Pod Insights DISGRACELAND Bjork: The Package, the Fan, and a Deadly Obsession About this episode A deranged fan. A deadly package. And one of the most innovative musicians on the planet. This is the true story of obsession, art, and attempted murder. This is Björk in Disgraceland.
This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including depictions of suicide. If you or a loved one are thinking about suicide, help is available 24 hours a day at the 988 Lifeline.
What do you think is the most wild and deranged story of an obsessive fan in music history? Tell Jake at 617-906-6638, [email protected] mailto:[email protected] , or on socials @disgracelandpod.
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This episode was originally published on June 10, 2025
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Transcript 6,107 words · 11 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is Exactly Right.
0:13 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.
0:45 Speaker 02 She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.
0:58 Speaker 03 Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist
1:40 Speaker 03 about Zolair. This is an advertisement for Zolair, paid for by Genentech and Novartis.
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2:26 Jake Brennan? This is a story about obsession, about art, about death, about a high-stakes search in low-down hate. It's also about love, mercy, and creativity. This is a story about a deranged fan and the musician he obsessed over, Bjork. A musician who made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. And that was a preset loop from my Mellotron called "Grease Paint Assassin MK2." I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "Macarena" by Los Del Rio.
3:10 Jake Brennan? And why would I play you that specific slice of "Come on, man, not this song again, cheese, could I afford it?" Because that was the number-one song in America on September 12, 1996. And that was the day that Ricardo Lopez went to his local post office with a gun in his pocket and a package in his hand, setting off one of the weirdest and potentially disastrous chapters in music history. On this episode: obsession, hate, creativity, a deadly package, Ricardo Lopez, and the Icelandic drum and bass princess Bjork. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgrace Land.
4:22 Jake Brennan? All Bjork wanted to do was create. And sometimes it seemed like all the world wanted to do was prevent her from doing so. Especially in 1996, buzzing about her London apartment, the 30-year-old singer was attempting to piece together music that would bridge the excellence of her first two solo albums, Debut from 1993 and Post from 1995, to some sort of as-yet-unimagined artistic evolution. Drum and bass music blared throughout the apartment, and CD jewel cases were scattered about most of the flat surfaces. A giant projector screen was set up for feature film viewing,
5:04 Jake Brennan? Japanese independence and Ren and Stimpy cartoons. Video cassettes and books were strewn about everywhere. And her bed was upstairs, as was the bed belonging to her 10-year-old son. And the dad wasn't in the picture. Speaking of pictures, Bjork's face adorned the covers of numerous magazines laying about: Vox, NME, and CMJ from the States, also from America, Interview Magazine, with an ageless Goldie Hawn on the cover and a Bjork interview within. On the wall, a telephone, which Bjork made a habit of not answering.
5:45 Jake Brennan? In most stories about artists, this is the point where the storyteller would say, "Since breaking onto the scene in the year blah, blah, blah, Bjork had blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah." But Bjork was practically always on the scene. She'd broken through at the age of 11 in her home country of Iceland. Granted, Iceland, back in the time of Bjork's breakthrough in 1977, had only a population of about a quarter million people. But still, fame is fame, and no matter how atomized, pressure is pressure. Bjork's hippie parents recognized early on that their daughter could sing. And soon after, a performance of Young Bjork's, the recording of which was arranged by her parents to be broadcast on national Icelandic radio,
6:29 Jake Brennan? led to a recording contract, and an album was released in December of 1977. A series of punk bands followed for Bjork as she developed her voice, a voice like no other.
