COLUMN ONE : When the Law Can’t Protect : Despite recent advances, the legal system still has trouble apprehending stalkers. As the Dana Point case shows, officials often are forced to wait too long before they can take action.

Kim Springer had finally decided to take action. She had planned to request a restraining order Wednesday against Mark Richard Hilbun, who for the past year had followed her, sent her obsessive notes, called her at home and finally, last week, sent a letter threatening to kill her.

But Springer, 29, a Dana Point postal worker, could not afford the $182 court filing fee. She decided to wait until Thursday--payday.

It was a day too late.

On Thursday, Hilbun, 38, went looking for former co-worker Springer at the post office. In a day of violence, he shot and killed one employee, wounded three other people and stabbed his mother to death, police said.

Springer hid when Hilbun walked into the post office and, police said, opened fire. She is now in protective custody. Hilbun is at large.

Kim Springer is a typical stalking victim, who like many others received little help from the legal system that was supposed to protect them. The problem of apprehending stalkers has long plagued police and the courts because the nature of the crime is so complex and the cases are difficult to prosecute.

In recent years, especially after the shooting death of television actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989, stalking has gained greater attention. California passed the nation’s first anti-stalking law two years ago in response to the increasing number of cases, and 33 other states have adopted similar legislation.

Still, many experts say the legal definition of stalking is too narrow and authorities are often forced to wait too long before they can take action.

The Dana Point case “reflects a lot of problems stalking victims have,” said Rhonda Saunders, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney. The district attorney’s office recently proposed broadening the definition of stalking--which currently must include making a “credible threat” against the victim--to make it easier to file charges.

Hilbun apparently never was arrested for stalking because, until last week, he had never threatened Springer.

“There needs to be a way for police to act sooner to arrest the stalker and for the courts to act sooner to convict the stalker,” Saunders said. “At least when the stalker is in jail the victim can feel safe.”

Still, much progress has been made, and authorities, for the first time, have some methods to apprehend stalkers. Besides the 34 state anti-stalking laws, federal legislation recently has been proposed to make stalking illegal nationwide.

Law enforcement began taking a more aggressive stance in response to stalking after a fan shot Schaeffer to death on her doorstep.

The Los Angeles Police Department formed the first unit in the country that specializes in handling stalking cases. The Threat Management Unit has five detectives who work full-time on cases that range from threatening phone calls to assaults.

Southern California has become known as a magnet for stalkers because of the visibility of so many celebrities. As a result, Los Angeles security firms, some of whom charge $5,000 a week for 24-hour protection, are thriving.

But the majority of stalking victims are ordinary working women, who, unlike celebrities, can’t afford to hire bodyguards.

The problem is worsening here and around the country. In Los Angeles, the city attorney’s office handles about 500 stalking cases a year, compared to fewer than 100 five years ago. About 200,000 stalking cases are reported each year nationwide, victims rights organizations estimate.

The victims must aggressively pursue their cases for stalkers to be apprehended, said Greg Boles, supervising detective of the LAPD anti-stalking unit.

After Hilbun was arrested in November for making harassing phone calls to Springer, she dropped the case. Prosecutors had charged him with a misdemeanor and were preparing for trial. But Springer wanted the case dismissed because Hilbun, who had been fired from the Dana Point post office, was undergoing treatment for a manic-depressive disorder.

“Victims have to realize stalkers can be extremely dangerous and they should take action right away,” Boles said. “These cases often escalate quickly from asking the victim out, to love letters, to showing up on the doorstep . . . and sometimes, like with the guy in Dana Point, to a killing.”

‘The Day His Sentence Ends, Mine Begins’

Kathleen Baty’s terrifying ordeal helped persuade California legislators to pass the nation’s first stalking law. Baty testified before the state Senate in 1990 and described how she was tormented by a former high school classmate for eight years.

