John du Pont “The Eagle” Paige Montrose

Background  Born in Philadelphia, PA on November 22, 1938  He was heir to DuPont Co. – very wealthy and privileged growing up  His parents divorced when he was young, he spent most of his time with his mother and especially their servants  He came second to his mother’s show horses  Allegedly burned the barn and killed all the horses after his mother died  Graduated from Haverford School in 1957 and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania  Dropped out his freshman year  Went back to school at the University of Miami – graduated in 1965 with a degree in marine biology  Trained with Olympic athletes and tried out for Olympic pentathlon, but did not make it in 1968  Started to develop a strong interest in wrestling and sponsored the start up of Villanova’s men’s wrestling team  Was head coach of the team  Ended after rumors of him sexually abusing team members were made, however he was never convicted of anything  Opened his own wrestling training center called Foxcatcher  Extremely eccentric  He bought a replica police car, put on a uniform, flashed his auxiliary badge and made traffic stops outside the gates of his estate  Claimed to be the Dali Lama, Jesus and a spy for the CIA (very delusional)

Crime  On January 26, 1996, du Pont shot and killed wrestler Dave Schultz  He was a 1984 Olympic gold medalist  Drove up to Shultz’s house, rolled down window, said “Do you got a problem with me?” and shot Shultz three times  Shultz’s wife was watching  Found to be mentally ill* but also guilty of third-degree murder** in 1997  Sentenced to years in prison  Died while at Laurel Highlands State Prison in 2010 of acute aspiration pneumonia *Mental Illness: a condition characterized by the presence of symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, serious disorder of thought form, a severe disturbance of mood, or sustained or repeated irrational behavior ** Third-Degree Murder: is any intentional killing that involves no prior intent to kill, and which was committed under such circumstances that would "cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed"

Eccentrics  50 th birthday party started shooting an AK-47  Drive drunk around his estate and crash into things  Reluctant to get married  Finally did, which only lasted less than a year when she left him  “He drank heavily, pushed her into a fireplace, pointed a gun at her head and called her a Russian spy.”  He claimed ghosts lived in the walls of his mansion and rigged them with razor wire  Falling out with Schultz after he took a job as wrestling coach at Stanford University Captivated in the movie Foxcatcher

Social Contract Theory Many people behave according to what is expected of because they care what others think. Often when one feels compelled to engage in deviance, he or she will not because of his or her attachment to social norms. John du Pont lacked this sense of attachment and engaged in a very eccentric lifestyle. Du Pont grew up without having many friends; he spent most of his time with his servants. His own mother seemed more interested in her prize horses and beagles than her son. Therefore, he lacked a sense of attachment to others. He was delusional and paranoid, his paranoia caused him to fear people more than the consequences of hurting those people. He mostly kept within his estate and did whatever pleased himself; he did not set out to join community activates and was uninvolved. His mental illness also ruined his belief system and caused him to act in ways not acceptable to the general public. With all these different elemental bonds to society broken, there was nothing stopping John du Pont from behaving however he wanted. Unfortunately, this included killing Dave Shultz.