On this day, July 18, 1989, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, best known for her role in the sitcom My Sister Sam, was slain by an obsessed fan. Robert John Bardo created a shrine in Schaeffer’s honor. He became enraged after seeing Schaeffer in a her first major film role in which she appears in bed with another man.
Schaeffer, 21, was at her apartment preparing for an audition for a part in “The Godfather III,” when Bardo rang her doorbell. She answered and he shot the actress point-blank in the chest.
The killing prompted the passage of anti-stalking laws in California. Bardo was prosecuted by Marcia Clark, later of O.J. Simpson fame, and sentenced to life in prison.
-Scott McCabe
