Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother's Murder, John du Pont's Madness, and the Quest for Olympic Gold (21 page)

“John, I’ve only tried to be your friend,” Dan responded. “But I’ll leave.”

Du Pont left the gym, and Dan started telling the other
wrestlers what had happened and that du Pont was losing his mind and out of control. Their reaction was to tell Dan that du Pont was only mad at him.

Du Pont just never seemed dangerous, because no one thought he would ever actually follow through on his threats. John would do something crazy, then it would be dismissed with “John wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

The assault rifle incident came up in the media after du Pont murdered Dave, and Dan claimed that he had reported what had happened to the police, but that they hadn’t taken him seriously, saying du Pont was “a little eccentric.” The police department countered by stating that Chaid had never followed through on the paperwork and that with nothing more than an unsubstantiated allegation available to them, there was nothing more they could do.

Dan packed most of his belongings in a van that he left at Dave’s house and returned home to California. He flew back to Philadelphia a few weeks later to finish packing and leave for good. John wasn’t happy to hear that Dan was back on the property. Late that night, he went to Dave’s house, drunk and looking for Dan. He searched through Dave and Nancy’s house trying to find Dan, but he wasn’t there.

John was so drunk that he was stumbling around, and he slipped and hit his head on a windowsill, opening a big cut.

Dave and his wife helped John to his car so Dave could drive him to the emergency room, and Nancy noticed a rifle in the car and took it into their house. John kept saying he wanted his gun back before they left, and finally Dave returned it to him, but not before removing the bullets.

Dave ran red lights driving John to Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where the trauma center had been named for him. On the way, John told Dave that he was going to file a police report claiming Chaid had hit him in the head with a bat and that he wanted Dave to back up his story.

At the emergency room, John refused to fill out any forms, yelling, “I’m John du Pont! I don’t need to wait in line! Get me a doctor right now!” The nurses were rushing around, trying to calm him and get the necessary paperwork filled out. But John kept barking orders and asking, “Don’t you know who I am?” He wound up needing stitches to close the cut.

John stuck with his story about Dan and a bat. Dave and his wife told police what had really happened. When John learned later that Dave and Nancy had not gone along with his story, he requested a copy of the police report.

I haven’t confirmed this officially, but I have been told that the police report was on du Pont’s desk when they searched his mansion after arresting him for killing Dave. Only after the murder, as the media began investigating and later through information that came out as part of the judicial process, did the pieces of a complex puzzle begin to come together.

Apparently, du Pont developed a growing animosity toward Dave, who had been John’s favorite when he moved onto the farm. Over time, Valentin Jordanov—who, like Dave, was married with children—took Dave’s place in that role.

I think Valentin was the only wrestler on the farm who could tolerate John, and that was only because Valentin didn’t know a lot of English at that time. When I had first met Valentin, while he
was living on the estate, I told him, “If you want to stay at Foxcatcher, don’t learn English. He’ll talk your head off and you’ll hate it here.”

The odd thing was that Dave and Valentin were very close friends. Their friendship had begun during that Foxcatcher-Bulgaria match of John’s.

John fired Dave after a party on New Year’s Eve 1994 because Dave came dressed in a Russian soldier’s uniform to get a laugh out of his Bulgarian friend. John had a fascination with Bulgaria and had made up bizarre stories about his mother having had sex with a Bulgarian soldier, meaning he and Valentin were both Bulgarian. John must have viewed Dave as a threat to his friendship with Valentin.

The next day, John called Dave to the mansion and fired him. Jordanov and Calabrese both told du Pont that they would leave the team if Dave was forced out. John backed down and apologized to Dave.

In 1995, Foxcatcher head coach Greg Strobel’s contract expired and he took the head coach’s job at Lehigh University. Greg recommended that du Pont appoint Dave as his replacement. Du Pont, however, chose Jordanov over Dave even though Dave was clearly more qualified. When Valentin expressed his disappointment over his new salary, it was Dave who went to du Pont on Valentin’s behalf and talked John into paying Valentin more.