6:42 Jake Brennan? As the teenage Bjork strolled through her Icelandic homeland, bundled up on her way to and from school, she cut through the raw frozen landscape, and the icy mountains shooting up out of nowhere, and along the jagged coastline, and past the bulging glaciers and floating icebergs, and through the fertile lowlands and over the black sand beaches. This dramatic landscape gave way to wicked winds, winds that whipped up in sneaky fits and starts that were there in an instant and then gone as soon as they arrived. As Bjork walked through this maze of natural drama, she sang to herself, and when the winds gusted, she'd have to raise her voice to hear herself, and when the winds disappeared,
7:25 Jake Brennan? she'd drop her voice to a whisper, so as to not be heard by any curious passersby. In this way, she developed one of the most unique singing styles in all of pop music. To hear Bjork sing is to hear the voice of a true original, and that originality was born of Iceland's dynamic terrain, just like the singer herself. Bjork's voice soars, it shoots up out of nowhere like an iceberg, and then quickly sinks below the waterline, submerging itself in the mystery of the deep. You could hear this style rounding into form in Bjork's first real project of international consequence, her band The Sugar Cubes, a band that garnered critical acclaim in the
8:10 Jake Brennan? UK and in the US with their single "Birthday" and their Elektra Records distributed album "Life's Too Good." In 1988, The Sugar Cubes appeared on Saturday Night Live in the States, but by 1990, the band was broken up, and Bjork was now a young, single mother having given birth to a son by The Sugar Cubes guitarist Thor Eldon. She soon launched a solo career through a creative collaboration with Soul2Soul alum and Massive Attack co-conspirator Nelly Hooper. And the fruit of this relationship led to the release of Bjork's first proper solo album, Debut, in 1993, with its massive hit, Human Behavior. And the album was an international commercial success, which quickly led to more success,
8:55 Jake Brennan? including the Brit Awards and a collaboration with Madonna for her 1994 album Bedtime Stories. And before anyone could take a beat to appreciate the whirlwinds swirling around Bjork, the artist continued creating, now in collaboration with producer DJ Tricky and 808 States' Graham Massey. And by 1995, Bjork had a second, even more successful solo album on her hands, called Post. Post was, in a way, a perfect sophomore effort. It reinforced every promise made on Bjork's debut. It doubled down on the sounds Bjork first presented, with excellent singles Army of Me and It's Oh So Quiet.
9:37 Jake Brennan? And the album solidified Bjork as a one-of-a-kind visual artist with her videos for those tunes, each one presenting a new vision imagined by the artist and the groundbreaking director she chose to collaborate with, Michelle Gondry and Spike Jonze among them. It was a vision that cast Bjork as a generational artist, a venerable pixie, five foot four but full of roar, and the slack generation's female answer to the man who fell to earth but with feats and a total babe to boot. By this time, Bjork's fame was not atomized. By 1996, Bjork was an explosive international pop star. 1996 was a much different time for pop stars than 2025.
10:22 Jake Brennan? Nowadays, artists pay a premium for people's attention. The premium they pay is their privacy. In exchange for relevance, artists open up their private worlds to show the public their authentic selves. And no moment is too sacred for some. And for others, even the most innocuous peek behind the curtain can result in millions of views, likes, shares, and new followers. In 1996, it was very much the opposite. In the 90s, artists put a premium on privacy. Once an artist broke through, there was no need to open themselves up because the media at the time was completely different. Small armies of publicists and agents and managers ensured that the public saw exactly
11:05 Jake Brennan? what the artists and celebrities wanted them to see. Spoon-feeding publications to keep their clients' names in the public long enough to maintain continuous relevance. But canned photo ops and pre-arranged Q&A interviews could only go so far. It was then, as now, natural, if you'll excuse the pun, human behavior to want to know more about the artists who inspire us. Enter the paparazzi. Pesky photographers and gossipy so-called journalists still exist, as they always have. It's just that today, they're more of a utility than a nuisance. In this digital age war for our eyes and ears, artists and celebrities court attention,
11:48 Jake Brennan? and thus the paparazzi, for clicks, follows, and relevance. In the navel-gazing 90s, artists loathed the attention of the paparazzi. Going to extremes to avoid their cameras and questions lest their raw comments and unwanted candids would end up in the pages of check-out-line trash. So an itty-bitty Bjork went full Sean Penn on a member of the paparazzi in a Bangkok airport in early 1996, attacking a reporter with her fists in front of her young son and also in front of numerous other cameras. This behavior was not seen as something beyond the pale. It was only a bad moment for Bjork, who had just completed an international flight and was likely sleep-deprived and a bit beyond herself in the moment.
12:33 Jake Brennan? Bjork eventually apologized, and the incident wasn't in the least bit damaging to her career.
12:41 Jake Brennan? Still, the images of Bjork's attack were broadcast all over the world. For culture vultures, this was a delicious peek behind the curtain at Bjork's authentic self. A young tiger mom defending her privacy. Most people could sympathize with that. Including a fan, all the way over in the United States. An obsessed fan. A fan whose obsession was bending toward derangement. A fan who was in love with Bjork. A fan who wrote countless letters to Bjork. Letters that went unanswered. A fan who had to know that Bjork knew who he was. A fan who was sick. A fan who was racist.
