Linkin Stalker Parked by Court

02/21/2008 6:00 AM, E! Online


A Linkin Park fan who crossed the line between avid and obsessive, and dragged both into the digital age, is finally facing the music.

A New Mexico judge sentenced Devon Townsend to two years in a minimum-security prison Wednesday after she pleaded guilty to stalking Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington and harassing his wife.

The 29-year-old Townsend was given 60 days to surrender to the Phoenix-area prison as part of her plea agreement, where she is expected to receive mental health care.

In addition to stalking, Townsend copped to having used her position—and computer access—at the Sandia National Laboratories, a U.S. security laboratory, to hack into various accounts held by Bennington and track his and his family's whereabouts, at one point traveling to Arizona, where she knew he would be after reading his private correspondence, in an attempt to meet the rocker.

From January to November of 2006, Townsend used the lab's computers to illegally access information not only about Bennington, but about his wife, former Playboy model Talinda Barrington.

Among her other indiscretions, she obtained emails sent between Warner Bros. records and the band's business attorney, a copy of the band's recording contract, a copy of a check made out to Bennington from the record label, a 34-page Verizon bill including a history of his phone usage, including the phone numbers of his band mates and other celebrity friends, personal voicemail messages left on the rocker's phone and 78 private photos taken by and of Bennington, including pictures from a family vacation he and his wife had taken to Japan.

Townsend was also able to hack into the email of Bennington's wife and made two then-anonymous threatening calls. According to the original police report, Townsend told Talinda, "I know where you live...I watch your kids...I have complete control of your life."

Police ultimately traced the calls back to the national lab and arrested Townsend on the charges in November 2006. She was fired from the facility shortly after her arrest.