The first time police caught Lawrence Stagner stalking her, he was parked in front of her parents’ house and was carrying a semiautomatic rifle, 180 rounds of ammunition, a hunting knife and handcuffs. Stagner, an unemployed auto mechanic, threatened to abduct Baty, who was a UCLA cheerleader at the time, and “blow away” her boyfriend.

He was arrested again outside Baty’s parents’ house, with his rifle and handcuffs in the car. Another time, he was arrested at the front door of her Marina del Rey apartment, carrying a .357 magnum pistol. Finally, after following her when she moved to Menlo Park, he was arrested for violating a restraining order to stay away from her.

After each arrest, Stagner was sentenced to a short jail term and given probation on misdemeanor charges and required to submit to outpatient mental health treatment. But each time his probation ended, he resumed his obsessive campaign of calling, writing and following Baty.

Stagner was arrested for the fourth time in 1990, and after about three months in jail he was back on the streets.

One afternoon, a few months after Stagner was released, Baty returned home from her job as a real estate agent. She heard a noise, turned around and, she said, she saw Stagner standing in her hallway, waving a hunting knife. He tied Baty’s hands and told her he was taking her to Mendocino County.

He dragged her outside, but before he could get to his car, police arrived, responding to a neighbor’s call. Baty got away, but Stagner slipped back into the house, pulled out a pistol and held police at bay for 11 hours before he was taken into custody. He was convicted of attempted kidnaping and will be eligible for parole from state prison in December, 1994.

“The day his sentence ends, mine begins,” Baty said. “I have no doubt he’ll be right back on my doorstep.”

‘Hey, Somebody Is Always Watching You’

John Wilson, the deputy city attorney who prosecutes many stalking cases, pulled out a file of letters from stalkers to their victims. Some were angry responses from estranged boyfriends; others were rambling threats to women the stalkers had never met. Regardless of the messages, Wilson said, all the letters were terrifying to the women who received them.

“Hey, somebody is always watching you,” a bank guard wrote to a teller he had been stalking. “Somebody is watching you in or out of the office, in or out of bed, in or out of the bathroom. . . . The road ahead for you is a real bitch. It’s going to get more and more and more ugly!!”

“I despise women like you,” a Westside lawyer, who is now in jail for stalking, wrote to a victim. “I want to tell you something: If I did what I wanted to do to you, rape would only be the beginning of your pain and degradation. . . . You are just as vulnerable to being hurt as you were when you were a child.”

“I love you,” Hilbun wrote to Springer last week. “I’m going to kill us both and take us both to hell.”

‘You Never Know What a Stalker Is Going to Do’

Sometimes, Threat Management Unit detectives say, they can scare off stalkers simply by hauling them into a police station and warning them about the consequences of future harassment.

If that does not work, they use phone taps, stakeouts, restraining orders and other investigative methods. They ensure that the victims save all letters, document all encounters and keep answering machine tapes in order to present a solid case in court.

After the Rebecca Schaeffer slaying, detectives learned that every stalking case has a potential for danger, said Boles of the LAPD.

“The guy who eventually killed her was showing up at the studio with teddy bears and sending her love letters,” Boles said. “He seemed like just another love-struck fan. This case proved that you never really know what a stalker is going to do.”

‘Some (Stalkers) . . . Just Can’t Accept Any Loss’

Because many celebrities--about 20% of the unit’s cases--are harassed so frequently, private security firms are busier than ever. West Coast Detectives in North Hollywood has about 150 clients who have been victims of stalkers, one of whom has been harassed for more than seven years, said Michael Eubanks, the firm’s vice president.

Some celebrities have been stalked by obsessed fans who mail each of them more than 5,000 letters a year, Eubanks said. To discourage stalkers, he recommends that his clients no longer send any glossy photographs and form letters.

Los Angeles is known as the “stalking capital of the world” because the city “serves as a funnel” for obsessed fans looking for stars, said Dr. Michael Zona, a psychiatrist who has conducted studies for the Threat Management Unit. The unit, he said, has documented cases of stalkers from Ecuador, Germany and the Soviet Union surfacing in Hollywood to track stars.

Stalkers range from “the average blue-collar worker angry over a recent breakup to people with full-blown delusional disorders,” Zona said.

The stalkers with the most severe psychological problems, Zona said, become obsessed with people they barely know and mount a campaign of harassment. Or they become convinced that celebrities they have never met are in love with them.

But the majority of the stalkers, including Hilbun, have had some relationship with the victims and develop an obsession. They could be estranged spouses who won’t accept the breakup of the relationship, or just neighbors or co-workers who are mentally ill.

“If the person doesn’t return their feelings, these people often respond with a feeling of rage,” Zona said. “They’ve invested their whole sense of self in the relationship . . . so they feel if the relationship ends, then they will have no worth as a person. A lot of them are alcohol and drug abusers . . . some have severe personality defects and just can’t accept any loss.”

There are more stalkers today, experts said, and they are becoming increasingly violent.

“There’s less family structure today and people are more transient, so a lot of these stalkers just don’t have the support systems they need,” Zona said. “When you’re living with less of a sense of community, you don’t have people to help you resolve relationships or endure difficult emotional times. And since our society is more violent today, stalkers are more violent today.”

‘People Don’t Realize the Terror’

Four stalker slayings in Orange County led to California passing the nation’s first stalking law. All four women were killed in a five-week period during 1990. All had sought help from authorities in vain.

* A 19-year-old waitress from Stanton and her 21-month-old child were beaten by the estranged father, who was angry about a recent breakup. He continued to harass the woman after she obtained a restraining order, and she finally asked police: “What does he have to do--shoot me?” A few days later, he did--killing her and then setting himself on fire.

* Less than a month later, a nurse from Laguna Hills was killed when a former boyfriend, who had followed her to California from Germany, allegedly rammed her car, which burst into flames. He had been stalking her for 10 years.

* Three days later, an estranged husband shot a former Olympic skier from Newport Beach and then killed himself. Police discovered a restraining order in her purse.

* Eleven days later, an Anaheim woman who left her abusive boyfriend was gunned down. She had moved into a women’s shelter with her two young children and then found a small apartment in Ontario. The ex-boyfriend had hired a detective to find her.

When Orange County Superior Court Judge John Watson read about the slayings of the women, all of whom had restraining orders, he decided to take action.

“This made me realize that the way the law was written did not allow us to protect these women,” Watson said. “In some of these cases, the police told the women there was nothing they could do until the man committed a criminal act. By then it was too late.”

The number of stalking laws passed throughout the country reflect, Watson said, “the evolution of the legal system toward women’s rights and the plight of women.”

The law Watson wrote--sponsored in the state Legislature by then-state Sen. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton)--made it a misdemeanor for a person to repeatedly follow or harass someone and to make “a credible threat with the intent to place that person . . . in reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm.”

Stalkers can receive up to a year in jail for misdemeanor convictions, and those who have subsequent convictions or who violate restraining orders--which can be filed as felonies--can receive up to three years in state prison.

But the law he wrote, Watson said, was “watered down” by the time is was passed by the state Legislature.

Now the Los Angeles district attorney’s office and other agencies want to strengthen the legislation to broaden the definition of credible threat to include “threat implied by conduct.” That way authorities can take action well before victims are in fear of their lives, said Saunders of the district attorney’s office.

Because stalking cases are becoming increasingly violent, authorities do not want to wait for repeated violations to press for lengthy jail terms.

In San Diego, three women were gunned down by estranged lovers who had stalked them for months. As a result, San Diego was recently chosen as the first big city in the nation for a pilot program aimed at deterring stalkers. Chronic violators of restraining orders will be required to wear ankle bracelets that trigger an alarm within 500 yards of the potential victim’s home.

“More of these cases are ending in homicides, so the courts have to take this issue very seriously and act quickly,” Saunders said. “People don’t realize the terror these victims live with every day. Many have to change their names, find new jobs, locate new schools for their kids. The damage that is done to them is incredible.”