There are many reasons why you might be willing to kill somebody. If you wanted to kill somebody who made your life miserable I could definitely understand (please note "understand" and "justify" are two unrelated words!!!), but some people attempted to kill their idols.

Those are the kind of cases that always puzzle me. Why would people do that.

I listed a few cases in which this happened.

Björk

Björk is a singer from Iceland, who survived the attack performed by Ricardo López.

López was obsessed with Björk, and it would seem he was kind of in love with her and also jealous, although in his diary he stated he was not sexually attracted to her. She would eventually date another man. He send her a kind of bomb letter filled with sulfuric acid and committed suicide after he mailed it. Cops found his body four days later, among with diaries in which it was clear what he had done. Thanks to this the British police could be contacted in order to intercept the bomb mail and Björk herself was unharmed.

Now what we see is that López did feel miserable over the shape of his body, not being able to get himself a girl-friend and many other things. If that is true I can understand his pain, as such a thing can be unbearable. This does of course not justify an attempt to kill somebody.

Rebecca Schaeffer

Rebecca Schaeffer was a famous model and actress who was killed by her fan Robert John Bardo. According to my sources he had been stalking her for three years.

Just like in the Björk case we can see a man with a terrible background to be behind the entire case. Bardo was abused by his siblings, and when he threatened to kill himself he was taken to foster care. Bardo suffered from bipolar disorder, which is the current official name of maniac depression. This is a disorder I am not entirely unfamiliar with, and I know that this disorder can make your emotions get a little haywire into the extremes, well, that is the simplified version, as reality is by far more complex to understand. His neighbors appear to have stated that he did quite often show threatening behavior.

Now a very important thing to note is this, as we'll see this book more times in this blog, including the most famous case I'll mention here. Bardo carried a copy of the book The Catcher in the Rye. He tossed it onto the roof when he tried to flee.

Bardo was condemned to life sentence without parole for this murder.

Selena

Selena was a singer-song-writer, who was shot dead by Yolanda Salvìdar. Now what makes this case even more grim is the fact that Salvìdar was even the president of Selena's fan club.

And even worse, Selena was kind of "invited" to get herself killed.

Salvìdar appears to have been embezzling money from both the fan club as from boutiques Selena owned. Of course, she was fired for this. Selena eventually agreed to meet Salvìdar in order to get the case settled, however that would not turn out the way she had expected. Salvìdar first claimed to have been raped in Mexico, however as the rape did take place in another country the hospital appears to be unable to do examination on that matter (now that sounds like bullcrap to me, but perhaps I'm blessed with the medical system I have in my country). Selena did try to make more demands to get the money back from Salvìdar resulting in the latter taking a revolver and killing Selena with it.

Now here we can see that there's actually a criminal case going on, which did end in a murder, so that sets this case apart from the two cases I mentioned before. I could during my research also not find any trace of mental issues, as was the case by the former two cases (and also the last case I will discuss here).

What I do know is that the used weapon was later dismantled in thrown into a bay despite objections by historians to keep it for historical purposes.

Ronald Reagan

This is a case often mentioned in this list, and I was conflicted about this case, as I cannot really find if the culprit was a fan or had an obsession over Reagan, but it seems he didn't really have an obsession with Reagan himself (as is the case in the other stories), but rather with Reagan's position as president of the U.S.A. Also since Reagan would die years later due to the causes of pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, we know this murder failed.

John Hinckley Jr. tried to kill Ronald Reagan who was at the time the newly elected president of the United States. He did manage to harm the president, a cop, a secret agent and a press secretary while shooting the president with a revolver. None of them died, although the latter did suffer permanent injury from this attack.

Hinckley appears to have been obsessed by the movie Taxi Driver in which a plot to kill the president appears to be vital to the movie (aside from the quote "are you talking to me?" I actually don't know anything about that movie as I've never seen it myself). That his obsession is not really towards Reagan himself but to "the president" appears evident as he did try to stalk Jimmy Carter before, when Carter was still president. He was however arrested in Nashville.

It appears who also got obsessed with Jodie Foster and that he even stalked her at some point. This also due to her role in Taxi Driver. He even wrote about his attempt to Foster just before he tried to commit the kill, and he was actually trying to impress her.

Now in Hinckley's case it appears that depression appears to be a factor, and he had even been under treatment for that between his failed attempt to get close to Carter and later the actual murder attempt on Reagan. He was even diagnosed as a man who would be very dangerous to both himself and others. He also had been exchanging letters with serial killer Ted Bundy, and tried to find the address of Charles Manson.

Hinckley was released from the mental hospital and under the condition that he may no longer read violent books, watch violent movies, may no longer contact Jodie Foster, the Reagan family and well, the list of things he has been banned from is too long to mention all here.

Dimebag Darrel

Perhaps the most recent case, and also a pretty big one, as in this particular assassination he was not the only one who died. He was one out of four who died, however, it does seem that Darrel was the prime target of this attack, performed by Nathan Gale.

Now I could not find much information about Gale, aside that he had a history with drugs and violence. It is said that Gale shouted stuff like "this is for breaking up Pantera", although there is no general consensus of Gale actually said that or not.

This incident is known as the Columbus Nightclub Shooting.

Gale was shot dead by the police.

John Lennon

And you may have seen this one coming, last but not least, John Lennon, who was shot dead in December in 1980.

This case is by far the most famous. This of course, due to Lennon being a former member of The Beatles who were the most successful band of all time, and inspiration to many young musicians even to this day.

