Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother's Murder, John du Pont's Madness, and the Quest for Olympic Gold (23 page)

The referee, “Big” John McCarthy, came into my dressing room about thirty minutes before the fight to inform me of the new ban on closed-fist punches. He asked me to show him a closed fist. I made one. Then he asked me to show him an open fist. I opened my hand as I would to deliver a karate chop.

“No, an open fist is like this,” Big John corrected me, making a fist and pulling his thumb away from the fist. If either of us violated the ban, he warned, we would be fined fifty dollars per offense and the fine would be collected, well, whenever. In other words, we could punch all we wanted.

Goodridge was one hell of a striker, but he wasn’t a wrestler, and I knew I would be able to take him down. I didn’t think he would be able to get on top of me, from where he could punch and elbow me, and even when he did manage to get on top, I believed my wrestling skills would prevent him from being in that position for long.

When the match started, we both came out cautious. I made the first move, taking him down about thirty seconds in by running him into the cage with a double leg takedown. Goodridge was wearing a gi, the loose-fitting suit associated with martial arts like karate and judo. Grabbing his gi made it easier to pull his legs out from under him as soon as he had stopped against the cage. It was the easiest takedown ever for me, and that’s why MMA fighters stopped wearing gis.

Goodridge wrapped his arm around my head and grabbed his own gi. He held my head so tightly that I wondered if I would pass
out. I responded by pointing my chin into his ribs so that the tighter he squeezed me, the deeper my chin would sink into his ribs.

I started feeling a little light-headed. With not much time to get out of his hold before passing out, I made him break his grip by reaching up with my left hand and pinching his trachea by jamming my thumb into his throat. I could have hurt him badly, maybe even killed him, if I had used all my strength and broken his trachea. After Goodridge let go of me, I hit him in the head a few times.

Ultimate fighting refs could stop a fight if there was a lack of action and restart the bout with both fighters on their feet. After I had been released and we settled into holding on to each other for a bit, Big John stepped in and had us stand.

I took Gary down again and pounded him with my fists some more, opening a cut beside his right eye. The ref stopped us to check Goodridge’s cut and restarted us from our feet. Once again, I took Goodridge down and got the mount position on him and hit him in the face several times, targeting the cut beside his eye.

I was in the mount position with about ten seconds to go in the fight and looked into Gary’s eyes. I think we both knew it was over. I could have elbowed him a few more times or gone for an armlock, but I knew he had kids.

Is it really necessary?
I asked myself.

Regulation time ran out.

I don’t know if the doctor stopped the fight because of Goodridge’s cut or if Gary stopped the bout himself, but he didn’t come out for overtime.

I was glad the fight was over. I had been training, but not for competition, and my conditioning was not very good.

That night was a spiritual moment for me. There was a reason Dave Beneteau had suffered his injury. There was a reason I had gone to Detroit. There was a reason the doctor had told Beneteau he couldn’t fight.

I didn’t fight again after that night. My back herniated soon after the match. Within a week I couldn’t walk and had to be hospitalized. My athletic career was over at that point, and I retired from UFC with a 1-0 record.

That one win erased eight years of pain and prevented who knows how many more years of hurting. I had felt like a loser ever since the ’88 Olympics, but that changed that night in Detroit. I went out a winner. It felt as though I was telling John du Pont in capital letters that he had lost his battle to make me miserable like him. I had won, and he was still a loser.

In some respects, I became a winner again the instant I stepped into the octagon. I proved that I could get into that cage and fight with, basically, no rules. I fought against a tough man who was bigger than I was—significantly—and a highly respected fighter.

I had spent my entire life trying to become the ultimate martial artist. I had thought all those years that wrestling was the ultimate martial art. Then jujitsu opened my eyes and showed me that I had been confining myself within the rules of the NCAA and FILA. Their rules had forced me to focus on conditioning and learning how to stay on top of opponents. Jujitsu had taught me a new array of techniques. And then in MMA, where the rules had been removed, I was free to show who I had become.

It had been eight years since Seoul, but I believed I had received a stamp of endorsement from the most brutal combat sport that existed: I could make people submit to me.

On May 16, 1996, my happiness returned.

All that remained was for justice to be served.

—

D
u Pont’s first public words since the murder came two weeks after UFC IX, at his delayed arraignment.

Wearing a full, graying, unkempt beard—I thought he was trying to
look
insane—du Pont again claimed he did not understand the charges against him.

