Stephen Hawking: American Woman Arrested In Spain Following Death Threats


An American woman has apparently been a bit obsessed with Oxford professor Stephen Hawking for quite some time. The 37-year-old reportedly stalked Hawking on various social media sites for at least a couple of days before finally following him to Spain.

There have been conflicting reports about the woman’s age, some sources say she is 41-years-old. Professor Hawking’s daughter reported to police that her famous physicist dad had been getting violent, threatening messages on social media for a while, which alerted authorities to the threat.

As the BBC reports, Stephen Hawking’s stalker ultimately showed up at the Spanish island of Tenerife, the same location where Stephen Hawking was giving a lecture. It was there that local authorities arrested the U.S. citizen for cyber stalking Hawing.

According to his daughter, Stephen Hawking began to have one of his email accounts flooded with threatening correspondences on Tuesday, as well as his social media pages and profiles. Police discovered the source of the threatening messages to Stephen Hawking was a woman staying at a local hotel, not far from where Hawing was attending a conference.

The woman was given a fairly light sentence, considering that she was allegedly threatening to kill Hawking. She was sentenced to four months in jail, but that jail time was suspended by the court. She was also ordered by the court to stay away from Professor Stephen Hawking; she can’t get within 500 meters of him, nor can she communicate with the physicist on social media platforms for eight months.

The American woman, who has been identified as “Jenny Theresa C.” by local media outlets, reportedly told Haking that she would kill him while he was attending the Starmus Festival. Also in attendance at the event were Nobel laureates, famous astronauts, and even musicians including Brian May, Brian Eno and Hans Zimmer.

When the woman was arrested on Wednesday following her litany of threats Tuesday, she was reportedly found to be in possession of at least one map that detailed the travel plans and itinerary of Stephen Hawking during his visit to the Spanish Island, part of the Canary Islands.

Following her arrest by police in Spain, the obsessed woman said that she truly had no intention of killing Stephen Hawking or causing him harm. According to reports, she told authorities that she is “in love with” Professor Hawking and that she would “never have hurt him.” This despite her repeated threats and the fact that she was clearly following the physically disabled scientist’s every move from a very close vantage point.

Local authorities say that, based upon their investigation, the woman appeared to be “mentally unstable.”

Because of the threats the “unstable” woman had made against Stephen Hawking, police in Spain had provided the iconic physicist with additional security to secure his safety while on the Spanish island. According to those close to Hawking, this is the first time the professor has been the target of death threats or other threats of violence.

Spanish News Today reports that the woman stalking and threatening to kill Stephen Hawking, while an American citizen, had actually been living in Norway prior to the bizarre and unsettling incident.

During the lecture given by the professor at the Spanish conference, Hawking had some unsettling words of his own to share with the attendees. According to reports, Hawking told those in attendance that he believes that humanity can’t survive another thousand years on planet Earth. The reason? Hawking says that Earth is too fragile to bear the actions and “innovations” of mankind.

Professor Hawking’s Wednesday lecture was titled “A Brief History Of Mine,” in homage to his famous book.

What do you think? Was Hawking’s stalker let off too leniently? Was a suspended jail sentence appropriate for the woman who stalked and threatened to kill Stephen Hawking an appropriate punishment?

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