Man Sends Singer Bomb, Then Tapes Suicide
With alternative rocker Bjork’s music blaring in the background, and an 8mm video camera set up to record the event, an obsessed fan picked up a .38 caliber revolver and shot himself in the head.
But Ricardo Lopez’s suicide in his efficiency last Thursday was just the start of a bizarre tale that led from the former pest control worker’s Hollywood apartment complex to a post office in south London on Tuesday morning.
There, detectives from Scotland Yard found the package that Lopez mailed several hours before he killed himself. It was addressed to Bjork at her London home.
Inside: A hollowed-out book contained a bomb rigged to spray sulfuric acid on the 30-year-old singer or whoever else opened the box. The acid could have burned, disfigured or killed someone.
London police, alerted by Hollywood Police detectives, intercepted, then destroyed the package. No one was hurt.
Hollywood Police said Lopez, 21, made his intentions to maim Bjork clear in a series of 11 videotapes that make up a 22-hour video diary recorded over the past nine months.
The last tape was still in the video camera, clearly marked “Last Day - Ricardo Lopez.”
“This whole thing comes down to his obsession with her. That was his motivation to do her harm and apparently, in some twisted way, his motivation to commit suicide,” said Hollywood Police spokesman Todd DeAngelis.
Police said his obsession turned dangerous after Lopez learned that Bjork, a native of Iceland, may have become romantically involved with a black man since moving to England.
“As he put it, that was unacceptable to him,” DeAngelis said.
Bjork and her manager could not be reached for comment in London on Tuesday.
Bjork started her musical career at the age of 11 and became popular in the Icelandic punk scene. She snared some international fame with the Sugarcubes, which released four independent albums. Since then, her “Debut” album in 1993 sold 5 million copies and the follow-up, “Post,” 3 million copies.
Police first learned that something was amiss when they got a call from a maintenance worker who complained of a foul, persistent odor coming from an apartment at the Van Buren Plaza Apartments, on Monday morning.
When police arrived, they found Lopez’s decomposing body inside. A message was neatly painted on a nearby wall in black, 10-inch high letters: The 8mm videos are documentation of a crime, terrorist matter, and are for the FBI.
Inside the video camera, which was mounted on a tripod, police discovered the tape labeled “Last Day - Ricardo Lopez.”
The videotapes, each two hours long, dated back to January. The tapes show him talking about Bjork while assembling the components of the bomb.
At one point, he held up the envelope addressed to Bjork’s home, which told police where to look in London.
Police won’t speculate on what drove Lopez, a native of Georgia, to kill himself. They point to the tapes, saying they speak for themselves.
With the videotape rolling, Lopez prepared for his death, then pulled the trigger on the .38. All the while, police said, Bjork sang in the background:
“I miss you
“but I haven’t met you yet
“so special
“but it hasn’t happened yet
“you are gorgeous
“but I haven’t met you yet
“I remember
“but it hasn’t happened yet.”