His attorney then asked John who he was.

“The Dalai Lama,” he told the court.

It had been slightly more than four months since Dave’s death, but finally a not guilty plea had been entered on du Pont’s behalf. At last, the case seemed to take a full step forward. The clock was now running for the defense team to declare if it would employ an insanity defense.

The Olympic wrestling medals were awarded on August 31 in Atlanta. The United States did not medal in Dave’s weight class. I couldn’t help but think that day about Dave’s dream of capping his comeback on that medal stand. He would have made it up there, too. No doubt.

Three weeks after the Olympics, the momentum of the commonwealth’s case against du Pont took a wrong turn. The judge, weighing the testimony of doctors from both sides and two lawyers whom du Pont had fired since the case began, ruled him incompetent for trial and ordered him sent to a state hospital for treatment. Within sixty days, doctors at the state hospital were to report if he could stand trial.

The prosecutors had argued that du Pont was faking his
incompetence in order to delay proceedings. I agreed. Du Pont had too long a history of manipulation to ignore.

The incompetency ruling dealt only with John’s perceived ability to help his lawyers prepare his defense, not his overall mental state. John had never stopped running his estate while in prison, including approving the purchase of a truck for the farm.

He had a fence topped with barbed wire put up around the estate, and a sign reading
FOXCATCHER P
RISON FARM
was erected. In my opinion, that was a desperate attempt on John’s part to turn his estate into a prison so he could return home to live out his life in the comfort of his estate.

Most interesting, though, was that relatives filed a civil lawsuit asking that du Pont be declared mentally incapacitated so that the family could gain guardianship of du Pont and control of his estate. In one court, John’s lawyers were claiming that he was not mentally able to help them with his case. Yet if the family’s lawsuit was not delayed, in another court, his lawyers would have to argue he was still capable of managing his property and money. That delay did occur.

Finally, in December, the judge ruled du Pont competent to stand trial in January. Lead defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom told the judge he planned to pursue a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.

That was a crucial statement because, according to research that multiple media outlets cited at the time, an insanity defense was used in less than 1 percent of felony cases. Of those, the strategy was successful only a fourth of the time.

But with two witnesses to the murder, the defense, in effect, had no other option.

The jury that would decide the case was selected in the next-to-last week of January. From a pool of seventy-five prospective jurors, six men and six women—predominantly middle-aged—were chosen. With the trial expected to last four weeks, six alternates were also chosen.

The insanity plea would boil down to one question for jurors to answer: At the time when John shot Dave, did he know that his actions were
wrong?

O
pening arguments began on Monday, January 27, 1997, in the courtroom of Delaware County Court Judge Patricia Jenkins. I did not attend the trial, receiving constant updates from my parents, friends such as Dan Chaid, and media coverage on the Internet.

During the preliminary hearings phase, the prosecution had asked me to testify about witnessing John use cocaine. At first, I didn’t want to. There were other wrestlers who had observed John do cocaine. I had been in Utah and hadn’t seen him on coke since 1989. I was also concerned that admitting I had done coke could cost me my job at BYU. Plus, I didn’t like the idea of possibly helping du Pont’s lawyers use some kind of diminished capacity reason for his actions.

I hired a lawyer who talked to the prosecutors and told them I did not want to testify.

The likelihood of the insanity defense changed things. Testimony about du Pont’s cocaine use would be needed to rebut the insanity defense.

I flew to Philadelphia and told prosecutors what I knew about du Pont’s drug use and about doing coke with John a few times in ’89. I was asked if I would testify and I said yes, knowing it could kill my career. But for some reason, the judge did not allow me to testify, and I was in Utah during the entire trial.

John wore a blue-and-yellow Foxcatcher sweatshirt and blue sweatpants the first day. He would wear the same outfit throughout the trail. Knowing his lack of hygiene all too well, I would guess that John probably wore the exact same outfit each day.

Dave’s wife was the first to testify, detailing what she witnessed of the murder. In cross-examination, the defense focused on one statement during her 911 call. Nancy had identified John as the shooter and when the 911 operator asked why du Pont would have shot Dave, she responded, “He’s insane.”

It had to be easy for the prosecution to counter that Nancy’s statement was far from a medical analysis, but it seemed early on that the defense would have to grasp at any little thing it could.

Of the prosecution’s witnesses, Pat Goodale was probably most scrutinized by the defense. He was the only person who heard John ask Dave, “You got a problem with me?” before the first shot—an important statement toward intent that admittedly warranted every attempt by the defense to attack Goodale’s credibility.

