Okay, welcome back, bingers, to another episode about Hollywood tragedy in the 1980s.

Now we live in a culture that's hungry for fame.

Liberty is everywhere, represents power, freedom, riches, love, and admiration, a reputation

that precedes you wherever you go.

Celebrities are often our role models, and their lives represent the most visible peaks

of privilege.

For the minority of us who attain the celebrity that so many dream of, those lucky individuals

eventually learn that for as rare a privilege as it is to be a celebrity, it's also accompanied

by some equally rare burdens, sacrifices, and risks.

You don't quite realize what a gift anonymity is until you've lost it.

And one of the risks of being in the public eye is that of the many millions of radar screens

you suddenly find yourself on, somewhere out there, one of those radar screens might

be cracked.

You may have people out there who want to do you harm, people whose existence you aren't

even aware of, thinking about you every waking hour, maybe losing sleep over you, building

a fantasy around you in which you're their co-star and the lines between fantasy and reality

become blurred.

In the summer of 1989, an up-and-coming Hollywood actor named Rebecca Schaefer was blindsided

by the worst-case scenario version of this reality.

And that's the story I'll be telling you today.

From the outset of her life, Rebecca Schaefer seemed destined for success.

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Rebecca was the only child of Dr. Benson Schaefer, a child

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