Dave was the person at Foxcatcher whom the others went to when they had problems with du Pont. Dave was the only one among the wrestlers who would stand up to John yet also could calm him down and convince him to, in most cases, act rationally. Dave was not a yes-man, and he wasn’t afraid to speak up and tell
du Pont when he was screwing something up. He thought he could help John.

John listened to Dave more than anyone else at Foxcatcher, but Valentin had become the one John most wanted to impress.

—

T
hat November, the athletes advisory council of USA Wrestling gathered via conference call to consider requesting that the organization officially discontinue its association with du Pont. The discussion centered on two complaints.

First, one wrestler had reported du Pont pointing guns at some of the wrestlers at Foxcatcher.

Second, earlier in the year, du Pont had kicked three black wrestlers off the farm because of their skin color, saying the Ku Klux Klan ran Foxcatcher. It wasn’t just the black wrestlers du Pont had removed from the farm. He had developed a fear of the color black and ordered anything black on the estate either removed or painted a different color.

Dave defended John more than anyone else on the call, and the council decided not to call for action by USA Wrestling. The council members were not convinced that du Pont was racist or a threat to anyone’s safety. Plus, du Pont’s interest in wrestling appeared to have begun to wane. He had already sent word to USA Wrestling that his financial contributions would cease after 1996. He had been talking about how he might get out of the sport altogether.

Once du Pont had made it known that he would stop making his annual donation to USA Wrestling, a separation began to develop between him and the governing body. John had become a
problem within wrestling, but he was also in the process of removing himself from the sport without USA Wrestling’s having to force it.

Dave planned to stay at Foxcatcher through the 1996 Olympics, which would end in early August—he wanted to cap his comeback on wrestling’s biggest stage—and then return home to Palo Alto, where I only recently learned he had been offered the chance to coach at Stanford again. When other wrestlers heard of Dave’s intent, some packed up and moved and others made plans to leave with Dave. Valentin was one of those.

—

D
uring the Christmas holidays of 1995, Dave and his family came to visit me in Utah. I forgot to give him the security code to my house and while I was at the school he went into the house, set off the alarm, and the police came. We had a good laugh over that.

I took Dave’s family to Salt Lake City to visit Temple Square, which is the most-visited tourist spot in Utah. I talked to them about my faith, the positive impact it had made in my life, and what I had learned about the validity of the Book of Mormon.

Dave and I did some jujitsu in the BYU wrestling room. I explained to Dave how I had quit wrestling for good and had become exclusively a jujitsu guy. He wanted to see what jujitsu felt like. I got on my back, which a wrestler never does. I lay there and waited for Dave to get on top of me. Then I got him in an armlock and, a little more than seven months from the Olympics, I cracked his elbow. On the way to the hospital, I kept firmly saying to him, “Why didn’t you tap? I told you to tap!”

Doctors discovered bone fragments that had already been in
his elbow, and he had to later have them surgically removed. I felt bad even though I hadn’t caused the injury.

On our last day together, I took Dave skiing at Snowbird. The forecast called for a severe snowstorm, but as this was his last day in Utah, we went anyway. The storm lifted and the conditions were almost perfect for skiing. There was all this pure powder to ski on, and we were the only ones on the mountain. We skied all day and had the greatest time together.

After Dave’s family got back to Foxcatcher, he mailed me a card. In his note he reflected back to when, after winning my second World Championship, I had started signing my name “Mark Schultz, Olympic and two-time World Champion.” Chris Horpel had given me a hard time for not being a World Champion, which was why I made that a part of my signature. Dave told me he thought that was funny.

Then he added the reason he had sent me the card: He wanted me to know how much he loved me and how happy he was to be my
brother.

W
e’ll never know why John du Pont killed my brother. But the date has always loomed as important when I try to come up with a reason: January 26, 1996. Valentin Jordanov’s thirty-sixth birthday.

