Some people may recognise the people, others may know of them by their name, while others may never have heard of them. For those who are unaware who the people are above they all have something in common, they've all stalked celebrities, some have gone to more extremes than others, some have tried to kill, some have threatened to kill, while others have gained or tried to gain access to a celebrities house.
First there is Jonathan Norman, Steven
Speilberg's stalker, who had planned to rape the director in front of his wife in 1998. He was arrested outside of Steven
Speilberg's house, carrying a "rape kit" and was sentenced to 25-years-to-life under the America three strikes law. With the possible reforms coming towards the America legal system Jonathan Norman could be out within the next year or so, and could commit a crime like this again, and he could possibly carry out his crime before he's caught.
Next is Mark Chapman, John Lennon's killer, before the killing he had told his wife that he had previously been obsessed with killing John Lennon, but had "snapped out of it". He also had an obsession with the the book "The Catcher in the Rye" and before committing the killer had began to act out scenes from the book. 4 hours before Mark Chapman had killed John Lennon, he had approached John and asked for his autograph, than 4 hours later he shot him 5 times. He than took out his copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" read a few chapters and waited for the police to arrive. He was sentenced to 20 years to life and ordered to receive psychiatric treatment.
Dawnette Knight was Michael Douglas' stalker, she claimed to be madly in love with him and hated his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, to whom she sent death threats in the form of letters. These threats nearly caused Catherine to have a nervous breakdown.
Dawnette Knight was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Athena Rolando is slightly different from the other stalkers mentioned. She did not send death threats or killed someone. She broke in Brad Pitts house, changed into his clothes, slept in his bed and fed his dogs. She was sentenced to 3 years probation and to undergo psychiatric treatment.
Lastly John
Hinckley, he became obsessed with child actress Jodie Foster, when she played a child prostitute in the film "Taxi Driver". He began to stalk her by sending letters, posting poems under her door and phoning her constantly. He began to plan ways in which to gain her attention, when his previous letters and phonecards failed, he developed ideas such as hijacking a plan, committing suicide in front of her and assassinating the US president Jimmy Carter, but was arrested when he followed Jimmy through Texas on a firearms charge. In 1981 he decided to get her attention by turning his sights on the newly elected president Ronald Reagan. He shot 6 rounds toward Ronald Reagan in Washington D.C. He wounded three people, including the president, but did not kill anyone, although his permanently paralysed Reagan's press secretary on his left side. He was found not guilty by reasons of insanity and placed under institutional psychiatric care, where he still resides.
Stalkers are scary to any individual, but more so to celebrities. All information on a celebrity is public knowledge, and using the Internet you are able to find any information you wish, which is dangerous. A stalker being able to gain any information may make them more delusional and believe that that persons wants and loves them. Most of these stalkers mentioned stayed at the scene of their crimes, and waited for the police, surely this suggests; A) they knew what they had done was wrong and B) that they wished to be found and arrested, possibly wanted their own 15 minutes of fame and becoming celebrities in their own right.
When I asked someone what they thought about celebrities and their stalkers they said;
"although most celebrity information is public knowledge and people believe that they can know everything about celebrities, because it's 'part of the job', this is highly unfair. They are normal people who are in a different profession which makes them widely known to the public, how is it fair that we can know everything about them? Surely they should be able to have the same privacy that we have. It may be scarier for celebrities with stalkers because although they may have high security, it is not hard to discover where they live."
