Jennifer Garner

A man long accused of stalking 'Alias' star Jennifer Garner has been charged with felony stalking and violating a restraining order protecting the star's family. Steven Burky, 37, was arrested on Monday outside a nursery school attended by Violet Affleck, the daughter of Garner and Ben Affleck.
He pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Thursday afternoon and was ordered held on $300,000 bail, District Attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison said. A judge also ordered him to stay 500 feet away from Garner, Affleck and their family if released.
Burky was charged with two counts of felony stalking and two counts of violating a court order, a misdemeanor.

Garner was granted a restraining order against Burky in 2008 after she convinced a judge that he was endangering her family, which also includes husband Ben Affleck. In a declaration, Garner said the man had been stalking and harassing me" since 2002 and typically sent "packages and letters containing delusional and paranoid thoughts."

She claimed Burky was "following me around the country" and that "his obsessive and harassing behavior has escalated to the point of becoming dangerous and threatening."

Other bizarre rantings described by Garner include: "He has now shown up at my private residence and has repeatedly expressed his belief that God has sent him a vision of me being persecuted in some manner that might result in my death."

The Santa Monica Daily Press is reporting that Burky writes a blog titled Satanic Pani and asks, "Are multitudes of adults resorting to human sacrifices and then repressing this information from fear of Christ."

John Lennon and Mark David Chapman

   In 1977, Chapman attempted suicide via carbon monoxide asphyxiation. He connected a vacuum cleaner hose to his car exhaust pipe and led it inside the car, thus exposing himself to the car's exhaust, but the hose melted in the exhaust pipe and the attempt failed. He was discovered and brought to a local mental health clinic. A psychiatrist admitted him to Castle Memorial Hospital for clinical depression. Chapman went to New York in October 1980 planning to kill Lennon. He left the city for a short while in order to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend Dana Reeves in Atlanta. He returned to New York in November but, after going to the cinema and being inspired by the film Ordinary People, he returned to Hawaii, telling his wife he had been obsessed with killing Lennon but had snapped out of it.

    He made an appointment to see a clinical psychologist but instead, on December 6, flew back to New York. He offered cocaine to a taxi driver. He reports having re-enacted scenes from The Catcher in the Rye.On the day before the assassination Chapman accosted singer-songwriter James Taylor at the 72nd Street Subway Station. According to Taylor, "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon."

    There was an isolated newspaper claim at the time that, before firing, Chapman softly called out "Mr. Lennon" and dropped into a "combat stance", though Chapman disputes this assertion. Chapman remained at the scene, took out his copy of The Catcher in the Rye and read it until the police arrived. The New York City Police Department officers who first responded to the shooting, recognizing that Lennon's wounds were severe, decided to transport him in their police car to Roosevelt Hospital. Chapman was arrested without incident. In his statement to police three hours later, Chapman stated, "I’m sure the large part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil.  Lennon was pronounced dead at 11:15 pm at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

   Chapman was charged with second degree murder. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric examination. The conclusion was that, while delusional, he was competent to stand a trial. Nine psychiatrists/clinical psychologists were prepared to testify at his trial – six of the clinical opinion that he was psychotic and three of the clinical opinion that his delusions fell short of the necessary criteria for psychosis.  This story shows that our legal and psychiatric communities are still oblivious to clearly unstable and dangerous people. There were so many chances for Chapman to get the mental help he needed, but as is the case so many times the system let him down, and most of all let John Lennon down.