2000.12.11 - Launch - Axl Rose Stalked

THE DARK SIDE: The downside of fame is the way it can draw the unbalanced—all the way from Ohio. While everyone was talking this week about Gwyneth Paltrow’s stalker, a woman also was pleading no contest in a Malibu courtroom to stalking former Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose.

At the Airport Branch courthouse, a judge convicted Dante Michael Soiu, 51, of Ohio, of stalking Paltrow, declared him insane, and ordered him sent to a high-security psychiatric hospital. He allegedly sent hundreds of letters, e-mails and packages to the star, who testified that she was “very fearful” of him. He also hung around outside her parents’ Los Angeles home, despite repeated requests that he leave.

Meanwhile, at the courthouse-by-the-sea, Karen Jane McNeil, 39, also of Ohio, admitted violating a court order by sending Rose letters from jail, where she’d been sent a year ago after violating her probation in a 1997 stalking case involving the rocker. This time, McNeil appears headed back to Ohio, where she’ll be ordered to stay at a psychiatric hospital for the next three years. In the past, she has managed to get onto Rose’s property a half-dozen times, once by following a gardener through a gate. Once inside, she found Rose inside the house, playing the guitar. She reportedly believes Rose communicates with her via telepathy.