After "My Sister Sam", Schaeffer had supporting roles in "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills", "The End of Innocence", and the television film "Out of Time". She also served as a spokesman for the children's charity Thursday's Child. On July 18, 1989, Robert John Bardo, a 19-year-old fan, shot and killed Schaeffer at her home in West Hollywood. At the time of her death, Bardo had been stalking her for three years. He had previously been obsessed with child peace activist Samantha Smith, who had been killed in a plane crash in 1985. He then wrote numerous letters to Schaeffer, one of which she answered. In 1987, he traveled to Los Angeles hoping to meet with Schaeffer on the set of "My Sister Sam", but Warner Bros. security turned him away. He returned a month later armed with a knife, but security guards again prevented him from gaining access. He returned to Tucson and lost focus on Schaeffer for a while, as his obsession shifted toward pop singers Debbie Gibson, Madonna, and Tiffany Darwish. Bardo watched Schaeffer in the black comedy "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills" in 1989, in which she appeared in bed with another actor. He became enraged by the scene, apparently out of jealousy, and decided that Schaeffer should be punished for becoming "another Hollywood whore". Arthur Richard Jackson had stalked and stabbed actress Theresa Saldana in 1982, and Bardo learned that Jackson had used a private investigator to obtain Saldana's address. Bardo then paid a detective agency in Tucson $250 to find Schaeffer's home address in California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records. His brother helped him get a Ruger GP100 .357 handgun because he was only 19 years old and had mental health issues. Bardo traveled to Los Angeles a third time and roamed the neighborhood where Schaeffer lived, asking people if she actually lived there. Once he was certain that the address was correct, he rang the doorbell. Schaeffer was preparing for an audition for "The Godfather Part III" and was expecting a script to be delivered, so she answered the door. Bardo showed her a letter and autograph that she had previously sent him; after a short conversation, she asked him not to come to her home again. He went to a diner nearby and had breakfast, then returned to her apartment an hour later. She answered the door with "a cold look on her face", Bardo later said.