NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Anthony Perone was so reclusive that his mother gave him a bucket to use as a urinal in his bedroom. The first time the 21-year-old Minnesota man ventured out alone to a store as an adult, he bought an assault rifle with a scope.

Perone never talked about women until last year, when he asked his mother if she kept a copy of his grammar school class photo.

Then he started sending letters to a woman he knew in school in Connecticut. And making plans for a long trip. He filled a backpack with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a suitcase with a sharpened sword, knives, flashlights and binding wire. He looked into lodging in Connecticut, where his victim lived, authorities say.

He also kept “to do” lists of places to stay in Connecticut, things to add to his arsenal (hand grenades, homemade bombs), more items to buy (a mask, glass cutter), and thoughts on completing his mission (‘break in at night’), investigators say.

Perone, who will be sentenced today on federal threatening charges, dropped out of school in the ninth grade after his family moved to Minnesota when he was 15. He asked his mother last year to mail some letters for him. She thought they were for a friend in Connecticut and added his return address and name when she noticed it was missing.

The first letter, received by his former classmate’s grandmother, depicted a heart with a bite or chunk taken out and drips of blood marked “your blood.” It also contained a drawing of an assault weapon marked “the gun your pain” and a drawing of a tombstone with the victim’s name and a promise, “your hand and mine will meet.”

“Your as beatiful (sic) as the sunset. Ugly as the night,” the letter stated. “Come with me and I’ll treat you right. If not prepare to fight. Your secret admirer.”

On Easter weekend last year, the grandmother received a call asking for her granddaughter.

A second letter arrived in May 2006 depicting a series of clues from third- and fourth-grade classes. He recalled her favorite song, from the Lion King, “Can you feel are (sic) love tonight” and her favorite Christmas movie, “Jingle all the Way.”

And then a warning.

“For 20 years you lived a rich life with everything. Money, family. Being popular. It’s now gonna end. Your gonna learn about suffering and having nothing. Pain you will feel. Fear, Being alive,” he wrote, signing the letter “Death Stalker.”

The victim could not recall her stalker or the experiences he described in grammar school. She became paranoid of strangers and friends, quitting her job and college, driving alternate routes home and avoiding using the computer to socialize for fear her stalker might find her.

Her grandmother had repeated nightmares of the images depicted in the letters. She changed the locks on her home and stopped gardening or socializing because she feared being outside.

Police say when they searched Perone’s apartment in Fairmont, Minn., last year, they found hundreds of pages of disturbing writings and drawings with threats to kill his former classmate, her family and other classmates. Authorities say they also recovered the assault rifle, the backpack, the suitcase with the weapons and documents suggesting imminent travel to Connecticut.

Perone pleaded guilty in March to sending the threatening letters to the home of the woman’s grandparents in Bridgeport. Perone, who attended third and fourth grade with the victim, told police he found her address at the library.

Perone faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in federal court in Bridgeport.

His victims are expected to testify.

Prosecutors are urging a judge to impose the maximum sentence, citing evidence that Perone was on a path to carry out the threats.

Authorities also cited a psychological evaluation that found Perone has a pervasive personality disorder and remains a danger to his victims and others.

“In an era in which society has suffered from such tragic events as Columbine, the Amish school shootings, the Virginia Tech shootings and the recent Omaha mall shootings, it is imperative that deeply disturbed defendants like Mr. Perone do not fall through the cracks,” prosecutor Stephen Reynolds wrote in court papers.

Perone’s attorneys say a lengthy sentence is not the only way to protect the public. They say Perone could be involuntarily committed for psychiatric treatment after he is released from prison.

Since his arrest, Perone has been in prison, where he keeps to himself and paces his unit, according to court documents, which also indicate that other inmates have nicknamed him “orbit.”