John du Pont
John Eleuthère du Pont (born November 22, 1939) is a member of the prominent Du Pont family who in 1997 was convicted of murdering Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. Experts at the trial testified that du Pont suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.[1]
Personal background
He is the son of William du Pont, Jr. and Jean Liseter Austin. Prior to his arrest and conviction, he was an American ornithologist, a former coach and financial sponsor of sport wrestling, and a philanthropist.
John du Pont graduated from the University of Miami in 1965 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology. A philatelist, he anonymously paid $935,000 during a 1980 auction for one of the rarest stamps in the world, the British Guiana 1856 1c black on magenta. [2]
In 1983, he married occupational therapist Gale Wenk but emotional instability was already evident and the difficult marriage ended in a 1985 divorce.
Murder conviction
On 26 January 1996 he shot dead Olympic gold medalist wrestler David Schultz at the wrestling facility for du Pont's Team Foxcatcher on du Pont's estate in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, without apparent provocation and with Schultz's wife among several witnesses. After the shooting, the multimillionaire locked himself in his mansion for two days, while he negotiated with police on the telephone. When police turned off the power, du Pont was captured when he walked outside to fix his heater. Expert psychiatric testimony described du Pont as a paranoid schizophrenic who believed Schultz was part of an international conspiracy to kill him. On February 26, 1997, a jury found him guilty of murder but mentally ill.
Trivia
- One of the people who trained at Team Foxcatcher was 1996 Olympic gold medalist and current TNA wrestler Kurt Angle, who was good friends with Schultz before the murder.
- Du Pont largely funded a new basketball arena at Villanova University that opened in 1986. Originally, the venue was called du Pont Pavilion, but his name was removed from the facility after his conviction. Today, it is called simply The Pavilion.
External links
- John du Pont biography at rotten.com.
- John du Pont biography at about.com.
- John du Pont biography at NNDB.
- "Du Pont guilty but mentally ill", CNN, February 25, 1997.
References
- ^ Heir Sentenced Up to 30 Years For Killing of Olympic Wrestler
- ^ Rachlin, Harvey (1996). Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, and Einstein's Brain: The Remarkable Stories Behind the Great Artifacts of History, From Antiquity to the Modern Era. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0805064060.