Ricardo López (stalker)

Ricardo López
López in a video diary from January 1996
Born	January 14, 1975 Montevideo, Uruguay
Died	September 12, 1996(1996-09-12) (aged 21) Hollywood, Florida, U.S.
Cause of death	Suicide by gunshot
Body discovered	September 16, 1996
Years active	1996
Known for	Stalking and attempting to harm the Icelandic musician Björk
Motive	Racism Obsession with Björk
Details
Target(s)	Björk
Killed	1 (himself)
Weapons	Sulfuric acid .38 Special revolver

Ricardo López (January 14, 1975 – September 12, 1996) was a Uruguayan-born American stalker who attempted to murder the Icelandic singer Björk.

López was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and moved to Lawrenceville, Georgia, with his family at a young age, and began working as a pest exterminator. He had poor self-esteem, was socially reclusive, and eventually developed an obsession with Björk in 1993. Though he did not hope to be sexually intimate with her, he was particularly angry over her brief relationship with the English jungle producer Goldie due to his race. Over the course of nearly nine months in 1996, he made video diaries about her and other topics, at his apartment in Hollywood, Florida.

On September 12, 1996, López mailed a letter bomb, rigged with sulfuric acid, to Björk's residence in London. He recorded a final video diary explaining his motivations, and ended it by filming his suicide by gunshot. Hollywood police found his body and the videos four days after his death and contacted Scotland Yard, who located the bomb in a London postal sorting office.^[1] The parcel was safely detonated, and Björk was unharmed.

Ricardo López was born in Montevideo, Uruguay,^[2][3][4] on January 14, 1975, into a middle-class family, which moved to the United States and settled in Lawrenceville, Georgia.^[5][6] He had a good relationship with his family, and was described as easygoing but introverted.^[5] He had a few male friends, but no female friends, nor a girlfriend. In a diary found by police, López expressed feelings of shame and inadequacy, as well as feelings of social awkwardness around women.^[5][6][7] Journalist Paolo Pellegrini wrote that López had been diagnosed with Klinefelter syndrome.^[8]

With aspirations to become a famous artist, López dropped out of high school. However, he did not seriously pursue an artistic career due to his feelings of inferiority, and fear of being denied entry into art school.^[6][7] He intermittently worked for his brother's pest control business to support himself.^[5][6] By the age of 17, López had become reclusive and, as a means of escape, retreated into a world of fantasies and became enthralled by celebrities.^[5][6]

In 1993, López became fixated on the Icelandic singer Björk.^[5] He began gathering information about her life, followed her career, and wrote her numerous fan letters.^[7] Initially, López cited her as his muse and said that his infatuation gave him a "euphoric feeling".^[6] As time passed, his fixation became all-consuming and he grew more disconnected from reality.^[6] In his diary, López wrote of longing to be accepted by Björk and to be a person who had "an effect on her life".^[7] He fantasized about inventing a time machine to travel to the 1970s and befriending her as a child.^[7] His fantasies about Björk were not sexual. In his diary, he wrote, "I couldn't have sex with Björk because I love her."^[7]

López's diary grew to 803 pages, with passages about his thoughts on Björk and his feelings of inadequacy due to being overweight, his disgust and embarrassment about his gynecomastia, and his inability to get a girlfriend.^[6][7] He wrote that he considered himself "a loser who never even learned to drive" and complained about his menial job as an exterminator that earned little money.^[7] The diary contained 168 references to López's feelings of failure, 34 references to suicide, and 14 references to murder.^[7] He made 408 references to Björk and 52 references to other celebrities.^[7][9]

In 1996, López was living alone in an apartment in Hollywood, Florida. Around that time he read in Entertainment Weekly that Björk was in a romantic relationship with another musician, the English jungle producer Goldie.^{[5][6][10][11]} López was angered by the perceived betrayal, and the fact that she was involved with a black man, writing in his diary: "I wasted eight months and she has a fucking lover."^[12] He began fantasizing about how he could "punish" Björk.^[12]

López stopped writing his diary and began filming a video diary in his apartment.^[12][13] According to López, the diary's purpose was "... a documentation of my life, of my art and of my plans", and that "comfort is what I seek in speaking to you”.^[13] He recorded eleven video tapes containing approximately two hours of footage each.^[14] The tapes contain footage of López preparing his "revenge" and discussing his "crush [that] ended up as an obsession".^[13] López's anger over Björk's relationship with Goldie intensified and he decided to kill her.^[12] In one entry, he said: "I'm just going to have to kill her. I'm going to send a package. I'm going to be sending her to Hell."^[13]

López initially intended to construct a bomb filled with hypodermic needles containing HIV-tainted blood, which satisfied his desire to have a lasting effect on Björk's life.^[12] When he realized it would not be feasible to build such a device, López began constructing a letter bomb, comprising sulfuric acid in a hollowed-out book, which he planned to send to Björk's home in London, England.^[12][13][6] The device was designed to explode and kill or disfigure Björk as she opened the book.^[12] He was going to commit suicide after mailing the bomb, hoping that he and Björk would be united in heaven.^[12][15]

