Criminal Minds (36 page)

The two things that Chapman had going for him were his girlfriend and his career working as a camp counselor for the YMCA. He went to Beirut, Lebanon, through a YMCA international program. After civil war broke out there, he returned to the United States and was offered a position working with Vietnamese refugees in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.

At Fort Chaffee, he had a sexual fling with a coworker. After the summer ended, Chapman was at college in Tennessee with Blankenship, and his guilt over the affair (because he believed that premarital sex was a sin) drove him into a deep depression. He dropped out of school, and Blankenship ended their engagement. Back in Georgia, Chapman took a job as an armed security guard.

Chapman’s sights changed again when he started daydreaming about Hawaii. He flew there, stayed till his money nearly ran out, returned to Georgia, then used the last of his savings to go back to Hawaii. This time he tried to commit suicide by running a vacuum hose from the tailpipe of his car through one of its windows, but the exhaust pipe melted the hose. The next day, he checked into a mental health clinic. He was discharged after just a couple of weeks, but he stayed on as an employee, working for the clinic in various capacities.

In “Broken Mirror,” the BAU, using Garcia’s high-tech skills, must find a wealthy politician’s kidnapped daughter with the help of her identical twin sister.

Once Chapman was making money again, he took a six-week trip to various cities in Asia and Europe. When he returned to Hawaii, he began a relationship with Gloria Abe, a Japanese American woman who was his travel agent. She converted from Buddhism to Christianity for him, and they were married on June 2, 1979.

The darker side of Chapman’s nature soon came back. He spent money irresponsibly, went into debt, and lost his job. He got another security guard gig and started drinking again. His obsessions shifted with terrible speed, frightening Gloria. He wanted to change his name to Holden Caulfield. He read a biography of his one-time hero John Lennon and complained about Lennon’s wealth. He prayed to Satan, outlining his reasons for wanting to kill Lennon.

The Little People had returned. They tried to talk him out of carrying out his plan, but he silenced them.

On October 27, 1980, Chapman bought a Charter Arms .38. Three days later, he flew to New York. When he learned he couldn’t easily buy bullets there, he flew to Georgia, spent a few days visiting, and loaded up on ammo.

Then he watched the movie
Ordinary People
, about a suicidal young man. When it was over he called Gloria, and she told him to come home. He did, but not for long. Soon he flew back to New York. He arrived on December 6 and immediately visited the Dakota, the luxury Manhattan apartment building in which John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived.

Two days later he left his hotel room carrying a copy of the new Lennon and Ono album,
Double Fantasy,
with his revolver in his pocket. He stopped at a bookstore and bought a copy of
The Catcher in the Rye
, in which he wrote, “This is my statement,” and signed it “Holden Caulfield.”

Outside the Dakota, Chapman saw celebrities come and go: Paul Simon, Lauren Bacall, Mia Farrow, and others. He was even introduced to the young Sean Lennon.

Finally, at about 5 p.m., Lennon and Ono emerged. Chapman asked Lennon to sign his copy of
Double Fantasy
, and Lennon gladly complied. Chapman thanked him, and the ex-Beatle got into a car. Chapman was amazed at the man’s politeness and sincerity. He said later that he wanted to take the record and leave.

Instead, he stayed. Shortly before 11 p.m., Lennon and Ono returned home and walked past Chapman to enter the building. Some accounts say that Chapman called out to Lennon and Lennon turned and saw him holding a gun. Chapman insists that it didn’t happen that way—that he didn’t speak, he simply shot Lennon in the back without warning. He fired five times; four of the bullets hit Lennon, who still managed to climb six steps before falling.

The doorman snatched the gun away. Instead of fleeing, Chapman took off his coat and hat to show that he wasn’t further armed. Then he paced on the sidewalk, reading
The Catcher in the Rye
, until the police came.

The world mourned. Tributes to Lennon were held everywhere. In New York’s Central Park on December 14, between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand people turned up to celebrate Lennon’s life and mark his passing. (John Hinckley Jr. was among them.)

Despite an initial inclination to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, at the last minute Chapman changed his mind. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twenty years to life. For his own protection, he’s in solitary confinement at Attica Correctional Institution in New York. He has been denied parole five times and is eligible again in 2010.

 

 

A COUPLE OF
Criminal Minds
episodes deal with the issue of erotomania, a delusion in which someone believes that another, usually a stranger and a celebrity of some sort, is in love with him or her. The deluded party interprets meaningless or unintentional stimuli as “signals” from the loved one. It’s also called De Clerambault’s syndrome, after the psychologist who first described it. Erotomania first comes up in the episode “Broken Mirror” (105) and returns in “Somebody’s Watching” (118).

