Stars from Sandra Bullock to Taylor Swift have experienced the dark side of celebrity: obsessive stalkers

Rebecca Schaeffer, the star of the sitcom My Sister Sam, was murdered by obsessed fan Robert John Bardo in 1989. Courtesy Warner Brother Television

They’ve shown up in Selena Gomez’s guesthouse, outside Halle Berry’s kitchen door and inside Sandra Bullock’s home, despite gates, tall fences and guards meant to keep the stars safe. On Thursday, a Massachusetts man was sentenced to probation after being found guilty of trespassing at the singer Taylor Swift’s seaside mansion in Rhode Island.

Celebrity stalkers continue to be one of stardom’s most troubling downsides. Many instances involve serious cases of mental illness, making it difficult for private security, police and prosecutors to anticipate those intent on harassing and possibly harming some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names.

Yet today’s celebrities have greater protections from stalkers, due in large part to the murder of the actress and model Rebecca Schaeffer 25 years ago.

The 21-year-old Schaeffer was shot to death at the door of her Los Angeles apartment on July 19, 1989, by Robert Bardo, an obsessed fan. The Arizona native tracked the My Sister Sam actress down after paying a private investigator to obtain her home address from state motor vehicle ­records.

Bardo remains in prison, serving a life sentence without parole.

The legacy of Schaeffer’s death is evident multiple times a year in Los Angeles courtrooms when celebrities such as Madonna, Steven Spielberg, Ryan Seacrest, Paris Hilton and others become stalking victims.

Protections created after Schaeffer’s death include laws that make stalking a crime, restrictions on public access to address information from driving records in California, and a specialised Los Angeles police unit that works with prosecutors, celebrity attorneys and security details to keep obsessed fans a safe distance away. Criminal penalties for stalking have also been adopted in other US states.

The protections don’t eliminate the various ways celebrity stalkers can torment their victims, from unsolicited love letters to threatening tweets, break-ins and kidnapping plots. But they can eventually put a stop to the threats.

Stalkers can make celebrities “a prisoner”, said the Los Angeles deputy district attorney Wendy Segall, who has prosecuted celebrity stalking cases for the past six years. “They never know when this person is going to show up.”

Many of Segall’s cases end with stalking convictions and sentences that require the defendant to get psychological counselling. The sentences, Segall says, allow stalking victims to again feel safer.

Daniel Cole, the man stalking Swift, was sentenced last week to a year of probation on a trespassing charge and six months of probation on a disorderly conduct charge. A judge also ordered the 39-year-old to have no contact with Swift and to stay away from her house.

Joshua Corbett, who was arrested last month after breaking in to Bullock’s home, has pleaded not guilty and remains in a Los Angeles jail. A search of Corbett’s home turned up an arsenal of illegal firearms, including machine guns, although he did not have any weapons on him at the time of his arrest.

In felony stalking cases, victims can obtain a 10-year restraining order – far longer than the three-year stay-away order that can be obtained from a civil judge.

“Arrest and conviction is only one part. It’s not a solution. We recognise that intervention is really what we’re going for,” says Chuck Tobin, the president of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, a 1,200 member organisation of law enforcement and private security officers who protect celebrities, politicians and other dignitaries.

Tobin says the Los Angeles Police Department’s Threat Management Unit has been a leader in the field. Detectives in the unit routinely testify against suspected stalkers in criminal and civil courts, and are increasingly searching social media and online sites for evidence of ­stalking.

Retired Los Angeles police detective Paul Coulter’s first homicide case was investigating Schaeffer’s death and retracing her killer’s steps.

“But I don’t think it’s ever going to change,” Coulter says. “You’re always going to have people fascinated with the celebrities.”