Obsession : The Stalking of Theresa Saldana Book

Obsessed is a horrifying story of madness and the perils of innocent stalked victims written by a noted forensic psychiatrist - and author of the best-selling book Alone with the Devil - and a top investigative journalist. It recounts the strange odyssey of a disordered man, a Scot named Arthur Jackson, who nearly killed a young American actress named Theresa Saldana after she became the obsession of his schizophrenic delusions. Using Jackson's extensive writings as well as interviews with him, the book is a fascinating journey into the man's mental derangement as he encounters agencies and institutions in the United Kingdom and in this country, including the U.S. Army. It draws on interviews and materials regarding all significant participants in the case: lawyers for the prosecution and the defense, trial witnesses, jurors, experts in law and psychiatry, investigators, and others. It also looks at the impact his violent behavior has had on Saldana, those trying to protect her, and others on two continents who have been besieged by his legacy. Assessing misguided social policies of recent decades, Obsessed also looks critically at how the American justice system deals with violent criminals and why it affords neither protection to the victims nor treatment to the mentally disordered. Although continuing a successful career as a regular on the television series The Commish as well as having been the subject of the TV movie Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story, Saldana has continued to be threatened by Arthur Jackson. The case in Obsessed, examined from the perspectives of psychiatry and law, is at once a chilling True Crime story and a comprehensive appraisal of our criminal justice system, how courts operate, and where the solutions lie in a world-baffled by mentally ill stalkers and the ways in which society deals with them.