Robert John Bardo (born January 2, 1970) is an American man serving life in prison without parole after being convicted in October 1991 for the murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer on July 18, 1989, whom he had stalked for several years beforehand.

Events

Having previously stalked Samantha Smith before her death in 1985 in a plane crash, Bardo turned his attention to Schaeffer in 1986; among his methods were attempts to gain access to the set of the TV series My Sister Sam, in which Schaeffer was then starring. Ultimately, he obtained her home address via a detective agency, which in turn had obtained it from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. He confronted her at her home, supposedly for having starred in a sex scene in the film Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills and thus having lost her innocence. Triggered by what he considered to be rude behavior toward him, he shot her, resulting in her death. The prosecutor for the state was Marcia Clark, who later became famous as a lead prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial, though she made her name in the legal profession with her aggressive and intelligent prosecution of Bardo.

Bardo grew up in Tucson, Arizona the youngest of seven children and the son of a former Air Force non-commissioned officer and a Korean national. Partly as a result of his actions and his means of obtaining Schaeffer's address, the US federal government passed the Driver's Privacy Protection Act which prohibits state Departments of Motor Vehicles from releasing the home addresses of state residents.

Bardo was housed in a Security Housing Unit (SHU) for inmates with sensitive needs, including former gang members, notorious prisoners and those convicted of sex crimes.

Aftermath

On July 27, 2007, Bardo was stabbed 11 times on his way to breakfast in the maximum-security unit at Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County, California. Two inmate-made weapons were found at the scene. He was treated at the University of California, Davis Medical Center and returned to prison, officials said. The suspect in the attack was another convict, serving 82-years-to-life for second-degree murder.

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