Obsession (42 page)

Recent laws, too, offer no protection for Theresa Saldana. She was fortunate enough to survive her attack, but Arthur Jackson was also fortunate in terms of his timing. When he was convicted in connection with her assault, the maximum sentence was twelve years. Since then, California’s sentencing guidelines have changed. The maximum sentence for the same crimes for which he was convicted today would be life imprisonment. But this revision is not retroactive.

Jackson was deemed dangerous enough to be denied parole during the twelve-year term, however. While imprisoned in Vacaville, at the same time that he reported he would “cross to the other side of the street” if he ever ran into Saldana again, he admitted that “by some extraordinary coincidence, I became enamored by a quasi-transsexual Puerto Rican inmate … who bore a vague resemblance to Ms. Saldana.” Jackson also made it clear to prison officials and his fellow inmates that his obsession with Saldana was far from a relic of the past, expressing that someday he looked forward to “completing his mission.”

Jackson even wrote to others on the subject, including a former producer for Geraldo Rivera’s television show. In that 1988 letter, Jackson detailed his assassination plan, warning that “police or FBI protection for T.S. won’t stop the hit squad.” A year later he
again voiced his intention to kill Saldana in a phone conversation with a Los Angeles-based reporter for the
Scottish Daily Record
.

It is sadly not surprising that Jackson’s obsession with his victim did not let up even after he was convicted and imprisoned. Lt. John Lane, the founding head of the LAPD Threat Management Unit since its inception, has observed, “These are very long-term cases…. People can stay focused on an individual for one or more years.” And this is true whether the victim is a celebrity or the woman next door.

David Beatty tells of one heartbreaking case where a victim was stalked for more than twenty years by the same man. He didn’t just decide to leave her alone one day, and he wasn’t arrested and put away. He simply died. The only way she was able to get relief was to outlive her stalker. But not every victim of stalking can count on that.

I am often frustrated when prison psychiatrists look at an offender’s behavior in a controlled environment (where the inmate in question may be kept organized and safely medicated) and decide the guy’s doing well and should be given another chance. In Jackson’s case, I am pleased to report, officials who evaluated him recognized the true dangerousness of their patient. In 1988, the clinical and medical director at Atascadero State Hospital, Dr. Gordon W. Gritter, assessed Jackson as a “very dangerous man” after a psychiatric evaluation. Dr. V. Meenakshi, the chief psychiatrist at Vacaville, reported, “He’s well-behaved, but he’s crazy…. I’m uncomfortable about releasing him because he’s still psychotic and still paranoid.”

So in Jackson’s case, with all this threatening behavior and expert opinions that he’s still dangerous to Theresa Saldana and possibly others, he must still be locked up in California, right? Actually, although one would think the situation would be enough to trigger
a judicial response beyond denying bail, Jackson’s eventual freedom from the California prison system was essentially grandfathered when he was convicted for his crime. Once he served his twelve years, he was scheduled to be released. In fact, he had been given a parole date in March of 1990—the halfway point in his original sentence—because of “good behavior.” As a frustrated and frightened Saldana noted in a 1989 interview, fearing Jackson’s parole, “If he threw his food against the wall or used curse words to guards, that would count as bad behavior. But threatening Theresa Saldana or the Queen of England doesn’t count.” One might imagine the early parole was canceled because of his threats, but it was actually the result of other behavior, such as breaking windows and disobeying orders. These infractions resulted in the addition of 270 days to his sentence and eventual charges stemming from sixteen threatening letters he sent while still in prison.

As we’ll see later, there are now laws that deal with this, thanks in large measure to the leadership and heroism of a family from Kansas whose daughter was brutally murdered by a paroled predator.

At this point, Jackson is being held not in connection with his threats, but because during his incarceration he wrote to police in London and confessed his involvement in a 1966 bank robbery in which one man was killed and two were wounded. After checking fingerprints and investigating the case, officials at Scotland Yard had enough information to issue a warrant for Jackson’s arrest. In June of 1996, per British-U.S. extradition laws, he was released to officers from Scotland Yard. Then sixty-one years old, he was taken to Britain, where he faces charges.