13:22 Jake Brennan? A fan who could not accept that his obsession, this snow-white picture of creative purity, was now in a relationship with the UK DJ Goldie. A black man. This demented fan believes he had to do something about this agreement. This insult. If Bjork wouldn't answer his letters, if Bjork wanted to debase herself, if Bjork wanted to embarrass fans of hers like him, well, then, he would just have to introduce himself to Bjork. He'd have to make sure that Bjork knew who he was. And he'd do so formally. With a letter. A letter inside of a package. A package that, come hell or high water, Bjork would open.
14:05 Jake Brennan? And by doing so, Bjork would learn exactly who he was. And seconds later, Bjork would be violently blown to bits.
14:39 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.
15:09 Speaker 05 Hi, I'm Jenna Ushkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
15:24 Speaker 06 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
15:35 Speaker 05 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
15:40 Speaker 07 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
15:46 Speaker 05 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
16:10 Jake Brennan? Dark, syrupy, and persistent. That's how the housing manager at the Hollywood, Florida Vamburen Apartments would describe the substance seeping into the ceiling. If there was a smell to it, he couldn't tell. But whatever it was, it didn't seem like this substance was done with the cheap acoustic ceiling tiles. Slowly, it persisted through the floor from the apartment above and down into this concerned tenant's apartment.
16:41 Jake Brennan? There are those moments in life when the world is one way. But then, you know if you open your mouth and say what you're about to say, that nothing will ever be the same again. The housing manager didn't know exactly what the substance was, but he knew that this was one of those moments. He had to do it. One phone call, and the police were there in minutes.
17:06 Jake Brennan? Ricardo Lopez had seen Bjork's Human Behavior video on MTV three years earlier, and it changed his life. Bjork was an unimaginable beauty to Ricardo, who even to himself was an unimaginable beast. Eighteen, extremely overweight, and hopelessly unable to speak to girls, Ricardo had, to some extent, already given up on the world. A Uruguayan immigrant and helpless mama's boy, whose mother lived on another continent in his home country, Ricardo's life consisted of unsteady work with his older brother's southeast Florida extermination company, Miami Mice, and increasingly locking himself
17:46 Jake Brennan? away in his tiny Van Buren apartment and obsessing over celebrities. Ricardo saw himself as a celebrity someday, not as an artist, though he did paint and illustrate, and wasn't without talent. He did not see art as his ticket to fame, but simply as a way to occupy his hands and his overactive mind. No, celebrity would come to him by other means. Ricardo had no desire to accomplish anything in exchange for his fame. He just wanted to be famous for the sake of being famous. MTV, tabloid magazines, 1990s celebrity culture in general, red carpets, gossip disguised as entertainment news shows. Ricardo Lopez lived for all of it.
18:31 Jake Brennan? More and more, he saw himself as a part of this machine alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood: Bruce, Arnold, Sly. Naturally then, Ricardo needed a celebrity girlfriend. At first, he settled on Gina Davis. She was adorable, if not terribly original, but then, upon seeing Bjork blast across his television screen one night, Ricardo Lopez fell in love.
18:55 Speaker 08 Bjork has been an obsession.
19:01 Speaker 08 Look at this beautiful face. This cute, innocent, sweet and shy thing.
19:10 Jake Brennan? Ricardo poured his love into the pages of his diary. Hundreds of pages detailing the endless appeal of the Icelandic songstress. Pure as the Nordic snow, Bjork's beauty promised just as much as God does on the first day of spring. And one day, Ricardo's love would be reciprocated. Bjork would come to love him the way his mother did, but differently. In the way that Ricardo imagined only artists can love. Tapping into the same deep reservoir of empathy and sensuality they mined for their work.
19:42 Speaker 08 Most people are palkorudjes, me being one of them. If you look around you, I'm a piece of shit, okay? I'm dirty, sloppy, fat, disgusting, okay? I'm a piece of shit.
19:53 Jake Brennan? But celebrity giveth and celebrity taketh away. January 1996. Ricardo's Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail. At first, the magazine sat untouched on his makeshift plywood desk amid the squalor in his small apartment. Dirty styrofoam takeout containers, sticky empty soda cans, filthy clothes, paint supplies, old newspapers, trash bins overflowing, wet towels hanging over various pieces of cheap furniture. All of it, barely masking the layer of real filth below it all, covering his entire living space. And on the walls, numerous paintings, drawings, and posters of Bjork, captured in what Ricardo Lopez believed were better days.