There had been a party at the gym late that morning to celebrate Valentin’s birthday and to send off a group of Bulgarian wrestlers who had been training there and were leaving that afternoon. Du Pont was there with the wrestlers.

As far as motive goes, I believe that du Pont had a birthday present he wanted to give Jordanov that would demonstrate how much du Pont loved him, how true he was to Valentin.

A few hours after the party, du Pont asked Pat Goodale, his security expert, to take a ride with him around the estate. It had been a rugged winter in southeastern Pennsylvania. The great blizzard of ’96 had dumped about two feet of snow on Delaware County less than three weeks earlier, and after a more recent snowfall, du Pont wanted to survey the damage on his eight hundred acres.

John typically carried a .38 caliber handgun with him around the property. But on this day, Goodale noticed du Pont grabbing a longer-barreled, .44 Magnum revolver—one of the most powerful handguns in the world—before heading to the car.

Du Pont’s car was being repaired, and he slid behind the wheel of the silver Lincoln Town Car loaner. After driving around the snow-covered estate, du Pont made his way toward the white two-story house Dave and his family lived in on the edge of the estate, a mile from the main house.

It was about two forty-five on a cold, gray Friday afternoon. Dave’s kids were at school, a couple of blocks away. Dave was crazy about Alexander and Danielle, and I just know he had been checking the time as he repaired his car radio, counting down the minutes until it was time to pick up Alexander and Danielle and start the weekend.

Dave was part in, part out of his car when du Pont turned into the driveway and pulled near him. Dave had no idea of du Pont’s intention and no way of protecting himself as he said, “Hi, Coach,” and started toward du Pont’s car.

The first shot and Dave’s scream drew Nancy’s attention toward the front door. She grabbed the phone to call 911 on her way. Du Pont’s second shot was fired before she stepped outside. When she opened the front door, she told John to stop. He pointed the gun at her and she turned back into the house. Then, quickly, came the third and final shot.

Goodale testified at du Pont’s trial that he was on his way out of the car through the passenger-side door. He had two guns on him, and he had drawn one and pointed it at du Pont. Goodale said du Pont turned to face him, with the barrels of their guns pointing at each other.

Needing to get du Pont out of there so she could check on Dave, Nancy returned outside and informed John the police were on their way. Goodale scurried for cover behind a metal barrel. He
said du Pont tossed his gun onto the seat and hurried out of the driveway.

Nancy and Goodale tried to stop Dave’s bleeding until the paramedics could arrive. But hollow-point bullets expand, or mushroom, on impact. They are designed to inflict more damage to the target than a conventional bullet. John had loaded his gun to kill.

Dave died in his wife’s arms.

I have never quite grasped Goodale’s actions during the shooting. I’ve wondered if he actually had jumped out of the car and hidden behind the barrel in self-defense and
then
pointed his gun at du Pont. He could have put a bullet in du Pont and ended it at any point, but he didn’t. He took criticism because he was the only person who could have saved Dave’s life, but I tried to have sympathy toward him. Only he and du Pont knew what truly happened.

I don’t blame Goodale for anything. How could he have expected anything like that to happen? The three shots occurred so much more quickly than it seems when you read about them, and Goodale had to make a split-second decision. Even as I still wonder what else could have happened in Dave’s driveway, it’s difficult to fault Pat.

—

M
y dad called me probably within half an hour of the shooting. I was in the midst of just another middle-of-the-season afternoon at the office, answering phone calls and opening mail. Practice was a little more than an hour away.

I don’t think anyone in the history of BYU cursed as much as I did after throwing the phone.

I sat in the corner, sobbing, wishing I had told Dave to leave Foxcatcher earlier. Or further back, not to move there at all. Before he moved to Foxcatcher, I had recommended to Dave that he get things in writing with du Pont and warned him that John was a manipulator. Then when Chaid had told me about John bringing the assault rifle into the weight room, I thought I needed to tell Dave to leave right then.

I didn’t tell him. I should have listened to my gut.

