
- Because of my fame,
I've had the most terrifying experience
of my life.
- I'm Soledad O'Brien.
This is "Mysteries and Scandals" --
The Price of Fame.
Today more than ever
it seems becoming famous is a universal goal.
Still, fame should never be a death sentence,
but in today's star-crazed culture,
being a celebrity can often come with great risks.
As performers put themselves out in public
they may unknowingly invite attention
from disturbed individuals
with devastating consequences.
- Absolutely anyone can become the victim of a stalker.
Like many other stalking victims,
I just got to the point where I'm like,
"It's the theft of a life."
- Actress Pauley Perrette is recognized around the world
for her role on the hit TV drama "NCIS."
But Pauley found that fame came at a cost.
- I'm on almost year 15
of being stalked by the same person.
The list is so long of the ways
that my stalker has terrorized me.
From having me followed
to, you know, showing up places that I am.
- Casting director Lenora Claire
became a victim's rights activist
after she was targeted by a stalker.
- The reality is that 7.5 million Americans
are stalked.
But the risk is just exponentially higher
when you're a public figure.
- When you are a celebrity, high-profile person,
there's more eyes on you.
So it kind of increases the number of people out there
that have an obsessive problem.
- The numbers are increasing partly because of access.
Right, so every celebrity has Twitter, YouTube channels.
They post a lot about their personal lives
which puts them in front of those potential stalkers
at a greater level that might feel more personal.
- On the morning of June 8, 2014,
Los Angeles Police responded to a desperate 911 call
from actress Sandra Bullock
after a stranger broke into her home.
- When you hear the fear in her voice on that 911 call,
that is very real.
- Police arrested 38-year-old Joshua James Corbett
at the scene and discovered a notebook
describing Corbett's plan to sexually assault Bullock.
He was later sentenced to five years probation
for stalking and burglary.
- Sometimes it doesn't matter how much security you have.
These people are so fixated with you and getting at you.
With the Sandra Bullock case, that's exactly what happened.
- In many cases celebrity stalkers
are mentally ill.
But it doesn't mean they're totally crazy.
They know what they're doing.
They also feel they have this connection
to the celebrity,
that the celebrity knows them.
- Fortunately, Sandra Bullock escaped physical harm.
But in one of the earliest
high-profile celebrity stalking cases,
an up-and-coming actress wasn't so lucky.
- Theresa Saldana was a young star,
and in 1981 she had done a movie called "Defiance."
And this Scottish drifter named Arthur Jackson
saw her in the movie and decided he was going to come
to the United States, track down where she lived,
and kill her.
- Theresa Saldana's case was really one of the first cases
that we looked at, that was documented, that helped drive
some of the thoughts about victims
of stalking violence.
The person that attacked her
didn't have access to the internet, right.
There wasn't such a thing.
- Arthur Jackson hired a private investigator
to find out where Theresa Saldana lived.
His private investigator went to the California DMV
and got the information for him.
Arthur Jackson showed up in front of her house
just as she was leaving.
She came out of her house.
He approached her and said, "Are you Theresa Saldana?"
And when she said, "Yes,"
he brutally stabbed her.
- Theresa Saldana sustained ten stab wounds
and nearly died in the attack.
She spent four months in the hospital.
Saldana's attacker, Arthur Lee Jackson,
was convicted of attempted murder
and served close to 14 years in prison
before being extradited to England
on a separate robbery and murder charge.
The Saldana case was big news,
but a few years later in 1989
the stalking of another young actress
brought more fear and sadness to Hollywood.
Rebecca Schaeffer was targeted by a crazed stalker
named Robert John Bardo.
Bardo became obsessed with Schaeffer
after watching her on a popular sitcom.
- Robert Bardo believed that there was a relationship
between him and Rebecca.
He had first seen her on TV in "My Sister Sam."
And he would watch, and he believed
that she was talking to him
as he was sitting there.
