Hollywood for generations the place where people have come from all over the country to make their dreams come true rebecca schaeffer would come here one day to make her own stardom dreams come true but sadly her breakout role would lead to disaster she didn't think there were people out there who would wants a farmer since she was a child Rebecca Schaeffer could light up a room this is a picture of me holding Rebecca when she was probably three to four months old and what can I say I adored her when she was a teenager she discovered her passion for acting so at 16 Rebecca made a bold decision she left her family and friends in Portland Oregon it moved across the country to New York that was an extremely happy time for her I mean she was doing what she liked almost immediately she landed her role in the soap opera One Life to Live it's not like we know each other real well or anything Manny I mean come on would you get yourself together I mean aren't you liberated or anything liberated enough to tell you where you can down buddy you then is catapulted into the big time by landing a role on a primetime show called my sister Sam it's a huge huge break life is good dreaming my sister Sam became a hit and Rebecca became a rising star landing on the cover of Seventeen magazine TV Guide and hosting Thanksgiving Day parades on CBS Happy Thanksgiving I'm Rebecca Schaeffer and really excited to be doing this bridge the first time I saw her answering fan letters she said look look I'm getting famill and it's great and they're telling me their problems and I'm answering them back and it's wonderful and I went wait a minute you're answering them back I said don't do this I said it's very dangerous promise me you won't she didn't promise me back into summer of 1986 when I was watching TV shows like magnum p.i commercial for my sister's 90 month Robert Bardo was 16 when he first saw my sister saying that's what got me curious about her and then I watched the show on she's very outgoing and bubbly and everything Robert John Bardo wrote a number of fan letters to Rebecca Schaeffer and she responded to one of them by saying yours was one of the nicest that I got in Bardot's mind this letter in this picture confirms for him that she reciprocates these feelings for him Bardo became obsessed with the actress and decided he had to meet her he took a plane from his home in Tucson to Burbank and showed up at the studio lot with flowers and a teddy bear and he was met at the gate by the head of security and said you know you cannot go onto the set you cannot meet with her go home but Bardo would not be deterred he would come back again then it was there the second time he did it and I was told that he was very agitated and very very angry it's hard to believe now but no one alerted the police no alarm bells went off Rebecca had no idea the danger she was in for the next two years she was focused on her career branching out into more mature roles she gets a big part in a movie called scenes from the class struggle in Beverly Hills which has a love scene in it in this flicked some sort of evil switch inside Robert John Bardo while a stock received an anger in the summer of 1989 Schaffer found herself in the running for the role of a lifetime I'm gonna make him an offer again and that was the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part three it was the talk of the town Rebecca called excited to tell us that she was to be auditioning for Godfather 3 as Rebecca is getting ready for her meeting with Francis Ford Coppola she has no idea that her stalker is enraged over a love scene that she had done in the movie he decided he was going to go and get a gun no more teddy bears no more flowers this was it Bardot now 19 had hired a private investigator who got Rebecca's home address from the DMV and it was perfectly legal to do Robert John Bardo gets on a Greyhound bus and he takes it overnight with his bag and a gun and arrives early in the morning and makes his ways or her place two people have it in their mind to get to Rebecca Schafer's apartment that day one is a courier with a script for the Godfather three the other is Serge arrange stalker once she is expecting when she is not Robert has the card that she sends and her photograph he rings the buzzer and when she came down and opened the door it was Robert John Bardo Robert Bardo mumbled something about being her biggest fan showed her the autographed photograph that he had received in the mail she politely excused herself told mr. Bardo that she had to get ready for an interview she shakes his hand wishes him well and he goes on his way but he came back a second time now she has already dealt with him she has other things to do and she says to him this is his account we have to go with she says to him you're wasting my time mr. Bardo stated I forgot to give you something withdrew a handgun from his waistband and shot her once in the chest penetrating her heart right after the murder Bardo took a bus back to Tucson very next day Tucson police got a call about a man running in traffic on her freeway I got there and he was screaming I killed Rebecca Schaeffer Robert Bardo was arrested this morning in a Tucson freeway we went very quickly and Method detectives in marcia clark the prosecutor i didn't know quite what to say to them what do you say other than I'm gonna fight so hard to bring her killer to justice two years after Rebecca Schafer's murder Bardot was found guilty of first-degree murder my reaction was relief and the family was relieved too oh he'll be in there for the rest of his life thank God I'm sure it was a mixture of grief and sadness and yet some satisfaction in justice will give you some kind of peace I think it will Robert John Bardo was sentenced in December 1991 to life in prison with no possibility of parole ABC News recently reached out to Bardo in prison and he responded by phone I accept full responsibility for what I've done my thinking was so negative and I was blaming others for things I was happening within me but regarding Rebecca Schaeffer you know she wasn't replaceable I think about her every day because she should be here I realized what I've done and I feel a lot of tremendous guilt scare for pop star Katy Perry an alleged stalker arrested decades later many celebrities are still targeted by stalkers but Rebecca's murder led to California passing the first anti-stalking law in the nation a positive change born from a senseless tragedy she is forever fixed in our mind as the beautiful 21 those who loved her will always miss her as a person and for the unexplored potential that she is a human being hi everyone George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News youtube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching