Today in Creepy, Fanatical Tales: Linkin Park Cyberstalker

I don’t consider myself a Linkin Park fan, but as the nature of my job goes, I try and keep up with music news. For the most part, I skim. But today, I came across this story on Wired and it had me totally transfixed. Maybe LP fans are well-aware of this story, but I think it is of interest to non-fans as well.

Here’s an excerpt:

Talinda Bennington sat down to check her email. It was March 2006, and for Talinda, 29, life was good. She had recently married Chester and they had just had a son together. Chester was working on an album with legendary producer Rick Rubin. She opened a message from an unfamiliar address. “I’m very happy for you and Chester,” it read. Then, as if to taunt Talinda, there was a link to a Web site run by Chester’s ex-wife, Samantha.

Talinda didn’t make much of it. She was married to a rock star, so she knew how obnoxious fans could be. They blasted Linkin Park songs outside the couple’s house at 3 am. Nailed lyrics to their front door. One time, a woman slammed on her brakes and caused an accident when she saw Chester strolling by — she had to stop and tell him how much she loved him. “There are always going to be encounters that you kind of wish went differently,” Chester says. “But the average fan really isn’t fanatical.”

One night soon after, Talinda had just put their son to sleep and crawled into bed when Chester’s cell phone rang. This time, she reached over and answered it herself.

“I’m watching you, ” a woman’s voice said. Talinda tried to shrug it off. “Whatever,” she said. “Whore!” the woman snapped back and hung up. Caller ID had been blocked. Friends began emailing Talinda and referring to messages they had received from her — messages that she had never sent. When they forwarded the emails to her, she saw that they came from a Yahoo account she hadn’t used in months.

Then Linkin Park’s head of security, Bruce Thompson, got an email from someone purporting to be Talinda. “Hi Bruce,” it read, “do we have an email address for Samantha? Strange emails from (fan?) sources have been received. They seem to know a lot of information.” Somebody was pretending to be Chester’s current wife to get contact info for his ex.———

Read the rest here. It’s creepy as sh*t, but an incredible read. Isn’t that just insane? What I don’t understand is why someone would spend SO much time doing such a thing. I mean, clearly those hacking computer skills could be used elsewhere. Then again, I’m a sane person.