20:38 Jake Brennan? Because as his Entertainment Weekly had just informed him, Bjork had changed.
20:45 Jake Brennan? These days, Bjork was dating a black man, the producer and DJ Goldie. And there they were, right there, out on the town in the pages of his magazine. Look at the way he dressed. What the hell is that all about? Didn't Goldie have any class? Didn't he know he was the luckiest man on the planet to be on the arm of such a pure soul? But Bjork was no longer pure. Bjork was damaged. This was a betrayal that Ricardo was certain Bjork could never recover from. After this, after being with this man, with, with Goldie, the purity was gone. And Goldie knew it, and now Ricardo knew it.
21:28 Jake Brennan? And now Ricardo had to make sure that Bjork knew it.
21:34 Jake Brennan? So Ricardo took his pen to paper. He found Bjork's London address and wrote Bjork countless letters, and not one of them was returned. And this further fueled Ricardo's rage. After all he'd given her, the best of him, why wouldn't she acknowledge him? Why wouldn't she write back? Did she think she was better than him? And there was that old song, "Murder," he said. It was the B-side to the original version of "It's Oh So Quiet," the song Bjork covered and released on her second album. The actress Betty Hutton first recorded the American version back in 1951. "Murder," he said. The song, Bjork must have heard that song.
22:17 Jake Brennan? And that song was the situation that Ricardo now found himself in. In that song, the singer makes fun of the man pursuing her. The singer thinks her suitor is beneath her because of the way that he talks. "Murder," he says, like some classless buffoon not knowing how to converse in polite society. That's what this was. Bjork, the celebrity, Bjork, the famous artist, Bjork, the stylish white songstress fashionably dating the black DJ, thought Ricardo, the part-time exterminator. He was the classless buffoon in this situation, and that must have been it, just like that old song. Yes, just like that, he was beneath her. But how could she think that way? Bjork didn't know him.
23:00 Jake Brennan? Bjork didn't know what made him think the way he thought or love the way he loved. How could she? She didn't return his fucking letters. Did she even read them? Did she even care at all about him? Why? Why didn't she return his letters? Ricardo Lopez slipped into madness and thought, "Murder," he said. Okay, then one final letter to my love.
23:32 Jake Brennan? The authorities thanked the housing manager for making the call and politely asked him to vacate the premises, but not to go too far in case they needed him for anything else. The lead crime scene investigator saw the video camera set up in Ricardo's apartment, and he immediately delegated a junior officer to start reviewing the tape to get to the bottom of just what the fuck it was that had happened in this hellhole of an apartment over the past few days. In no time, the authorities discovered on that tape a reality far worse than the horror show they were currently standing smack dab in the middle of. One of the camera's videotapes revealed that Ricardo Lopez had indeed drafted one final letter to his love, to the international pop star Bjork, and that Ricardo Lopez had
24:16 Jake Brennan? placed that letter in a box which, upon opening, would trigger an explosive device that would spray deadly sulfuric acid all over Bjork's face. Before this happened, though, Bjork would know from the letter in the box who Ricardo Lopez was. And that was the point. She had to know. Before Bjork died, she had to know who he was. And now, it was only a matter of time before that happened. Because that letter, and that letter bomb, that package, was on its way via international mail to Bjork's London apartment, and it would arrive in no more than four days.
24:59 Speaker 00 We'll be right back after this.
25:04 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.
25:35 Speaker 05 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
25:50 Speaker 06 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
26:01 Speaker 05 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
26:06 Speaker 07 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
26:12 Speaker 05 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
26:34 Jake Brennan? What you're about to hear is the actual audio from Ricardo Lopez in the moments before mailing his letter bomb to Bjork.
26:42 Speaker 08 The package. The package will be sent to her when she is there. Okay, she's going to receive the package.
26:56 Jake Brennan? On September 12th, 1996, Ricardo Lopez mailed his package bomb to Bjork. USPS Express Mail takes about three to five days to deliver a package from southeast Florida to London, England. Aside from a gig at Wembley Stadium on September 13th, 1996, Bjork was not scheduled to be anywhere but home in her London apartment with her young son over the course of the next week. The clock was ticking. Florida police, who had discovered the existence of the bomb and pieced together its intended target across the pond, notified New Scotland Yard immediately. New Scotland Yard sprung into action. A specialist operations group was assembled to counter this potential crime of terrorist obsession.
