Stalkers Most Likely to Be Former Partners

LONDON, Jan. 13, (UPI) -- Deranged fans who follow celebrities like Madonna and David Letterman may grab headlines, but a new British study has shown the most dangerous stalkers often former lovers with no history of mental illness who can't accept that their partners have moved on.     In a pre-trial analysis of 50 stalkers, scientists from London's Royal Free and University College Medical School and the Chase Farm Hospital in Middlesex found there was serious violence in about 27 percent of the cases where stalkers were strangers or acquaintances.

      But among former lovers, 70 percent of the stalking cases turned violent, with five murders, three attempted murders, and six cases of bodily harm.  Forensic psychologist David James, one of the authors of the study, says, "Former partners may be angry and vengeful. This is the group most associated with physical violence."

         The scientists also found that 73 percent of stalkers who were strangers were psychotic, while only 20 percent of the former lovers had signs of serious mental illness.     "This runs against the popular perception of stalkers," he says.     In this study, says James, "there were remarkably few celebrities," only two members of the Royal family and a few minor performers.   The research appears in the current issue of the British medical journal The Lancet.   The largest number -- 40 percent -- were former sexual partners of their victims, a stalking situation that was depicted in the Clint Eastwood film Play Misty for Me, says James.     

      These kinds of characters may not have a diagnosed mental illness, such as schizophrenia.   James says they "fall in the range of screwed up as opposed to ill." Stalking refers to constant letter writing, calling, following any kind of harassment that is persistent enough to scare the victim. One stalking episode examined in his study went on for 10 years, James says.

           Diane Alexander, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Victims of Crime in Arlington, Va., says that the finding is not a surprise.    A 1998 National Institute of Justice study of 8,000 men and women, the first to look at the issue in-depth, found that former sexual partners were involved in 60 percent of women who were stalked and 30 percent of men. The study said that overall 8 percent of women and 2 percent of men had been stalked at some time in their lives.   Alexander says the connection between violence and sexual intimacy is not surprising either. "Most people are victimized in a violent way by people they know," she says.

           She says, however, that the previous relationship between stalker and victim does not make much of a difference as far as the police are concerned. Anti-stalking laws have been put in place throughout the United States in the past decade, and Britain passed the Protection from Harassment Act in 1997.  "It doesn't matter if it's a perfect stranger or a boyfriend or a former husband. It's against the law," she says.  Copyright 2000 by United Press International.

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