And I hated myself for thinking this, but I realized that Dave would never break my record for World Championships won. We were always competitors. Both of us. But I have carried so much guilt all these years for having that thought. I’ve had to rely on my faith, which assures me that God wants me to be happy and that I need to forgive myself instead of punishing myself for thinking about having more championships than Dave.

Larry Nugent, my assistant coach, was the first person to come into the office. He slumped in his chair. I think he started crying, but I’m not too sure because I wasn’t paying much attention to him. I don’t even know how long we stayed in the office, but before Larry drove me home, I noticed I had never hung up the phone. My dad had been listening to me scream and curse and cry the entire time.

Alan Albright and Ben Ohai, a BYU Hall of Fame wrestler and one of my closest friends along with Alan, were waiting for Larry and me at my house. Dave’s murder was already becoming big news, especially with the early reports saying one of the du Pont heirs was suspected as the killer. The TV was tuned to CNN. I would watch for a while, then have to leave the room to
go cry. I remember one of those times when I had to go off to be alone, Ben followed me into the room to be with me, and he was crying, too.

Someone in my house took a phone call from the police in Newtown Square who said they were aware I might want to do something to du Pont and told me not to go to Pennsylvania. I had already thought about driving out there. I wanted to blow du Pont’s brains out, but I knew that with the cops already at the estate, there was no way I could get to him.

•

John had driven back to the mansion, without Goodale, after shooting Dave and walked directly into the windowless, steel-lined vault on the first floor that his mother had installed as a bomb shelter. John used the vault—complete with combination lock and lever, just like a bank vault—as his library and, often, snorting room. It was in his library that John was known to go with the cocaine supplier he kept on his payroll and later emerge acting different and with white stuff visible around his nose.

Du Pont removed the three empty cartridges from his .44, replaced them with three fresh bullets so the revolver would be fully loaded, and slid the gun out of sight onto a high shelf. He stepped out of the library and shouted instructions to his employees upstairs that under no circumstances were they to allow the police in. They acknowledged, assuming he was referring to a subpoena he expected to be served regarding a continuing legal matter.

The police, uncertain of du Pont’s location, started gathering at the entrance to the estate. Eventually, the standoff would include
seventy-five police officers from ten departments and thirty SWAT team members. The local police knew firsthand that du Pont possessed an arsenal of weapons, some high-powered. They were also aware of du Pont’s marksman skills because he had trained many of them to shoot until the day in 1992 when, abruptly and for no known reason, he decided to cut off access of the police to the range on his farm.

The media began to assemble at the estate, too. Reporters worked their sources for any details they could uncover about the man whose philanthropy had covered over his eccentricities but who now was holed up in his home as an alleged murderer.

Why did he shoot Dave? How could John du Pont kill anyone?

The reporters would have plenty of time to ask those questions before the standoff came to an end.

Police drove around the farm escorting employees and residents of the outlying homes safely off the property. After more than an hour, a policeman monitoring the mansion through binoculars spotted du Pont inside. John wasn’t alone. Two of his employees, Georgia Dusckas and Barbara Linton, plus a painter, working unassumingly upstairs, remained inside. There were early concerns that John was holding Dusckas and Linton as hostages, but those were dismissed when police spotted both walking freely around the mansion. They were unaware that Dave had been killed, and nothing in du Pont’s mannerisms indicated that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

Du Pont asked Dusckas, his executive assistant, to call Pat Goodale on the cell phone. A fire a few months earlier had taken out phone service to the mansion and du Pont hadn’t thought it
necessary to have the line repaired. The cell phone was the only way to make or receive calls.

Dusckas could not reach Goodale.

Then John asked Dusckas to call his lawyer, Taras Wochok. He wanted Wochok to come to his home. But Wochok had left work early and his office would have to try to make contact with him.

By the time Wochok received the message, reports of the standoff were all over the Philadelphia-area media outlets. Wochok headed immediately for the farm.

The painter was the first of the remaining three to leave the mansion. Dusckas and Linton later noticed officers with rifles near the mansion but assumed they were there to serve the subpoena. Wochok, by phone, informed Dusckas about what was really taking place.