- And he decided that that relationship
was more than just his perception,
that it was a mutual relationship that existed.
- She started to do films,
and she did a love scene
in bed with an actor.
And he saw that,
and it infuriated him.
- So he then hired a private investigator for $250
and was able to obtain her home address.
He went to her house and shot her at the door
and unfortunately killed her on her doorstep.
- It was my first homicide as a homicide detective.
And it wasn't until I saw a photograph
on her counter that I recognized her
'cause at the time my kids were young,
and they watched that show.
- The next day police, acting on a tip,
arrested 19-year-old Robert John Bardo
wandering near a freeway.
- In the case of Bardo,
I mean there's no doubt he was a weird guy.
But he was in some instances very smart.
When we sat and talked with him,
he was very lucid, very planned out.
He had the ability to think things out.
He wasn't a loon.
- Robert Bardo confessed to killing Rebecca Schaeffer
and was found guilty of first-degree murder.
Bardo was sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
The Schaeffer case spurred new legislation in California
including the 1994
Driver's Privacy Protection Act
to prevent the public from accessing DMV records.
- It wasn't until then that the DMV
changed their procedures where someone just couldn't
walk in and get the information.
- The laws that we have are not adequate.
They haven't been updated properly
since we've introduced social media into our lives
which is now the way that anybody
communicates with anyone, stalker or not.
- Keep in mind that the first stalking law
was created 27 years ago.
A lot's happened in the past 27 years.
It changes the way people approach.
The access to internet wasn't available in the '90s
when the first stalking laws were created.
So those things are still adapting,
I think, to how we deal with them.
- Even though potential stalkers can no longer locate
home addresses, there are so many other ways
to discover personal information.
- Nowadays you can just go on social media.
You can find out where a celebrity is
simply because they tag themselves
as being in this spot or this place in Hollywood somewhere.
It really opens up these celebrities
to so much more stalking.
- There seems to be an increased awareness
about the terrifying dangers celebrities face
from obsessed fans.
But stalkers usually operate in the shadows,
and sometimes their methods are so devious
they're almost impossible to stop.
Coming up, the man who stalked
international singing star Bjork
never left his apartment.
Yet he was still able to inflict terror
across the Atlantic Ocean.
How would he carry out his vicious plot?
- It's a sulfuric acid bomb,
and when she opened the book,
it would explode in her face.
- And later the tragic death
of rising pop star Christina Grimmie
came at the hands of a man she never met
until the moment he took her life.
How was the killer able to get so close?
- Stalkers often believe they have
a deep and unbreakable connection
to a particular celebrity
when nothing could be further from the truth.
That was the case with an unhinged fan
whose twisted fantasy involved law enforcement
in both the U.S. and Great Britain.
- Hello.
My name is Ricardo Lopez,
and I will begin a documentation of my life,
of my art, and of my plans.
- Ricardo Lopez was a 21-year-old
living alone in South Florida.
- Ricardo was the type of person that fits the bill
for someone who might be a celebrity stalker.
He was tremendously insecure.
He was socially awkward.
He was someone that retreated from society
into his own private fantasies and obsessions.
- Lopez was a pest control worker
but dreamed of life as an artist,
and he was fascinated
with the Icelandic singer Bjork.
- Bjork, Bjork, Bjork. - Thank you!
- Bjork was a huge star,
and everyone always remembers her
for her unique look and her unique voice.
- The Bjork case was very interesting.
You had a young man, he was only 21 years old,
but he didn't have any kind of a life whatsoever.
And his life became Bjork.
Her music.
- Bjork was a very specific type of artist
that appealed to Ricardo.
It appealed to that creative side of him.
She was someone that was very youthful in appearance.
Certainly he looked at her and probably thought
here's this sort of perfect muse.
- Lopez had a hard time connecting with people,
but he meticulously kept track of his growing obsession.