27:39 Jake Brennan? The only problem was that at the moment, with the package in transit, there was little investigators could do to thwart this deadly threat, except wait and pray. With the package tucked away in a cargo plane high above the Atlantic Ocean, authorities went to work informing local London mail sorting stations of the situation, and what type of package to be on the lookout for. They did not inform Bjork. Authorities were confident they'd locate and destroy the deadly package long before it reached its destination. It was decided, for the time being anyway, that there was no need to notify Bjork of the impending danger. If any pesky journalists or paparazzi were to find out, it would be a much bigger, much harder-to-control public crisis.
28:22 Jake Brennan? For now, the situation seemed contained, but time was of the essence. After her Wembley Stadium gig, Bjork settled into her cozy apartment with her son for a couple of days off. Investigators got a lead on which plane the package might be arriving on. A bomb squad was dispatched to Heathrow Airport. The plane was surged and... Nothing. No sign of the package. No sign of a bomb. At the same time, Bjork and her son went about their daily routine in her apartment, oblivious, completely unaware of the threat against her life.
29:00 Speaker 08 You see all that damage? That's sulfuric acid. Ninety-six percent. I burned myself a little bit in the tongue, because I wanted to... I blew, and this is sulfuric acid that was diluted big time with water. Instantly, it touched me, and I washed it off real good. It takes time for this shit to burn. At least a minute to do some serious damage.
29:25 Jake Brennan? New Scotland Yard dispatched investigators to London sorting stations where mail passed through on its way to Bjork's neighborhood. The package was now either on a truck heading from the airport closer to a sorting station, or in the mailbag of a postal worker on its way to Bjork's house. Finally, authorities moved to inform Bjork, but as of yet, there was no confirmation that Bjork had actually been contacted. It was just before 4:00 PM on September 16, 1996. Not quite tea time at Bjork's, but it was time to check the mail.
30:30 Jake Brennan? Septiembre 16, 1996. Bjork y su hijo permanecen en casa, absorbidos en la letargia que proporciona un raro día libre. Leí, veí películas en el proyector, escuché música, soñaba por la noche, bebiendo té. Todo está tranquilo, todo está pacífico. No hay señal de la destrucción que golpea el mundo haciendo su camino a la casa de Bjork. En las calles de Londres, las autoridades de la ciudad de Scotland Yard están frenéticamente tratando de atravesar el tráfico para llegar a Bjork en tiempo, antes de que la bomba lo haga, y advertirle de la amenaza. Las autoridades también se han desencadenado en las estaciones de orden de correo y están frenéticamente buscando el paquete de Ricardo López.
31:13 Jake Brennan? En América, las autoridades estadounidenses todavía están uniendo a Ricardo López su locura. Algunas personas dan y otras personas toman. Ricardo López sintió que había dado el mejor de sí mismo a Bjork, y que ella había tomado mucho y no había dado nada. Esto, por supuesto, era una locura. Bjork no tenía idea quién era Ricardo López, o que había estado tratando de contactarla, o que se sentía avergonzado de alguna manera. Y si sabía algo de esto, ella no tenía obligación de darle a Ricardo López nada. De hecho, Bjork había dado mucho. Ella era un artista, un artista prolífico. No una charlatana que trabajó por el subo de las escaleras de la arte creativa de éxito
31:57 Jake Brennan? y fabricó un papel para valor de shock, fabricando noticias de头条 cada mes para mantener a los periodistas y los paparazzis atrapados para mantener un cierto nivel de relevancia. En lugar de eso, Bjork estaba constantemente creando. Ella caminaba constantemente por el mundo pensando en el próximo pedazo de música que iba a hacer, la próxima imagen que iba a subvertir, la próxima declaración que iba a dejar. Ella estaba absorbiendo siempre la música de otras personas, películas, libros, moda, procesando todo y encontrando formas de tomar elementos para mejorar, para romper, para descartar, y luego tomando en la mayor inteligencia infinita para crear su propia música y arte. Arte que era verdaderamente original. This is love. To create, to bring something new into the world that brings joy to others,
32:40 Jake Brennan? or that provokes thought, or that compels some other sort of positive action, is an act of love. It's one of the most impactful things we as humans can do in this world. Monsters do the opposite. Monsters destroy. Monsters take.
