If you ever want to spook out John Cusack, why not write a love letter, sign it 'Emily Leatherman', pop it in a bag of screwdrivers and throw it at him?

Because that's what John Cusack's stalker did, and she was hit with a 500ft restraining order for her troubles. Not that she stuck to it, though – Emily Leatherman was arrested again on Sunday for getting too close to John Cusack's home.

Honestly Emily Leatherman has to be John Cusack's number one fan to get herself in so much trouble just to meet him. In fact, we'd wager that Emily Leatherman loves John Cusack so much that she's watched Serendipity more times than anyone else on Earth. So twice, then.

We feel for Emily Leatherman, we really do. Not because of her poor choice of stalker target – although we can't imagine how unbearable it must be, having pinned your stalker hopes on someone early on, to try and stalk someone even though you know they're responsible for both Must Love Dogs and 1408 – but because she's had to watch the evolution of the stalking game from the sidelines lately.

Back in 2006 Emily Leatherman was rested for throwing bags of rocks with love letters inside them into John Cusack's garden. At the time we sympathised with John Cusack immeasurably – until that point the extent of his fan interaction involved a few nerdy men mumbling to him that some of Grosse Point Blank was quite good, and then a woman starts throwing rockbags over his fence? Terrifying.

After the stalking arrest, Emily Leatherman was ordered to keep 500 feet away from John Cusack at all times. But how can you be expected to sit by and idly watch when your high watermark of stalking gets eroded by nutters sending dildos to Britney Spears and trying to explode airports for Jodie Foster? You can't, which is why on Sunday Emily Leatherman hit the scene again. 

Unfortunately, whatever genius stalking plan Emily Leatherman had for John Cusack fell apart the instant she realised that she didn't quite have enough money for the cab fare, as E! Online reports:

Sheriff's spokesman Officer Steve Whitmore said deputies were called to the 24000 block of Malibu Road at about 7 p.m. by a cabbie who said a fare was refusing to pay for her ride into the area. Cusack himself then flagged the officers down and said he recognized the woman in the taxi as the one whom he accused of showing "unusual interest" in him. He said he did not think she had set foot on his property that day. Emily Leatherman, who has been identified as an L.A.-area transient, was also booked on charges of violating a restraining order and petty theft.

Leatherman is now in custody in a Malibu police station on $150,000 bail. And with her out of the way, the mantle of Number One Most Obsessed John Cusack Fan falls to Derek Stanmore, a semi-retired box welder from Middlesex. Derek doesn't know who John Cusack is, and wouldn't recognise him in a line-up even if the rest of the line-up was made of women and horses, but he did see some of Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil on TV a few months ago even though he fell asleep in the middle of it. And that alone makes him John Cusack's biggest fan.

Use your power well, Derek. Use your power well.

Read more:

Big-Time Cusack Fan Nabbed for Stalking – E! Online