publicity. Collins was a pretty girl, long blond hair, a turned-up nose, and green eyes set wide apart. Second was a report from a guy named Rick Barron, the head of the kid’s private security force. It was odd to think a sixteen-year-old needed bodyguards, but one look at Barron’s report and there was no doubt that Collins did. Celebs, it seemed, attracted a lot of attention, not all good.
Barron started out by recounting instances with stalkers in Collins’s past, men and women who fixated on the teenager. Two years earlier a Des Moines pharmacist sent a then-fourteen-year-old Collins love letters and Ecstasy pills along with directions to his house. At one point, a thirty-six-year-old woman harassed Collins for nearly a year, wanting to adopt her, insisting Collins was a love child she’d put up for adoption at birth. Then there were the young girls who swarmed her at concerts, wanting to be her BFF, best friend forever, and the men, some well into their fifties, who claimed to be in love with her.
“In all these cases and others, suspects ceased their behavior when afforded a personal visit by local law enforcement officers. With some, we went a step further, serving restraining orders. Inthe end, all gave up, or at least appeared to,” the report read. “In no case was it necessary to further involve law enforcement.”
While reluctant to broaden the scope of the current investigation, Barron said he had no choice since he didn’t have the authority for subpoenas he needed to obtain the records necessary to confirm the identity of the stalker. “This person has been highly resourceful,” Barron wrote. “At each juncture, he’s known what actions we’re taking to block him. We’ve been unable to trace his e-mails and text messages. All attempts to positively identify the stalker have failed.”
Barron’s prime suspect was a student at Rice University’s prestigious Shepherd School of Music, a young pianist named Justin Peterson. A brilliant musician and composer, Peterson started college at sixteen and, although he’d just turned twenty-one, was finishing up his doctorate. According to Barron’s report, Peterson, who had a genius-level intellect, wrote Collins letters. They started out pedestrian enough, but quickly turned threatening. The letters ended after Peterson was briefly hospitalized and visited by a campus police officer. But Barron was convinced that the kid had simply switched to an anonymous, electronic route, threatening texts and e-mails sent under an alias, Argus.
“Mr. Peterson has an extensive background in computers, using them to compose his music. So he has the technical knowledge to electronically stalk Miss Collins,” Barron wrote. “We have no concrete evidence, but Peterson is the only suspect we’ve found who makes sense.”
Finished with Barron’s report, I read Peterson’s first letter to Collins. It was short, to the point, and, to say the least, cordial:
“Dear Miss Collins,” he began. “I have watched you on television, and I’ve become something of a fan. While I am five years older, we have much in common. I, too, am devoted to my music, and I am an aficionado of dance, something at which you are quitetalented. It has occurred to me that perhaps I could help a young woman like yourself become more knowledgeable about her chosen field, to share my comprehension of music with you. While as a pianist my venues are classical, not rock or pop as your compositions are, I share your love of melody and tone, your obsession with getting the song right. I would very much like to meet with you at your earliest convenience to discuss how I might help you in your musical career.”
Weeks later when Collins hadn’t personally replied, her publicity agency sending only a stock photo and a canned thank you letter, Peterson’s correspondence became more insistent, going on for nearly a dozen pages: “I explained in my previous letter how valuable my counsel is for
David Levithan, Rachel Cohn