shaniasupersite.com

Alleged Twain stalker goes to trial in September

Toronto Sun
By Sam Pazzano
July 13, 2011

TORONTO - An Ottawa doctor obsessed with country superstar Shania Twain will go on trial this fall for allegedly violating his court conditions by attending the March Juno awards in Toronto where she appeared.

Dr. John Palumbo, 51, will go on trial on Sept. 29 on allegations he breached a court order that prohibited him from visiting Toronto, except for Ontario College of Physicians business.

A judge will decide next month whether Twain will testify in person or via video.

Palumbo, who has been in jail since his March arrest, was smitten with Twain, though an assessing psychiatrist preferred the term “erotomanic ideation.”

So, after Palumbo and Twain split up from their significant others at about the same time in May 2008, he began sending her letters and flowers, according to a 2010 mental health assessment.

Eight letter professed his love and the flowers were timed for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and her birthday.

Twain’s staff beefed up security but Palumbo thought there may have been “some jealousy issues,” with the male bodyguards, the report revealed.

The Italian-born doctor got his bachelor’s degree in science from the University of Ottawa before attending medical school at the University of Toronto.

However, after a London, Ont., residency, he returned to Ottawa in 1991 and was admitted to hospital as a patient.

Depressed and suicidal, he reacted poorly to anti-depressants but was discharged within three days, and then improved.

He was back in hospital in the summer of 1992, a few months before he got married, according to the report.