- Without a doubt, we get an incredible amount
of psychological insight in the Ricardo Lopez case
primarily because he documented his thoughts and feelings
in an 803 page diary that he left.
- To me, the hand-written diary of Lopez
was the saddest part of the whole thing.
How he just wanted some attention.
Not the kind of attention you get from doing what he did,
but just the attention of a girl to go to a movie.
- Ricardo Lopez was an immigrant.
His family was from Uruguay,
and he had grown up in the south Florida area
in a city called Hollywood
which is near Fort Lauderdale.
- Ricardo Lopez was oozing with inadequacy.
He hated himself.
He considered himself deformed.
He never had a girlfriend.
He said somebody told him he smelled like a dog.
He worked in his brother's exterminating business.
There's nothing wrong with that at all,
but he wanted to see himself as somebody famous.
- We all have our fantasy worlds
that we retreat into
when we want to disconnect from the outside world.
And for Ricardo it was celebrities.
He got into the world of celebrities.
It's an appealing target for some people
because it's this unattainable goal.
You can find out everything you can about this person.
You can try to guess as to what they're really like.
And it just became
an all-consuming obsession for him.
- Testing, one, two, three. Testing.
- Ricardo Lopez kept a written diary,
but he also had bought himself
a video camera for his birthday.
So he started compiling video tapes
of his own musings and his own thoughts.
- It was just obsessing overwhelmingly.
Bjork was just the center of his entire thought process.
- The videos chronicled how Lopez's thoughts and feelings
about Bjork mutated over time.
- When we look at the Ricardo Lopez case,
it does provide us a really deep exploration
into that dive into madness.
A year within his apartment,
living alone in Hollywood, Florida,
he had plenty of time to obsess over his victim.
- He wrapped his life around a fantasy of Bjork,
but he crossed the line from an enthusiastic fan
to somebody who was obsessed.
I can't really give you criteria
as to where the mark is
from a fan to obsession but you know it when you see it
because Ricardo Lopez's brother
said to him multiple times, "You gotta stop this.
"You have to get a real relationship.
"Not Bjork. She's not going to be part of your life.
She's famous."
- Lopez never attempted to contact Bjork,
and she had no idea of his existence.
Still, as his isolation grew,
Lopez's thoughts turned violent.
- These stalkers can switch so suddenly
from being adoring and effusive
with their praise for a celebrity.
- They can just switch immediately
and go 180 degrees the other way,
and that's when it gets really dangerous.
- Law enforcement became aware of just how dangerous
on September 16, 1996.
Police in Hollywood, Florida entered Lopez's apartment
and discovered an extremely disturbing scene.
- We received a call from the maintenance man
at the apartment complex about a foul odor
coming from a specific apartment.
So the initial responding officers go
and they make entry to the apartment.
- And that's when they made this grisly discovery.
Homicide detectives have seen
all manner of crazy, violent scenes,
but one like this certainly had to be out of the ordinary.
The body was there for a couple of days
because it was decomposing and even in September
it's extremely hot and humid in south Florida.
- You see body fluids seeping under the door.
You pretty much know what's inside.
What they did not expect was
graffiti on the wall.
A message to the FBI.
A terrorist message.
Racial slurs.
And a video camera on a tripod pointed at a chair
where someone had obviously been sitting
and a decomposing body.
Laying.
- Detectives also discovered the cache of video tapes
detailing Ricardo's obsessive longing for Bjork.
That's when they learned about his diabolical plan.
- You know, just because you kill somebody,
doesn't mean you don't love them.
- Ricardo Lopez was lonely and isolated,
and that may have prevented the few people close to him
from realizing what was going on inside his small apartment.
But what was the trigger that pushed his fascination
with Bjork into deadly madness?
- They look at the video tape, pretty quickly realize
that there was an explosive device manufactured here.
- 21-year-old Ricardo Lopez was an obsessed fan
who dreamed of a life with the singer Bjork.