The most notorious U.S. example of erotomania gone terribly wrong is that of John Hinckley Jr., who was obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster. On March 30, 1981, Hinckley, in what he called “the greatest love offering in the history of the world,” tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. He succeeded in wounding Reagan, Press Secretary James Brady, a police officer, and a Secret Service agent.

John Warnock Hinckley Jr. was born into a life of privilege on May 29, 1955. His father was the chairman of the Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, and his mother, JoAnn, was a homemaker who especially favored John Jr. They lived in Oklahoma, Texas, and then Colorado. After graduating from Vanderbilt University, Hinckley’s older brother, Scott, became a vice president of the family business. Everyone expected John Jr. to do the same.

But Hinckley dropped out of college in April 1976, and the lifelong Beatles fan went to Hollywood to try to become a songwriter. Martin Scorsese’s movie
Taxi Driver
came out that year, and Hinckley watched it over and over. In the movie, Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a violent, alienated cab driver who develops a fascination with a campaign volunteer who works for a senator who is seeking the presidential nomination.

As his fascination turns to obsession, Bickle encounters Iris, a twelve-year-old prostitute played by Jodie Foster. Their relationship deepens, and as the movie roars to its shattering conclusion, Bickle sends Iris money and a letter telling her that he’ll be dead soon. He tries to assassinate the candidate, but that effort is unsuccessful. Finally he kills Iris’s pimp and is hailed by the media as a hero.

The movie was in part inspired by the case of Arthur Bremer, who stalked and tried to assassinate Alabama governor and presidential candidate George Wallace. The incident put Wallace in a wheelchair.

Hinckley identified with Bickle. He started dressing like the character, favoring army surplus fatigue jackets and combat boots. Like Bickle, he kept a diary and drank peach brandy.

Giving up on Hollywood, Hinckley bounced around, dropping in and out of college and living in Colorado, Texas, and California. In August 1979, seemingly inspired by Bickle’s firearms collection, he bought his first gun and took up target shooting. Hinckley added to his collection regularly and started buying ammunition called Devastator rounds, which explode on impact.

A
People
magazine article in May 1980 described Jodie Foster’s enrollment at Yale University. Hinckley headed for New Haven.

He had written to Foster before and had received polite responses from her or a publicist—the sort of thing that any movie star sends out by the bucketload to adoring fans. Hinckley, lost in the throes of erotomania, read more into them. He was convinced that Foster needed him to “rescue” her, as Bickle had rescued Iris.

In New Haven, Hinckley made contact with Foster a couple of times. She was polite but firm, telling him that she didn’t interact with people she didn’t know. In addition to calling her on the phone, he sent her letters and poems.

Hinckley thought he loved Foster. He believed that he just needed to demonstrate it with an act that would get her attention. And thanks to
Taxi Driver
, he knew exactly what to do. It was 1980—election year. President Jimmy Carter was running for reelection against Ronald Reagan.

Hinckley went to a couple of Carter’s campaign appearances. Once he left his gun collection in his hotel room, and another time he was stopped at the airport for having guns in his luggage. He was fined, his guns were confiscated, and he was released. Soon he was shopping for more weapons.

After Mark David Chapman assassinated John Lennon on December 8, 1980, Hinckley took a train to New York and joined in the vigil for Lennon in Central Park, describing himself as “in deep mourning.” Soon he added a Charter Arms revolver, just like the one Chapman had used, to his gun collection.

On March 30, Hinckley, staying in a Washington, D.C., hotel, wrote Foster a letter explaining his plan to win her love—a letter he never mailed—and took a cab to the Washington Hilton, where Reagan was going to address a labor conference.

As Reagan left the hotel at 2:25 p.m., Hinckley fired six shots. The last ricocheted off the bulletproof presidential limousine and hit the president under his left arm. Press Secretary James Brady was wounded more seriously and became partially paralyzed from the attack. He became a powerful activist against gun violence. Some Secret Service agents immediately apprehended Hinckley.

When First Lady Nancy Reagan arrived at the emergency room, the president got off the famous line, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” Later, as he was wheeled into the operating room, he looked up at the surgical team and said, “Please tell me you’re all Republicans.” The surgery was successful, and Reagan recovered fully.

After a trial that concluded with a screening of
Taxi Driver
, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. He is allowed occasional visits with his parents, but his claims that he has recovered from his obsession with Jodie Foster are belied by the photographs of Foster in his room as well as his attempts to mail-order nude photos of her.

 

 

JODIE FOSTER
wasn’t the only actress to be stalked by an erotomaniac. Theresa Saldana, another actress (who, coincidentally, had also appeared in a Robert De Niro film,
Raging Bull
), was also stalked and attacked by a “fan.” On March 15, 1982, when Saldana was twenty-seven years old, a stranger approached her as she unlocked her car in West Hollywood. He asked if she was Theresa Saldana, and when she answered in the affirmative, he slashed and stabbed her multiple times with a hunting knife.