32:57 Speaker 08 I want to be the biggest influence in our life, the most important person who'll change your life more than anybody else. We live in a world of monsters. Do you understand that? A world of monsters.
33:11 Jake Brennan? On September 16th, 1996, five days after Ricardo Lopez mailed his lethal package to Bjork's London apartment, Bjork decided it was time to retrieve her mail. She headed out her front door and walked leisurely down the path to her mailbox. And the sun burned back the London overcast, and the birds above sang over the sounds of rush hour traffic. Traffic that authorities were stuck in, authorities who were desperately trying to reach Bjork and warn her about the impending threat on her life at the hands of an obsessed madman. After Ricardo Lopez mailed his letter bomb to Bjork, he returned to his apartment. He shaved his head. He took red and green grease paint and painted his bald skull and face
33:55 Jake Brennan? à la Martin Sheen's Captain Benjamin Willard in Apocalypse Now, snaking his way up the river toward the unimaginable. And on her way to her mailbox, Bjork was taking a completely different path. And back in Ricardo's apartment, Ricardo shaved and painted for battle, stripped down. He grabbed his gun, certain he'd accomplished all he would in this life. And then Ricardo put Bjork's song "I Remember You" on full blast. Ricardo looked into the camera. Ricardo breathed heavily in quick bursts to juice his resolve. Bjork blared in the background. Ricardo put the gun in his mouth. Ricardo drew quicker, heavier breaths,
34:40 Jake Brennan? psyching himself up for what was to come. Then Bjork stopped singing. The song had ended. It all ended. As the camera rolled, Ricardo Lopez bit down on the barrel of his .38 caliber revolver and pulled the trigger.
35:03 Jake Brennan? Once at her mailbox, Bjork held the package in her hands. She contemplated it, what it meant, who it was intended for, and why it needed to be sent, its impact when received, and what people would think. And that didn't matter so much. What mattered was how they felt, how they felt now and how they felt in the future. This wasn't some grand gesture or a work of art. It was just a package, a letter accompanying the flowers that she was sending to the family of Ricardo Lopez, expressing her condolences for the loss of their son, who had just killed himself while trying to kill her.
35:48 Jake Brennan? That dark syrupy persistent substance seeping down through the ceiling of one unlucky tenant's apartment back in Hollywood, Florida, that substance that was reported to authorities by the Van Buren Apartments' housing manager, that was Ricardo Lopez's blood. Five days earlier, Ricardo Lopez had videotaped his own suicide, hours after mailing the package he intended to kill Bjork with. Upon discovering Lopez's body, the authorities in Florida discovered a video camera on a stand just a few feet from the corpse, as well as the previously mentioned trove of recorded videotapes. When they reviewed the tapes, they saw Ricardo Lopez in all of his madness, unraveling into
36:30 Jake Brennan? a storm of murderous rage, hell-bent on killing Bjork. The tapes revealed the exact date and time Ricardo mailed his package, and from there, the authorities were able to trace, track down, and ultimately destroy the package before it got to Bjork. Bjork, of course, lived, and continues to create, and remains a relevant artist to this day. Ricardo Lopez chose a different path: hate and destruction. And he died in disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.
37:22 Jake Brennan? All right. Hope you dug this episode. Apple Podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned on so you never miss an episode of DisgraceLand. This week's question of the week is, what is the wildest story of fan obsession from music and/or Hollywood history? All right. Was it Bjork's Ricardo Lopez, or was it someone else? 617-906-6638. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text, be a part of the show. We play and read some of your answers on the after-party bonus episode coming up right after this in your feed. You can also hit me on Instagram, Facebook, X, and [email protected] . Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you might win some free merch. All right, here comes some credits. DisgraceLand was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double
38:05 Jake Brennan? Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a DisgraceLand All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of DisgraceLand ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand-new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com/membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on
38:42 Jake Brennan? Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook @disgracelandpod, and on YouTube at youtube.com/AtDisgraceLandPod. Rockerola.
38:55 Speaker 09 He's a bad, bad man.
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Previous Bonus Episode - Suffering Souls, Subversion, and More Great Girl Groups Next Bonus Episode – Obsessions, Earworms, and RIP Sly Stone Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated