Taylor Swift stalker’s twisted letters threatening to kill the singer revealed in chilling new documentary
The chilling letters Taylor Swift was sent from a stalker before he was jailed have been laid bare in a new documentary.
In 2018, the Shake it Off singer, 35, was targeted by Eric Swarbrick, who believed that she was his ‘soulmate’ and wrote her 40 letters which grew increasingly dark and disturbing.
In the latest episode of Investigation Discovery’s Hollywood Demons series, Stalking the Stars, Eric’s brother Matthew Swarbrick shared details of their contents while also expressing sorrow at not getting him psychiatric help sooner.
‘The first one is not threatening, just strange,’ Matthew began. ‘But just a few months later, one of his letters references “I have one goal in mind, to push Taylor to kill herself for knowingly abandoning me to my mother.”‘
Eric started delivering the letters personally to Taylor’s record label Big Machine Label Group in January of 2018, asking the CEO Scott Borchetta to introduce him to the artist.
Over time, the letters became more violent and threatening and on three occasions, Eric drove to Nashville to personally deliver them.
Taking aim at the label, one note read: ‘I’ll be the cultural sword that runs through her heart.’
‘Give her my letters or I’m gonna kill myself,’ another said. ‘And I’m also gonna kill her by the way.’
The chilling letters Taylor Swift was sent from a stalker before he was jailed have been laid bare in a new documentary
In 2018, Eric Swarbrick transmitted a minimum of 40 communications via letter and email that took a violent and sexually-fueled tone
Matthew was unaware that his brother had been visiting Taylor’s office or that he had written so many letters but pointed out that isolation in Eric’s years at college could have prompted him to stalk.
‘Growing up, Eric spent a lot of time with friends,’ he recalled. ‘In high school, he was popular, he led worship, he played guitar, he was very outgoing. I didn’t see any signs at all. There was nothing that was a red flag.
‘But then Eric started college, he didn’t know a lot of people and I felt like he spent more time by himself and some of the isolation eventually got to him.
‘When he was 25 and looking at graduating college, Eric sent a series of tweets. The tweets referenced a soulmate, it did not reference anybody in particular, but it was not something a normal person would write.
‘It basically referenced being a prophet of God on the verge of becoming the antichrist and I remember feeling very desperate because we knew he needed help, and we had absolutely no idea what we could do.’
Matthew admitted that he was concerned about his brother’s mental health and didn’t know where to turn to get help.
‘I remember wishing there was a hotline that I could call and really just being helpless and not knowing what to do was the worst part,’ he said regretfully.
Eric pled guilty to interstate stalking and sending interstate communications with intent to threaten.
Eric’s brother Matthew Swarbrick shared details of his brother’s letters in Investigation Discovery’s documentary Stalking the Stars
Over time, the letters became more violent and threatening and on three occasions, Eric drove to Nashville to personally deliver them
One read: ‘I have one goal in mind, to push Taylor to kill herself for knowingly abandoning me to my mother’
He was imprisoned for 30 months and then put into mandated care.
Of his brother’s situation, Matthew said: ‘It was sad. It was depressing.
‘There are some people who need punishment and some people who need treatment, and I certainly wish he was taken to a mental health hospital earlier than they did.’
With the help of mental health professionals, however, Eric has began to turn his life around.
‘After prison, he was seeing a psychiatrist and slowly he was starting to become his old self in a lot of ways,’ Matthew revealed.
Eric was initially arrested in 2018 in Nashville when he was trespassing on the premises of the record label.
Addressing her safety concerns, Taylor wrote in 2019: ‘I carry QuikClot army grade bandage dressing, which is for gunshot or stab wounds… you get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you kind of start prepping for bad things’
After he was released from custody in connection with that arrest, authorities said he continued to send communications to the record label talking about how he wanted to rape and murder the singer.
Police said Eric also told Big Machine he would take his own life in front of the label’s employees.
Taylor opened up about the terror she experienced as result of Eric’s actions.
‘My fear of violence has continued into my personal life,’ she wrote in Elle in 2019.
‘I carry QuikClot army grade bandage dressing, which is for gunshot or stab wounds… you get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you kind of start prepping for bad things.’
