John Eleuthère duPont (born November 22, 1938) is an American and member of the prominent du Pont family who was convicted of murder in the third degree. He is also known as an ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist, coach, and sports enthusiast.
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John duPont was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of William duPont, Jr. and Jean Liseter Austin (1897–1988). His parents' nuptials—on January 1, 1919, in Rosemont, Pennsylvania—were billed as the "Wedding of the Century" in media accounts. Jean's father, William Liseter Austin, an executive of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, gave the couple more than 242 acres of land as a wedding gift. William duPont Sr. built Liseter Hall, a sumptuous, three-story Georgian mansion[1], for the couple on the land in 1922
Both of his parents' families immigrated to the United States in the early 1800s. John is the youngest of four children; he has two older sisters, Jean duPont McConnell and Evelyn duPont Donaldson, and an older brother, Henry E. I. duPont.
John duPont graduated from Haverford School in 1957. He attended college in Miami, Florida, where he studied under and was mentored by Oscar T. Owre, Ph.D.[2] He graduated from the University of Miami in 1965 with a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology. He also holds a doctorate in natural science from Villanova University, which he received in 1973.
On September 3, 1983, he married therapist Gale Wenk, but the marriage was annulled 90 days later.
In 1997, John duPont was convicted of murdering Olympic Gold Medalist wrestler Dave Schultz the year before and sentenced to 13 to 30 years in prison. Experts at the trial testified that duPont suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.
On January 26, 1996, duPont shot Schultz dead in the driveway of Schultz's home on duPont's 800 acre estate while Schultz's wife and duPont's head of security Patrick Goodale witnessed the crime. Goodale was sitting in the seat of duPont's car while duPont shot 3 bullets into Schultz. Goodale was armed and could have tried to stop the murder but instead took his gun and got out the passenger side door and got behind a barrel. Police did not establish a motive. Schultz was a longtime friend of duPont who had repeatedly tried to help him.[3]
duPont's friends said the shooting was uncharacteristic behavior for him. Joy Hansen Leutner, a triathlete from Hermosa Beach, California, lived for two years on the estate.[4] Leutner said duPont helped her through a stressful period in the mid 1980s. She later said, "with my family and friends, John gave me a new lease on life. He gave more than money; he gave himself emotionally." She expressed incredulity about the killing. She is quoted as saying "There's no way John in his right mind would have killed Dave."[5]
Newtown Township supervisor John S. Custer Jr. said, “at the time of the murder, John didn’t know what he was doing.”[6] Charles King, Sr., a duPont stable hand and manager for 30 years, claimed he knew duPont well throughout his life. King's son Charles “Chuckie” King Jr. said he considered duPont his friend during his childhood. Charles King Sr. still blames Patrick Goodale, an ex-Marine and duPont security consultant, for influencing what happened. Goodale even had a chance to save Dave's life as he sat in the passenger seat of duPont's car while dupont fired 3 bullets into Dave's arm, chest, and back using hollow point bullets. King said “I don’t think John could shoot someone unless he was pushed to or was on drugs”. “After that guy [Goodale] starting hanging around him, my son always said Johnny changed. He was scared of everything. He was always a little off. But I never had problems with him, and my son never had problems.”[7]
After the shooting, the multimillionaire locked himself in his mansion for two days while he negotiated with police on the telephone. Police turned off his power and were able to capture him when he went outside to fix his heater. During the trial one of the defense's expert psychiatric witness described duPont as a paranoid schizophrenic who believed Schultz was part of an international conspiracy to kill him. He said duPont believed people would break into his house and kill him, the reason he put razor wires in his attic. On February 25, 1997, a jury found him guilty of third degree murder but mentally ill. In Pennsylvania, third degree murder is a lesser charge than first degree (intentional) or second degree (during the perpetration of a felony) and indicates a lack of intent to kill. John duPont pleaded "not guilty by reason of insanity. The insanity defense was thrown out and was convicted of 3rd degree murder but mentally ill. In Pennsylvania criminal code, "insanity" applies to someone whose "disease or defect" leaves him unable either to understand that his conduct is wrong or to conform it to the law.[8]. The jury, by choosing "guilty but mentally ill" meant the sentence would be referred to Judge Patricia Jenkins who then was given the opportunity to sentence him from 5-40 years. The prosecution failed to mention duPont used hollow point bullets and fired the last shot into Dave's back while Dave was bleeding to death from a gunshot wound to his chest and crawling face down in the snow trying to get away. Some Schultz family members are outraged at the verdict. The wrongful death lawsuit petitioned by Dave's widow Nancy following the guilty verdict resulted in Nancy and Dave's two children receiving a multi-million dollar settlement. To this day Dave's parents Philip Schultz and Jean Saint Germain have never been compensated from the wrongful death settlement for losing their son.