Any of us can become the object of a stalker. And as we see from such offenders as Arthur Jackson, once launched on their quest, they do not easily give it up.
If we are to prevent more of us from becoming victims of these maniacs, it is going to take real recognition of the extent of the problem and the concerted efforts and cooperation of law enforcement agencies, friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and employers of the person being stalked, as well as the alertness of authorities in the institutions where some of these people may be being held.

If we all care, and we all work together, maybe we can get something valuable and lasting accomplished.

C
alifornia is not only the birthplace of current anti-stalking legislation in the United States, in 1991 it was home to the first ever felony arrest resulting from the still newly defined crime. The case didn’t involve a famous celebrity but was related to domestic violence, which is actually more representative of most of these situations.

In May of 1991, police in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles charged a man with the stalking of his ex-girlfriend. The two had dated for a couple of years, and when the woman tried to break up with the man, he wouldn’t accept it. He began harassing her by telephone, vandalized her car, and even abducted her dog. The woman got a restraining order and filed a total of thirteen charges against her ex-boyfriend with the police before he finally called her at work with a direct threat: he was “ready to play hardball … [and] you’ll be the next thing damaged.”

After taking the man into custody, police discovered a .357 magnum under the bed in his apartment—the same caliber handgun Robert John Bardo used to
shoot Rebecca Schaeffer in the heart. Under the new stalking law, the man was sentenced to a year in prison, plus six months in a rehabilitation facility. Is this sentence adequate for a man with a track record of threatening behavior and a clear intent to harm a woman? I’d say not. But it was the first arrest and conviction under the new law, and it was clearly a step in the right direction.

While the obviously mentally imbalanced love-obsession stalkers of celebrities may come to mind first, the National Victim Center believes that up to 80 percent of stalking cases involve a woman who is victimized by someone she knows well. This is known as “simple obsession” stalking, and in this type of crime the offender and victim had a relationship before the criminal behavior started. As frightening and unpredictable as an Arthur Jackson is, just as insidious are those who blend into the woodwork—say, a jealous ex-husband who is able to terrorize his estranged wife while keeping up appearances at work, church, and in social life. And as scary as it is to think that one of my daughters could run into a Richard Farley type, it’s just as disturbing to imagine that one might go out on a few dates with the wrong guy and then find it virtually impossible to get him out of her life.

Simple obsession stalkers not only represent the majority of stalking cases, but are the most dangerous and, at times, deadly. While a percentage of love-obsession offenders hunt down the object of their obsession and attempt to physically harm them, many are too disorganized to launch such an effort or carry it out successfully. The majority are not career criminals. Simple obsession stalkers, on the other hand, can have a long history of abusive and/or violent behavior, although that may not be reflected in the form of a criminal record.

It’s like Ronnie Shelton getting away with years of
Peeping Tom activities. We’ve seen that for every serial rape case prosecuted, there may be a frightening number of lesser or even equal offenses committed that go unreported. Similarly, many simple obsession stalkers practice behaviors leading up to stalking that are abusive—emotionally and sometimes physically—for which they’re never charged or punished. In some cases, this is because the offenses are minor and the victim is more concerned with getting out of the relationship than pursuing legal action. Other times, an abused wife may be too intimidated to report her husband’s repeated violence to authorities until the one time her neighbors or children call 911.

Simple obsession stalking is so intimately related to domestic violence that they are virtually inseparable—different extensions of the same pattern of controlling, dominating behavior. Like love-obsession stalkers, though, the pace at which the offender’s emotional dependence blossoms into a full-blown obsession can take anywhere from years down to weeks—or even just a few dates. And dangerousness can escalate remarkably quickly.

In cases where there has been a longer-term relationship between the victim and the stalker, the history of the offender’s abusive behavior makes him all the more menacing as a stalker. He knows his victim as love-obsession stalkers cannot; he knows which buttons to push. He knows his victim’s vulnerabilities. Even more frightening and dangerous, their past relationship has given him the intelligence data he needs. He already knows her patterns, her schedule, where she keeps her money, who her doctor is, whom she would count on and where she would go in an emergency.

