Although late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington is often remembered for his successful music career as he has been credited as one of the greatest rock vocalists of his generation, he also had a personal life that was under the radar of the public eye due to his worldwide fame.
While many musicians have suffered from stalkers due to their highly popular private life, Bennington had a much more unpleasant experience with a cyberstalker. The person didn’t only mess with the rocker, but they also scared his wife Talinda Bennington with cryptic emails; let’s take a look.
How Were Chester And Talinda Bennington Harassed?
It all began when Talinda Bennington checked her email like any day back in March 2006. She saw a message from an unfamiliar address saying, ‘I’m very happy for you and Chester.’ While it could’ve been a regular mail from a fan, it also included a link to a website run by Chester’s ex-wife, Samantha.
As she’s married to a rock star who has millions of fans all around the globe, Talinda didn’t initially care about the email since it could’ve been from an obnoxious fan. However, things started to get weird when the Benningtons heard from an old friend who had received a similarly cryptic email on April 6.
This time, the email had an address of ‘informant_for_u@yahoo.com.’ The friend they heard from had dated Talinda years before, and the email he received was related to their relationship. When Chester Bennington was out of town, she got another message from that same address. It was a rather disturbing mail as the person who sent it knew that Talinda Bennington was home alone.
The email follows:
“I know you’re going through a hard time being alone. My thoughts and prayers are with you.”
For a very long time, the creepy emails kept coming. The stalker took things a little further and started calling Chester Bennington without making any sound when he picked up. The calls kept coming for a long time until Chester called back the number on caller ID, only to find out it was a switchboard operator in New Mexico.
The stalker got the Benningtons’ friends involved as they started receiving messages allegedly coming from Talinda. Moreover, Linkin Park’s head of security, Bruce Thompson, even got an email from someone pretending to be Talinda. The emails were coming from a Yahoo account she hadn’t used in months.
The stalker who knew everything about the Benningtons took things a little further when they tried to change Talinda and Chester Bennington’s passwords to their personal accounts. That’s when they contacted a former Secret Service agent named Konstantinos ‘Gus’ Dimitrelos to work on the case.
After a year of being threatened, stalked, and scared by a cyberstalker, Chester and Talinda Bennington found the person. It was a man named Devon Townsend who eventually was sentenced to two years in prison as he was found guilty of tampering with the couple’s email and other personal information, as well as sending threatening messages.