On the morning of September 12, 1996, López started filming his final video diary entry. The final tape, titled "Last Day – Ricardo López", began with López preparing to go to the post office to mail the letter bomb. He said that he was "very, very nervous", but that he would kill himself rather than be arrested if he aroused suspicion. After returning from the post office, he resumed filming. While Björk's music played in the background, a naked López shaved his head and eyebrows and painted his face red and green.^[13] Police speculated that López's reason for doing so was to make himself less recognizable, so it would be easier for him to take his own life.^[16] He examined himself in a mirror and told the camera that he was "a little nervous now". He then stated, "I'm definitely not drunk. I am completely am not [sic] depressed. I know exactly what I am doing. [The gun]'s cocked back. It's ready to roll."^[6] As Björk's song "I Remember You" finished playing, López shouted "Victory!" and shot himself in the mouth with a .38 caliber revolver.^[6][17][1] He groaned and his body fell out of view. Shortly after, he began to bleed out on the floor, which was audible. At that point, the camera stopped filming.^[6] A sign bearing the hand-painted words "The best of me - Sep 12" was propped on an upturned mattress behind him.^[13] Police theorized that López intended to cover the sign with his blood and brain matter with the gunshot, but the gun was not powerful enough to cause that to happen.^[18]

Four days later, on September 16, a foul odor and blood were noticed coming from López's apartment.^[6][12][13] The Hollywood Police Department entered and discovered López's decomposing corpse.^[6][19] Written on the wall was a message: "The 8mm tapes are a documentation of a crime, terrorist matter, they are for the FBI."^[12][14] The Broward County Sheriff's Office evacuated the building while the bomb squad searched for further explosives, and found none.^[14] After viewing López's final tape, police contacted Scotland Yard to warn them that the potentially explosive package was en route to Björk's residence in London.^[14][20] The package had yet to be delivered, and the Metropolitan Police intercepted it at a South London post office, after which it was safely detonated.^{[6][13][14][19][20]} There had been little danger of Björk receiving the bomb because her mail was vetted through her management's office.^[18] Unbeknownst to López, Björk and Goldie had ended their relationship a few days before he killed himself.^[18]

On September 18, outside her home in London, Björk gave a statement to the press, saying that she was very distressed by the incident.^[21] She described it as "terrible" and "very sad",^[19] and said that people should not "take me too literally and get involved in my personal life".^[6] She sent a card and flowers to López's family.^[22] She left for Spain, where she recorded the remainder of her third album, Homogenic, away from media attention.^[23] She also hired security for her son, Sindri, who was escorted to school with a minder.^[24] A year after López's death, Björk discussed the incident in an interview: "I was very upset that somebody had died. I couldn't sleep for a week. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't scare the fuck out of me. That I could get hurt and, most of all, that my son could get hurt."^[17]

López's family and friends were aware of his obsession with Björk.^[7] They maintained that they had no idea that he harbored violent thoughts or was capable of violence. At one point, his brother had told him to "get a real woman, you're obsessed".^[5][7] A psychiatrist who treated López for anxiety shortly before his death also stated that he did not appear dangerous.^[5] López's videotapes, including his suicide, were confiscated by the FBI and then were released to journalists.^[25]

In 2000, Sami Saif released a 70-minute documentary, The Video Diary of Ricardo López, comprising a condensed version of López's 22-hour video diary. Saif decided to limit its availability as "I want to be there when people see the film, because there are all sorts of things about Ricardo López on the internet. I like to be able to talk to people about what it is they've actually seen."^[26]

In 2004, a number of episodes of season 6 of the television show Third Watch were based on the case. They involve a man obsessed with a schoolteacher who makes a video diary about her before sending a letter bomb to her and killing himself on video with a shotgun.^{[citation needed]}

In 2019, independent Italian director Domiziano Cristopharo released an 87-minute erotic horror film titled The Obsessed, with the working title of Last Day: The Best of Me. López's video diary was adapted as the subject material of The Obsessed in what Cristopharo described as "Albania's first horror film" and "a body horror freely inspired to the real story of Ricardo López, Bjork’s stalker".^[27][28]

• Mark David Chapman, stalked and murdered John Lennon in 1980.
• Yolanda Saldívar, president of the fan club and manager of boutiques for singer Selena, who murdered her in 1995.
• Robert John Bardo, stalked and murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989.
• John Hinckley Jr., stalker of actress Jodie Foster, who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to impress her.
• Christina Grimmie, American singer, murdered by Kevin James Loibl, who subsequently shot and killed himself.
• R. Budd Dwyer, Pennsylvania Treasurer who shot and killed himself January 22, 1987, at the end of a press conference at which he had been expected to resign.
• Daniel V. Jones, who set his truck on fire in the middle of a highway in 1998 and was captured shooting and killing himself on live television.
• Ronnie McNutt, who shot and killed himself with a rifle on a Facebook livestream in 2020.
• Christine Chubbuck, newswoman who shot and killed herself on live television in 1974 while doing a report.

• The Video Diary of Ricardo López at IMDb