There are warning signs before one of these guys begins stalking his victim, but, unfortunately, they are often not revealed until she is already somewhat involved
with him, which is why intelligent, otherwise self-protective women can find themselves in this type of situation. These offenders are not obvious “bad guys” you can spot across a room. On the contrary, many can be quite charming at first, creating a favorable initial impression. Like certain other types of sexual predators, they are good at what they do.

In his relationship with the girlfriend who ended up testifying against him, Ronnie Shelton exhibited many of the domestic violence behaviors that mark the simple obsession stalker. Unlike his other rape victims, who saw only his frightening side, she had seen the charm he could exude when coming on to a new conquest. At first, he seemed polite, gentlemanly. In this regard, he was a classic domestic violence abuser. It wasn’t until later in their relationship that his controlling, jealous, and insecure side began to show. Like many offenders of his type—including domestic abusers who go on to stalk their victims—he seemed not to believe normal social rules applied to him and therefore had no problem lying, cheating, or breaking the law to get what he wanted. Other typical characteristics of this type embodied by Shelton include a lack of conscience, empathy, or concern for others (both the partner he abused and the women he raped), as well as the manipulative behavior he used to keep his girlfriend in line and others fooled as to his true personality.

It is a common misperception that these types of stalkers—and domestic violence abusers in general—are generally under-educated, unemployed or holding menial jobs, and living close to the poverty level. But in fact, this is yet another crime where anybody can be an offender … or a victim—people from all races, socioeconomic backgrounds, even gender. According to one assessment, around a third of men undergoing counseling for physically abusing a wife or girlfriend
held respectable, professional occupations and often enjoyed high status in the community as executives, doctors, even ministers.

And there are plenty of examples from the world of the rich and famous. In the case of O. J. Simpson, there is evidence of both his physical abuse of his ex-wife, Nicole, and of simple obsession stalking behavior: he interrupted her dates with other men and reportedly even watched her have sex from the shadows outside the home where she was murdered.

Another shocking case involved a highly regarded member of the criminal justice community—clearly not someone you’d expect to hear involved in such criminal behavior. Sol Wachtler, formerly chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, was ultimately jailed for his harassing behavior against a woman—his wife’s cousin—with whom he’d had an extramarital affair.

Whether a successful businessman who stalks his estranged wife or—as we’re seeing more and more often now—a high school teen who cannot let go of his first serious girlfriend, for the simple obsession stalker, criminal behavior grows out of a need to control and dominate his victim to boost his self-esteem. Like the love-obsession stalker who also suffers from extreme insecurity, this offender is often unable to develop and maintain personal and love relationships as others do. Some may have psychological problems, but for the majority, the problem is a personality disorder that manifests itself in inappropriate behavior and impaired social skills. They often feel powerless in everyday situations, and this, coupled with their inadequacies, makes them invest a lot of their emotions and sense of self-worth in their relationship with this other person. Stalking is just one manifestation of a jealous, paranoid husband’s or lover’s need to dominate his mate.

In a sense, both types of stalkers operate in the world of a fantasy relationship. Because although the simple obsession stalker actually had a relationship with his victim, what he is really obsessed with is the feeling of power he got out of the relationship, not the woman herself.

In profiling this type of stalker, compensation for insecurity and inadequacy is a primary characteristic worth noting. Some readers of
Mindhunter
and
Journey into Darkness
observed that it seemed as if virtually all the offenders we described shared variations on this theme. Sometimes their insecurity makes them seem cocky and act out, like Ronnie Shelton. Other times it overwhelms them to the point that the only way they feel they can vent is through a murderous, blitz-style attack, like Arthur Jackson. The universality of this characteristic on the part of so many different offenders makes it a critical observation. Obviously not all insecure men become serial killers, rapists, or stalkers, but it is an important element in the total picture and can often be the first warning sign we’re given. And in a country where we know that about 12 percent of all couples will have some incident involving at least a “mild” form of violence, such as slapping or pushing, and where about 1,500 women are killed annually by a husband or lover, any clues we get are worth noting.