Dusckas made several more attempts to reach Goodale by phone. When she finally connected with him, she told Goodale that du Pont wanted Pat to come see him. Goodale said he couldn’t and advised Dusckas that she and Linton needed to leave. Goodale hung up. Dusckas called Goodale back, and John Ryan, the policeman leading the negotiations team, answered instead.

Linton exited the mansion at 5:45
P.M
. and was whisked away to safety.

A little later, du Pont reminded Dusckas that Jordanov would be stopping by for his nightly visit. Du Pont asked Dusckas to invite the other wrestlers at the farm to come, too.

“In fact,” du Pont added with an eerie chuckle, “invite Schultz up.”

Dusckas placed a call to Ryan. She realized she needed to get out, but would have to wait for an opportunity to leave without John’s noticing. She wanted the police to be prepared for her to escape the first chance she could. That chance came when John asked her to take his coffee cup to the kitchen.

At 6:45
P.M.
, Dusckas slipped out of the mansion. John remained inside, alone.

—

W
ith only du Pont in the mansion, police could be patient and wait him out. Having reliable phone contact with du Pont would be essential to their operations, though, so Friday night, workers from the telephone company were escorted into a tunnel to repair the phone line. To reduce noise for the workers, and to ensure that du Pont couldn’t sneak up on the workers and police in the tunnel, the heater was turned off.

The usual time for Jordanov to visit du Pont passed, and du Pont began making repeated cell phone calls to Jordanov’s family home on the farm, leaving messages for Valentin to come to the mansion. John would not talk to the police, however, until an overnight call from Goodale rang the phone inside.

Goodale, calling from the police line, tried to convince du Pont to give up and come out of the house, but du Pont was not interested. Instead, he asked that Valentin, Wochok, and Mario Saletnik come visit him. Before du Pont hung up, he wanted to make sure that Goodale understood with whom he was talking. Du Pont was, he reminded Goodale, the president of the United States.

Intermittent conversations continued into a chilly and stormy Saturday, with police continuing to ask du Pont to come out of the
house and du Pont insisting he wanted to see Valentin, Wochok, and Saletnik instead.

In one conversation, du Pont remarked, “His Holiness is under siege here.” In another, he called the estate “holy property” and “a forbidden city.” In another, he referred to himself as “president of the Soviet Union.”

Du Pont engaged in longer conversations with police as Saturday progressed, with some calls lasting up to twelve minutes, but he still could not be talked out of the house. Nor would he acknowledge that a shooting had taken place on his property. That night, the police decided that a rested du Pont would be better to deal with and halted their phone calls so John could sleep.

Early Sunday morning, before seven o’clock, du Pont used the cell phone to call Wochok at home. John identified himself as Jesus Christ and warned that the death of Jesus would bring an end to the world. Then he asked for cigars and pipe tobacco. Du Pont told Wochok he could be called again at 10:00
A.M.
and clicked off the call. The police began calling shortly before then. Du Pont declined to answer calls until it was 10:00
A.M.

The police allowed Wochok to talk to du Pont that morning, and the conversation followed much the same pattern as those the day before: John would not leave the house and he wanted to see Valentin.

Du Pont complained about being cold. Temperatures had dipped into the twenties overnight, and the fireplace wasn’t generating enough warmth as John burned copies of the second book he had written and paid to have published. The book’s title:
Never Give Up
.

John told his lawyer that he wanted to go into the tunnel to
see why the boilers were not working. The heater had been turned off only to help with the repair of the phone lines, but cutting the heat to inside the mansion proved to be the most significant step in ending the standoff.

In what would be the final phone conversation, with police negotiator Sergeant Anthony Paparo, du Pont demanded during the afternoon that the heater be repaired. Paparo said that was not possible. But du Pont had tired of being cold. Could he be allowed, du Pont asked, to go outside to the greenhouse so he could enter the tunnel and see what was wrong with the boilers?