This case is also swamped with conspiracy theories due to Lennon being "an enemy of the establishment" as Lennon was a peace activist, and his bed-in with Yoko Ono in the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam being one of his most famous actions in that department. Since I deem all these theories not really credible, I'll ignore those.

John Lennon was shot by Mark David Chapman.

Now many people claim that Lennon was murdered to the fact that he once said as a joke that The Beatles were gaining more popularity than Jesus. This was, by the way an insider's joke said in an interview for a very small audience, and the Beatles actually don't understand how this joke statement reached the U.S. at all, and also stated that nobody in the U.K. would even take offense from that. How different that was in the U.S. where many people, including Chapman were angered or even downright furious. Many Beatles records were openly destroyed. The Beatles would later apologize for this and Lennon would retract his "statement".

Now in Chapman's case there is clearly more than just that remark. That much I'm sure of, but it may definitely have played a role. Chapman has stated his father was physically abusive and that made him fantasize about dominating as a kind of god over imaginary people. That is not really odd for a kid to do that in a kind of situation like that.

He also said he was bullied at school and eventually he ran away from home. Now once he found again in Christianity, he appears to have worked in the YMCA where he got very popular among the children, who nicknamed him "Nemo".

Later he would read the novel "The Catcher in the Rye", yes, I mentioned that book before in the Rebecca Schaeffer. This novel would have a great impact on Chapman, and Chapman began to identify himself with the novel's main protagonist.

Now what may have begun as a lose joke from Lennon took a bit of effect. Chapman a very big fan of Lennon began to hate his former idol more and more over the years. Even came up with parodies of the song "Imagine" in which he described a world in which Lennon would be dead. Eventually the plans to kill Lennon took more and more shape and began 3 months before the actual murder.

Now this murder is also freaky for a few reasons. The picture above shows Lennon on the foreground, and Chapman, yes the murderer himself on the background. This picture was shot by Paul Goresh only 6 hours before the actual murder. Lennon is signing a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman. This might also be the last picture taken of Lennon while he was still alive. All this make this picture very gruesome to look at, and it creeps me out every time I see it.

Now Chapman did not even tried to get away after the murder, he remained on the scene of the crime and resumed reading "The Catcher In The Rye". He immediately surrendered on his arrest.

This murder made Chapman one of the most hated men on Earth (even though Gale had 4 kills, and Salvìdar even having a clear criminal motive), and some people even want to "punish" him with damnatio memoriae (meaning your name is not longer mentioned or documented and nobody talks about you ever again. Not gonna work folks. They tried the same with Nero, who is now the most famous emperor of ancient Rome, so don't even try it). The murder also led to discussion about the novel "The Catcher in the Rye" which I mentioned in two cases already, and in one case I didn't mention it, but in which it also is said to have played a role is in the failed Reagan assassination. A ban on the book was demanded and I believe censored copies, in which the passages that would have lead to these murders (and one attempted murder) would have been removed or rewritten. This murder has also led to protest about the 2nd amendment which enabled Chapman to get a gun very easily, and not to mention hollow-point bullets, which do certainly enlarge the chance your target dies. And I mentioned it earlier this murder was the fruit to many conspiracy theories. I was 5 years old when this murder happened.

Chapman was condemned to 20 years to life. This means that after 20 years your minimum punishment is over and that you can then apply for release, but if the judge doesn't deem you suitable for release the application can be rejected, and judges can keep this up until you die. In Chapman's case all applications have been rejected, meaning he's still imprisoned (at the moment I wrote this, as this blog was written 2 years before its publication).

Now what I do know is this. We can hate these culprits all we want, but that won't solve anything. Lennon's case is the most famous, but not the only case where a fan with mental issues becomes a lethal nemesis. And don't get me wrong, nothing justifies any of the cases I mentioned above. But by trying to block these people out of our memories, we will only see to it that this phenomenon remains preserved. There is never telling if an attack can be stopped. Especially when people act alone, this is very very hard. At the same time we must not give into fear with people with mental issues. Most of them are harmless. It's just that because the few who perform these extreme actions hit the news, that people fall into prejudice about them. I must say, being an Aspie myself I find the tone of that debate pretty threatening sometimes. And sometimes bad people are not being born, but made. Would Chapman have killed Lennon had his father not abused him? We'll never know, but there is a chance the answer is "no". Would López have tried to kill Björk if people could take him for what he was, and if he was even able to get himself a girl-friend? We'll never know that, but I do know that having a sexual partner has a great positive impact on people. Not only the sexual part of the relation, but also having somebody who can sometimes "hold your hand", even the strongest among us need that sometimes. To whom you can vent your frustrations and somebody you know they'll always be there for you. Of course, Chapman had that someone, as he has a wife, and despite his imprisonment he's still married to her. Of course when that "someone" comes into your life too late and the main damage being done, there's no telling if the damage can be "repaired". The unfortunate fact however is, that if you want to prevent horrible deeds in the future, the keys of doing so lies with people who committed these kinds of crimes already, and not with the victims of these crimes. They mostly have no clue why they were the target of such deeds. They must of course get attention and guidance, as when you survive a murder attempt it will leave a scar on you that will never heal, and yet no matter how much we hate it, no matter how much it goes against any decent sense of justice, we must hear the culprits, in order to get a clear view on how they think, and if we can sense similar stuff in people planning to do the same kind of thing. And in the end we can feel good about punishing "evil-doers" but having prevented "evil" in the future is always better.

One thing these cases make clear is that humans are very complicated beings, who are even for us, humans hard to understand.