Lopez secretly recorded himself with a video camera,
documenting his steady descent
into a dark and violent state of mind.
- Testing, one, two, three. Testing.
- In the first video, Lopez appears somewhat together.
He appears very normal.
That's the beginning of the nine months slide.
It's a slow motion thing.
- What? F---.
- It seemed to completely unravel for him
when he was reading a magazine
and he saw that Bjork was dating another celebrity
who was a black man.
This completely set him off.
- His race infuriated Ricardo,
but then, "Why would she be with him instead of with me?"
He exploded.
And that's when he decided...
- We look at the videos.
We see that his interest over time
developed to a point of hatred.
- Whereas initially it was this passionate connection
and he could never have sex with her
because if they loved each other and so on.
And then towards the end,
he still wants to bond with her,
he wants to have that connection with her
by dying together.
- In his warped attempt to connect with Bjork,
Lopez came up with an elaborate plan.
- So then he gets this idea
that he's going to get his revenge on her
by sending her a sulfuric acid bomb.
And he put it into a book that was carved out
and sent it to her.
And the whole theory was that she'd get the package,
and when she opened the book,
it would explode in her face.
- She was going to be horribly disfigured.
The world would look at Bjork and say,
"Oh, yeah, there's Bjork,
"and there's the damage caused by this guy
named Ricardo Lopez in Florida."
- In September 1996,
Ricardo Lopez mailed the package bomb
to an address in London
where he learned Bjork was living.
Then Lopez began the final stages
of his sick plot.
- It's not uncommon for someone to use
some kind of ritual when they commit suicide.
So he returned to the apartment
after mailing the package
and started the ritual.
- His video log showed him
stripping down to where he was naked,
shaving his head.
And then putting black and green and red grease paint
all over his face.
He's so pleased with himself
because in his mind,
his name is going to be linked to Bjork's
as the man who killed her.
His thought was, "We'll be together
in heaven."
- In the video, I could see him
starting to sweat more and more.
- And become anxious.
He wanted Bjork's music to be playing
as he did this.
- And at one point in the video,
as he's waiting for the right part
of the song to come on,
he looked at the camera
and said...
- So finally he takes a gun
and shoots. He kills himself on camera.
- It was on September 16, 1996
that the Hollywood police discovered that Ricardo Lopez
had shot and killed himself.
- Beyond the horror of Lopez's on-camera suicide
detectives also learned something startling
from the video journal he left behind.
- They look at the video tape that is in the camera
pretty quickly realize that there was an explosive device
being manufactured here to kill Bjork.
So detectives see that Lopez is on that video
holding up the package that he had mailed,
and that started a chain of events
whereby our detectives then contacted Scotland Yard
to intercept the package.
- They figured out that it
wouldn't reach London for five days.
Now he had been dead for four days.
They had one day to act
before that package arrived.
They were able to flag the package
before it reached Bjork.
- Scotland Yard took the package to a field
and blew it to smithereens
before it reached the destination.
- On the second floor of this building
is where Ricardo Lopez lived.
It's where he began his video diary.
It's where he chronicled the entire manufacture
of the explosive device.
- I can't tell you why he documented this.
But it was obviously very, very important to him.
In his life he wanted to be famous.
Well, I guess he got it
in some very, very perverse ways, infamous.
- As news of the bizarre plot surfaced,
the media descended on Bjork's London flat.
- She doesn't want paparazzi in her face.
When you go through something like that,
maybe you don't want a camera shoved in your face.
Maybe you want a little privacy.
- It made no sense whatsoever, this horrible crime,
and it's left its marks on Bjork.
It's something she will never ever forget.
- Celebrities certainly have to deal with aggressive fans
all the time, but you never want
for something like this to happen,
certainly for someone to take their life,
but let alone try to take your life.
Bjork was pretty stoic about it, you know.
Her main thing was she was scared for her son.
She had a young son at the time,
and he actually had to get protection
for some time after that
because it was a pretty terrifying thing to happen.
