John du Pont

John Eleuthère du Pont (born c. 1939) is an American ornithologist, a former coach and financial sponsor of sport wrestling, and an imprisoned murderer.

A member of the prominent and respected Du Pont family, he is the son of William du Pont, Jr. and Jean Liseter Austin.

John du Pont graduated from the University of Miami in 1965 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology. A philatelist, in a 1980 auction he anonymously paid $935,000 for one of the rarest stamps in the world, the British Guiana 1856 Penny Magenta.

In 1983, he married occupational therapist Gale Wenk but emotional instability was already evident and the difficult marriage ended in a 1985 divorce.

On 26 January 1996 he shot Olympic wrestler David Schultz to death 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.

External references

• John du Pont
• CNN:Du Pont guilty but mentally ill February 25, 1997