52: A Celebrity Stalker & the Blended Family

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Rebecca Schaeffer was at the beginning of a promising acting career. She was gorgeous, talented, and dedicated. She landed the cover of Seventeen magazine, nabbed several movie roles, a recurring role on a soap opera, and most notably, a role on the CBS sitcom, “My Sister Sam.” But as Rebecca’s fame grew, an unstable 19-year-old named Robert John Bardo became obsessed with her. What transpired would help criminalize stalking in the United States.

Then Brandi wraps up her horrifying series on Johnson County crimes with a story she first read when she was 10 years old. Seriously. Ten. This is why we’re weird.

It starts innocently enough. When Ed Hobson met Sueanne at a local skating rink, he was smitten. He asked her out. She turned him down. He asked her out again. She turned him down again. Then Sueanne spotted Ed’s high-end car and decided she’d give him a chance. Eventually, the two married. The pair had children from previous marriages, so Ed brought his 13-year-old son Chris and Sueanne brought her 13-year-old daughter Suzanne into the home. Everything went great. Until it didn’t.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“Suspect in actress’ murder spirited to LA,” Associated Press
“Sanity issue raised by Bardo Lawyer,” Los Angeles Times
“Police directed to evidence in actress’ death,” Los angeles Times
“Robert John Bardo,” Wikipedia.com
“Rebecca Schaeffer,” Wikipedia.com
“The shocking 1983 crime that raised awareness about stalking,” Gizmodo
“A rising star lives to shine again after a near fatal knifing,” People magazine
“Six years ago, Rebecca Schaeffer was fatally shot,” Entertainment Weekly
“It took this up-and-coming actress’s tragic death to change anti-stalking laws,” Ranker
… and several other articles from newspapers.com

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Family Affairs” by Andy Hoffman
“Hit Mom” episode Evil Stepmothers
“Stepmother of 13 year old boy forced to dig his own grave charged with murder” UPI
“Sueanne Hobson wanted her 13-year-old stepson killed by Christmas” by Toni Cardarella, UPI
“A jury Friday convicted Sueanne Hobson of first degree murder” by Michele DiGirolamo, UPI
“Love Never Dies” by Ben Paynter, The Pitch