She came across as very human in the aftermath of this.
- Everything about Bjork's case is just so chilling,
like a horror movie.
It definitely is a grand show of the kind of mental illness
that we're dealing with with these stalkers.
It is an obsessive, very severe mental illness
where a person imagines this relationship
with someone that they don't know.
- Ricardo Lopez believed he had a deep bond with Bjork
even though they'd never met.
The truth is many stars today actively seek a connection
with their fans, and that can lead to tragedy.
Christina Grimmie made a splash on "The Voice,"
and had a very bright future ahead of her
until a disturbed young man did the unthinkable.
- It was his turn to go meet her.
She had literally opened her arms to him
and he... shot her.
- Celebrity stalking is not a new phenomenon,
but the onslaught of social media
has been a game-changer.
And the tools used by celebrities make them
more vulnerable to attack.
Like Bjork, singer Christina Grimmie was stalked
by an obsessive fan who thought he had a close relationship
with the talented young star.
But in Christina's case, her eagerness to connect with fans
may have inadvertently encouraged her stalker
with horrible consequences.
- I was in the newsroom at the "Orlando Sentinel"
when the news broke that there was a shooting
at this concert venue.
I rushed over there 11:00 at night.
There were fans outside really upset.
Some of them were crying because they had heard
that Christina was shot.
Some people say that they saw it.
- 22-year-old Christina Grimmie
was a YouTube sensation
who also placed third on season six
of the popular television show "The Voice."
- The night that this happened and we got called out,
I knew that there had been a performer at the Plaza Live
who had been shot.
The band Before You Exit and Christina Grimmie
were performing, and as she normally did
following the show, she did a meet and greet
with fans at the back of the theater.
- Her favorite part of the show
was meeting her fans because on social media
she would interact with so many of them.
It was kind of like she had a friendship
with many of her fans.
- Christina Grimmie's openness and acceptance
of her fans left her exposed,
but it was also the key to her popularity.
- She was unknown before social media.
Christina definitely was the girl next door.
- Christina came from a tight-knit family
who encouraged her to sing.
- I grew up just staying in my room.
When my friends are out doing things,
I'm in my room working on my voice
and my range and technical ability.
- Part of Christina's appeal was that she was one of us,
and that's kind of refreshing for fans.
People love to see people coming up from nothing,
getting that big break.
It's almost like you're on that experience with them.
- The internet was the ideal forum
for Christina to showcase her powerful talent.
- My friend convinced me to do it.
I did not want to.
She showed me a girl on YouTube.
And she was--she was pretty good, and, um, she's like,
"All right, Christina, you're way better than this girl.
Why don't you just throw something up," and I
was just like, "No, that's not how
I want to go about my career."
But I ended up doing it, and I don't regret it at all.
- Her following grew exponentially
because she was giving fans real good access to her,
and a lot of them felt like they knew her,
like they were friendly with her.
The downfall of it was, you know, Kevin Loibl
was one of those followers.
- Kevin Loibl was a 27-year-old loner
from St. Petersburg, Florida
who couldn't relate well to other people.
- Kevin Loibl lived with his parents
and worked at Best Buy.
He wasn't really good with people.
So they put him in the back of the store
to work on computers with Geek Squad.
- We found very little in the background of Mr. Loibl.
A couple police reports, one was from when his mother
passed away at home a few years before this
and then also he was in a dispute
with his father's new girlfriend
but no arrest history, no history
of any involuntary mental illness commitments.
- Kevin was very secluded.
He would stay in his room a lot.
Light and sound didn't agree with him.
He had aluminum foil over the windows.
He would stay in his room
and basically just play video games.
- According to a coworker, Kevin was completely immersed
in an imaginary relationship with Christina.
- His friend and coworker told us
he felt like his obsession with Christina
was getting a little bit out of hand,
and it had become kind of unhealthy or unrealistic.
