Linkin Park's Mysterious Cyberstalker
David Kushner
"The fans are the biggest reason we do what we do," Bennington told me at a
recording studio in West Hollywood. He was dressed in ripped black pants, black
knee socks, and a long black coat with Lenin's face stitched on the side. "If
fans come up to me, I talk to them, " he said, "I'm not an egg. I don't need
this protective wall." So when he had to choose a password for his Mac.com
email account, he just typed the first thing that came to mind, something short
and easy to remember: Charlie.
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."
On April 6, the Benningtons heard from an old friend who had received a
similarly cryptic email, this one from the address informant_fo...@yahoo.com. The
friend had dated Talinda years before, and the email he received made all sorts
of dark inferences based on that fact. Later, when Chester was out of town,
Talinda got a message from the same address. But this time the tone wasn't
vicious; it was weirdly familiar and solicitous. "I know you're going through a
hard time being alone," it read. "My thoughts and prayers are with you."
The creepily chummy emails continued through the spring. Then, in the wee
hours of the morning, Chester's cell phone rang. He fumbled for it in the dark,
but when he answered there was dead silence on the other end. It happened
again. And again. And again. When Chester rang back the number on caller ID, he got
a switchboard operator in New Mexico.
"Someone called me 15 times between 4 am and 4:30," he complained.
"Well, who's trying to call you?" the operator asked him.
"That's the problem!" he said, he didn't know. But the operator was no help.
Maybe she was feigning ignorance. Or maybe she was a telemarketer. "Stop
calling my fucking phone!" he screamed, and hung up.
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.
The mind games intensified as spring turned to summer. Informant_for_U
emailed a steady stream of tips and warnings to the Benningtons that evinced a deep
knowledge of their daily lives. As they struggled through a child- custody
battle, the stalker "helpfully" outlined an elaborate scenario on how Chester
might be able to discredit his former wife.
One afternoon, Talinda discovered that she couldn't log on to her eBay
account because the password had been changed. Soon after, she got an email from
PayPal reporting that someone was trying to change the password to that account.
Though such emails are often spam, sent by cyber criminals in an attempt to
"phish" for user data, a call to PayPal confirmed it was real. No one had taken
the Benningtons' money, but someone was trying to gain access. The PayPal rep
told her to notify her local police.
"This person is hacking into everything," Talinda thought. "Are they watching
me now? Are they here?"
In August, Chester got an automated text message from Verizon Wireless, his
cell phone provider, confirming a new password for his online account. Like
most phone companies, Verizon allows subscribers to manage their accounts on the
Internet and view lists of incoming and outgoing calls. To open this type of
account, users need only go online, fill out a form, and choose a password.
But Chester had never opened an online account for his Verizon mobile phone;
he got his bills the old-fashioned way, by snail mail. So why was Verizon
confirming a password change?
Suspicious, Chester and Talinda logged on and changed the password, promptly
receiving an SMS verification of their change. Then another notification
informed them that the password had been changed again. So the couple changed it
back and got another confirmation. When they got yet another text message
announcing yet another change they had not made, the Benningtons logged on and found
a question written in the space where the password should have been.
"Who is doing this to you?" it read.