Rebecca Schaeffer Death

Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer was a model and actress from the United States. Robert John Bardo, a 19-year-old obsessed fan who had been stalking her, shot and killed her when she was 21.

In 1989, Bardo saw Schaeffer in the black comedy Scenes from a Class Struggle in Beverly Hills, where she appeared in bed with another actor. Out of jealousy, he felt outraged at the scene and decided Schaeffer should be punished for “becoming another Hollywood whore.”

Bardo paid a Tucson detective service $250 to locate Schaeffer’s home address in California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records, and his brother assisted him in obtaining a Ruger GP100.357 handgun.

Bardo showed up at her house with a letter and autograph she had earlier sent him; after a brief talk, she urged him not to return to her home. He ate breakfast at a neighbouring diner before returning to her flat an hour later.

She answered the door with “a chilly look on her face,” according to Bardo later. He pulled out a revolver and shot her in the chest at point-blank range in the entryway of her apartment building, according to Bardo; she slumped and merely muttered, “Why?”

Schaeffer was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s emergency room, where she was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.