And when he would suggest to Kevin those things
Kevin would get very upset,
threaten to end their friendship,
did not want to hear any of that.
- Kevin had been losing a lot of weight.
He had had LASIK to his eyes.
He had gotten hair plugs.
He had made so many changes to himself all for Christina
to impress her so that when he met her,
you know, he would be the perfect match.
- Kevin Loibl would see her online,
and he would sign up on her Twitter feed
and see her on YouTube
and he would believe that they had
this kind of relationship going on.
When she sent out a Twitter to all of her fans
that she was going to be at Plaza Live in Orlando
and telling them, "Please come down and see me,"
Kevin Loibl in his mind thought
that was a personal invitation
for him to go see her.
- As Christina prepped for her concert
on the night of June 10, 2016,
she didn't know who Kevin Loibl was,
and she had no idea about the vicious attack
he was meticulously planning.
- Kevin really thought
that they were going to end up together.
He was obsessed so now both of their names
are linked together
forever.
- Singing star Christina Grimmie
built her career by breaking down barriers
and actively engaging with her fans.
It's heartbreaking to think those very qualities
attracted the man who chose to murder her in cold blood.
- This is my first
like a really big scary tour. - Okay.
- Christina was on a tour bus
with the band Before You Exit.
They had toured around to a number of cities
and this was one of the last stops
that they actually had in Orlando.
- Do you have guy stalkers?
- There is actually a lot more guy fans than I thought.
But they're just so cool like I act like I've known them
all my life.
- One fan in particular, 27-year-old Kevin Loibl,
followed Christina's every move.
- Every spare second Kevin would be
watching or listening to Christina.
- But after years of adoring Christina Grimmie
and planning a life with her,
something short-circuited
within the mind of Kevin Loibl.
He was now ready to pursue a different course,
one with a horrifying outcome,
and Loibl didn't let anyone know
what he was contemplating.
- When detectives interviewed his coworkers,
everyone seemed to know about Kevin's fascination
with Christina Grimmie.
Even at work he would,
you know, be listening to her videos and watching her.
There were rumors that his coworkers had kind of
teased him about his fascination with Christina,
even showing him a photo of Christina with another guy.
That might have fueled his rage,
but police have never been able
to find if that was true or not.
- Kevin Loibl, he never
contacted Christina Grimmie directly.
He never made any threats.
- No one even knew that he was going to Orlando
that Friday night.
- So the day before the shooting,
Kevin, in his room, he packed up
just kind of some of the essentials
that he might need for a few days
along with a lot of ammo,
two guns and a hunting knife,
got into a taxi, and went to Orlando.
- As Loibl made his final preparations,
Christina took the stage at the Plaza Live nightclub.
- There were several hundred people at this venue.
So as she normally did following the show,
she did a meet-and-greet with fans and took pictures
and signed autographs in the back of the theater.
- And that's what she did to Kevin Loibl.
When it was his turn in line, he stayed quiet
and Christina, you know, breaking the ice,
she opened her arms and said, you know, "Hi."
- It was his turn to go meet her.
She had literally opened her arms to him,
and he... shot her.
It was, you know, succession of shots
and then finally the one gun shot
and it was within 15 or 20 seconds.
- Christina Grimmie loved interacting with her public
on social media and in person,
but until that horrible night in June of 2016,
none of those fans ever threatened her in any way.
- They weren't doing any pat downs.
They didn't have any metal detectors.
There was no real way to actually know
whether he was carrying any sort of weapon.
- In the weeks that followed, police learned
that Kevin Loibl was a troubled young man
with some disturbing traits,
but nothing to indicate he was capable of an act
so brutal and heartless.
- Kevin Loibl did not want to leave us any answers.
His life kind of revolved around the computer
and the hard drive he had actual physically destroyed
before he left.
His phone was encrypted.
And we were not able to delve any deeper
into the depth of his obsession with Christina.
