Robert Dewey Hoskins is the drifter convicted in 1996 of stalking the singer Madonna after twice trespassing on her Hollywood Hills estate in the spring of 1995 and threatening to kill her or marry her. A Los Angeles jury found him guilty on all five counts against him, and Judge Jacqueline A. Connor sentenced him to ten years in prison. After his sentence he was moved into California’s state psychiatric system, and he made news again in 2012 when he walked out of a mental hospital in Norwalk and spent a week at large before Long Beach police found him.
The Trespasses at Madonna’s Estate
Hoskins, then 37, first climbed onto the grounds of Madonna’s Castillo del Lago estate on April 7, 1995. A private security guard removed him. He came back the next day and told the singer’s assistants he would “either marry Madonna or slash her throat from ear to ear.” He was carrying a four-inch wooden heart inscribed “Love to my wife Madnna.”1Los Angeles Times. Madonna Stalker Incident
On May 29, 1995, he came over the eight-foot perimeter fence a second time, got within forty feet of the house, and appears to have gone swimming in the pool.2Tampa Bay Times. Madonna Guard Wounds Intruder Madonna’s bodyguard, Basil Stephens, a former boxer, confronted him near the pool. When Hoskins lunged repeatedly at Stephens, tried to choke him, and grabbed for his firearm, Stephens fired twice, hitting Hoskins in the arm and hip.3Los Angeles Times. Bodyguard Testimony in Madonna Stalking Trial Madonna was not home during either incident. Authorities said the shooting appeared justified and Stephens was not expected to be charged.
Charges and Trial
Prosecutors brought five counts against Hoskins: one count of stalking Madonna, one count of making a terrorist threat against her, one count each of making terrorist threats against Stephens and Madonna’s personal assistant Caresse Norman, and one count of assaulting Stephens. He faced a maximum of ten years.4Los Angeles Times. Madonna Testifies at Stalking Trial Deputy District Attorney Rhonda Saunders tried the case for the prosecution.
Madonna resisted appearing. She did not want to be in the same room as Hoskins and told the court she believed testifying would fulfill his fantasy of a face-to-face meeting. A judge had to order her appearance before she took the stand on January 3, 1996.4Los Angeles Times. Madonna Testifies at Stalking Trial Her lawyers asked Judge Connor to remove Hoskins from the courtroom during her testimony. Connor refused, saying his removal could suggest to jurors he was dangerous when they were required to presume him innocent.
Asked how she felt sitting near Hoskins, Madonna closed her eyes and said she felt “sick to my stomach.” She testified that he haunted her nightmares and that she felt “incredibly violated.” She told the court: “I feel incredibly disturbed that the man who threatened my life is sitting across from me and he has somehow made his fantasies come true. I’m sitting in front of him and that’s what he wants.”5The Spokesman-Review. Madonna Testifies in Stalking Trial Jurors later said they found her credible and came away convinced she was genuinely frightened.6Los Angeles Times. Verdict in Madonna Stalking Trial
Norman testified that when she answered the gate call-box during one of Hoskins’s visits and told him Madonna was not there, he unleashed death threats against her, Madonna, and everyone in the house. He had also left a note on the property threatening to kill her and everyone inside.6Los Angeles Times. Verdict in Madonna Stalking Trial Stephens described the confrontations at the pool and the moment Hoskins tried to seize his gun.3Los Angeles Times. Bodyguard Testimony in Madonna Stalking Trial
Verdict and Sentence
On January 8, 1996, the jury convicted Hoskins on all five counts. Madonna issued a statement afterward: “The outcome of this case lets other stalking victims know that the system can, and does, work.”6Los Angeles Times. Verdict in Madonna Stalking Trial Judge Connor sentenced him on February 8, 1996, to ten years in prison.7CBS News. Madonna Stalker Robert Dewey Hoskins Recaptured Madonna sold the Castillo del Lago estate, telling the court the property “attracts negative energy” and that the intrusions had convinced her to give it up.
Psychiatric Commitment and the 2012 Escape
After finishing his prison term, Hoskins was transferred to Atascadero State Hospital, a facility for mentally ill offenders, where he was classified a “Mentally Disturbed Offender.”8LAPD. Violent Male With Mental Illness Walks Away From State Hospital He was eventually released. In July 2011 he was arrested on a vandalism charge and civilly committed to Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, California.9CBS News. Escaped Madonna Stalker Caught by Los Angeles Police Police described him as “highly psychotic and potentially violent when off his medication.”10Rolling Stone. Madonna Stalker in Police Custody
On February 3, 2012, Hoskins walked out of the Norwalk hospital undetected. The facility issued an apprehension order and the LAPD released a public warning. Before leaving, he had told hospital staff he might head to North Long Beach. A week later, on February 10, 2012, Long Beach officers spotted him walking near South Street and Cherry Avenue, roughly eight miles from the hospital. He was taken into custody without incident at about 8:50 a.m. and returned to Metropolitan State Hospital by the department’s Mental Evaluation Team.11Long Beach Post. Madonna Stalker Caught by Long Beach Police
No publicly available records after February 2012 indicate whether Hoskins was later released from Metropolitan State Hospital or remains in institutional care. The last documented reporting places him back at the Norwalk facility after his recapture.
Why the Case Mattered
California had passed the country’s first anti-stalking law in 1990, spurred in part by the 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer and by the killings of five Orange County women by intimate partners that same year. By the time Hoskins went to trial in 1996, more than thirty states had followed with their own statutes.12Vanderbilt Law Review. The Nature and Constitutionality of Stalking Laws The Hoskins prosecution became one of the most visible early applications of that law and helped focus public attention on celebrity stalking.