DuPont was sentenced to 13 to 30 years incarceration and is currently housed at the State Correctional Institute-Mercer, a minimum-security institution in the Pennsylvania prison system.[9]
He was first eligible for parole January 29, 2009 however it was denied. Du Pont's maximum sentence ends on Jan. 29, 2026, when he will be 86.[10]. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the verdict in 2000. As of 2010 a U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia has rejected all but one issue raised on appeal. That court won't hear arguments on the issue, involving his use of a Bulgarian prescription drug, scopolamine, before he fatally shot Olympic gold-medal winner David Schultz in 1996. Instead the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court instead wants only written briefs. [11] This is Du Pont's last round of appeals in the murder case.
As an ornithologist, duPont is credited with the discovery of two dozen species of birds. He has written a number of books on the subject of birds, including: South Pacific Birds, South Sulu Archipelago Birds; an Expedition Report, Birds of Dinagat and Siargao, Philippines; an Expedition Report, and Philippine Birds. He was the second author of Living Volutes: a Monograph of the Recent Volutidae of the World, which he co-wrote with Clifton Stokes Weaver.
He is also a philatelist. In a 1980 auction, while bidding anonymously, he paid $935,000 for one of the rarest stamps in the world, the British Guiana 1856 1c black on magenta.[12]
Before his arrest, John duPont was an accomplished athlete and coach in wrestling, swimming, triathlon, track, and modern pentathlon. For example in 1966, he brought triathlon competition to the United States[13][14], which now enjoys more than a million participants.[15]
John duPont was a competitive wrestler. duPont's only wrestling experience prior to taking up the sport in his late 50's was as a freshman in high school. He began competing again at the age of 55 in the 1992 Veteran's World Championships in Cali, Colombia; in 1993 in Toronto, Canada; in 1994 in Rome, Italy; and in 1995 in Sophia, Bulgaria. He never placed lower than fourth place in any of these championships. [16]. For this age group, duPont competed only in weight classes that had no other competitors or he lost to other veteran wrestlers. He never won a competitive match in actual competition.
DuPont founded the Delaware Museum of Natural History in 1957 which opened to the public in 1972. He was the institution's director for many years.
He helped fund a new basketball arena at Villanova University which opened in 1986. Originally, the venue was called duPont Pavilion, but his name was removed from the facility after his conviction. Today, the building simply is called The Pavilion.
After his mother's death, du Pont turned his 440-acre estate in Newtown Square into a wrestling facility for amateur wrestlers[17]. Du Pont's wrestling team was called "Team Foxcatcher."
William Sr. built Liseter Hall for Willie and Jean in 1925 on more than 600 acres of land given to the couple as a wedding gift in 1919 by Jean’s father, William Liseter Austin, an executive of Baldwin Locomotive Works. The du Ponts divorced in 1940, but Jean Austin du Pont maintained Liseter Hall Farm until her death in 1988, at which point Willie and Jean’s son John Eleuthere du Pont assumed stewardship and renamed it Foxcatcher Farm.[18]
The operations under Willie and Jean were among the envy of horse racing operations. In the 1920s and ’30s, Liseter Hall was considered the ne plus ultra of Mid-Atlantic horse facilities. In addition to the indoor galloping track, the farm featured a large barn for race horses; a 40-foot-wide by 120-foot-long indoor riding ring, still used by King for breaking and schooling; the half-mile training track and its adjacent combination viewing stand/water tower; a breeding shed, which continues to host matings for Two Davids and Tricky Mister; a hunter barn; a show horse barn; a loading barn with ramps for transporting horses to competition; and a grassy, half-mile chute that connected the training track with the race horse, hunter and show horse barns.[19]
Before, during and after the legal issues following John (cited above) significant changes occurred to the Du Pont property. First to go: John's mother’s dairy herd, nearly 70 Guernseys, in the fall of 1996. Next, the dairy farm itself, sold by the Delaware Museum of Natural History, which he formerly headed, in January 1998. Since then, the land, where Jean Austin du Pont’s cows grazed contentedly for the better part of the 20th century, changed hands again, and now is slated to become the campus for a relocated prep school, as well as a community of new million-dollar-plus homes.[20] That left only the 400-plus acres of Foxcatcher Farm.
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