- I just thank God for the mark
that she left on this world.
When the gunman came, he was very quick.
It happened so fast, but her arms were open.
And that's how she treated everyone she knew.
Her arms were open to them at all times.
I love you, Christina. You're the best.
- Christina touched so many people's lives,
and it was very evident after her passing.
There was just so much love
and so much support.
Everyone from, you know, Selena Gomez
to Adam Levine to fellow people on YouTube,
a lot of the YouTube stars.
People just, you know, really wanting
to help everyone cope.
- Christina's killer, Kevin Loibl,
remains a mystery.
Experts stress it's vital to pay attention
to potential warning signs.
- So this whole "see something, say something,"
it's not just with terrorists.
This wasn't this whole like, "Oh, we had no idea.
He seemed perfectly fine."
This absolutely could have been prevented.
- We have got to keep preaching that.
That stalking itself is the crime.
So the behavior itself can be stopped
before something else happens.
- If there's a silver lining,
it may be that high-profile celebrity cases
like Christina Grimmie and Bjork
help shine a light on the crime of stalking,
but what can be done to combat the terror
that every stalking victim experiences?
- The mental anguish in stalking victims
is endless. It's overwhelming.
It doesn't stop.
- When a celebrity like Christina Grimmie or Bjork
is victimized by a dangerous stalker,
the tragic story is all over the news,
but it's not just the famous who end up as prey.
Millions of people are stalked, and most of them are women.
Some of these cases cross the line from mental abuse
to physical violence, assault, rape,
and sometimes murder.
- My life forever changed in 2011
when a man began stalking me
after seeing me in the "LA Weekly."
I was one of their people of the year.
- The man who stalked Lenora Claire
was previously convicted of stalking other women,
including Ivanka Trump.
But that didn't stop him from pursuing Lenora
who's been called the Erin Brockovich of stalking.
- I had no idea that he was stalking Ivanka Trump
out of New York, but he was.
He had gotten out on bail,
came to LA, and saw me in the magazine.
- Lenora was able to get a restraining order
against her stalker.
Still the terror continued.
- He threatens to kill me.
Some days he loves me.
Some days I'm the greatest person in the world.
I never know when the day that he may act upon these things,
when it's going to jump from the email to the reality.
- The mental anguish behind being a stalking victim
is endless. It's overwhelming.
And the end result is always
in the victims being terrorized.
- When people ask me what it feels like to be stalked,
the only way that I can describe it
it feels like your head's being held under water
and you're gasping for air
and you're struggling and you're screaming for help
but nobody can hear you.
- So what can be done to protect women
from the same fate as Christina Grimmie
Rebecca Schaeffer, and Theresa Saldana?
What can we learn from their tragic stories?
- It would be great if law enforcement
could be trained better on this.
But it's not just law enforcement,
it's the family members of the people
who are doing the stalking.
It's the staff of the celebrities
who are sifting through fan mail
and may be able to identify things in earlier stages
where they could intervene.
I think it has to be a holistic be successful.'s goin
- The biggest problem that I've found,
which really upsets me, is right now
a lack of education and training
for police officers, for prosecutors, for judges.
Women, they're being stalked.
Their lives are in jeopardy
and they're being told, "Come back when you get hurt."
And that is not what the stalking laws are about.
- If you know someone
whose kind of fandom is getting a little weird,
if you are aware of things online
that somebody's writing that's like "Oh," a little weird,
help us. Help us.
There's a chance that someone could prevent
the next Christina Grimmie
just by paying attention and taking this seriously.
- While we may envy the many perks of stardom,
the red carpets, the lavish lifestyles,
fame can come at a huge cost.
Being stalked is far too high a price to pay.
Unfortunately in the social media age,
delusional individuals will continue to target celebrities.
Still, new laws and greater awareness could go a long way
to help stop these attacks.
- For more on "Mysteries and Scandals,"
go to Oxygen.com.