Joseph McGettigan, coprosecutor with Dennis McAndrews, used Goodale’s recounting of his time with du Pont in the thirty-five minutes or so before the shooting to establish that du Pont had been carrying on business as usual right up until he pointed his gun out of the car window.

Goodale had previously worked for a security firm du Pont had hired and returned to work for du Pont a few weeks before the murder because John had wanted a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on his tank. Bergstrom attempted to create the picture that Goodale, and his previous company, had taken advantage of du Pont’s wealth with needless expenses and excessive charges. Hey, everyone tried to take advantage of du Pont’s wealth. Even
wrestlers. I think one of the things that attracted John to wrestlers was that even though we were trying to survive financially, unlike most of the people around him, our greatest interest was in things of intrinsic value, not material.

Of course, with the insanity defense in play, the list of witnesses included a parade of psychiatrists, with four testifying for the defense and two for the prosecution. Defense psychiatrists testified that du Pont suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

Testimony ended on Thursday, February 13, after thirteen days in the courtroom. Following a long weekend, closing arguments were delivered on Tuesday, and the jury was handed the responsibility of deciding du Pont’s fate.

From what I had gathered, the prosecution laid out its case quite clearly. The defense had seemed to score its best points regarding du Pont’s cocaine use. Hair analysis tests—given as the reason for du Pont’s allowing his hair to grow out—indicated the likelihood that John had not used cocaine in the past fifteen months.

The prosecution needed du Pont’s cocaine use to help create an explanation other than insanity for his behavior. There were enough witnesses to prove du Pont had a cocaine habit, but the defense team was able to prevent prosecutors from connecting John to cocaine near enough to late January 1996 for drugs to be a determining factor in the murder.

The jury, which had not been sequestered to that point, was sequestered for the duration of deliberations.

As with any high-profile trial, every set of questions the jurors sent out for the judge to answer touched off a wave of speculation in the media about which way the jury seemed to be leaning. Deliberations lasted for seven days. For my parents, they were seven
long, stressful days of waiting, wondering what was going on in the jurors’ discussions, praying that justice would be served, and hoping that du Pont’s wealth had not gotten him off the hook one more time and that Dave’s murderer would suffer the consequences he deserved.

My parents had been there for the entire trial, but that final week was especially tough on both of them. It was tough on me in Utah, and I had the benefit of the “distraction,” so to speak, of working through my daily routine and coaching my team while wondering if at any moment someone would call to say a verdict was on its way. I at least had plenty to keep me busy. I can’t imagine what my parents went through being there, having to sit and wait.

The jury sent word to the judge that it had reached its verdict late in the afternoon on Tuesday, February 25. The courtroom was filled yet hushed when the verdict was read: The jury had determined that John du Pont was guilty of third-degree murder but mentally ill. He was also found guilty but mentally ill of the lesser charge of simple assault for pointing a gun at Pat Goodale. The jury decided du Pont was not guilty of the same charge for pointing his gun at Dave’s wife.

The “third-degree” part meant the jury found that du Pont had not intended to kill Dave. The “but mentally ill” part meant that the jurors believed the testimony of defense psychiatrists who called du Pont a paranoid schizophrenic. The verdict opened the possibility that du Pont would be treated for his mental illness in a state hospital before serving the rest of his sentence in prison.

That sentence could be as short as five years and as long as forty.

When I learned of the verdict, I experienced mixed emotions. The insanity defense had failed, so du Pont was legally responsible for the murder. He knew what he was doing each time he pulled the trigger and killed Dave. But at the same time, the “mentally ill” finding provided du Pont some leniency. I wanted du Pont in prison, not in a state hospital. More than that, I didn’t want him to enjoy one moment of freedom.

I wondered if the jury had decided to split the difference between first-degree murder and the insanity plea or involuntary manslaughter. The key ramification of their finding was that the penalty phase moved out of their hands and into the judge’s.

The day for sentencing came two and a half months later, on May 13. I was there that day to make my victim-impact statement.

I hadn’t seen John in person in years. His long, greasy hair and shaggy beard from the trial were gone; his hair was its customary short length and his beard was neatly trimmed. His teeth had been fixed, too. I heard that his lawyer claimed it cost nine thousand dollars for all the dental work John needed. But his apparent “I’m insane” act was still around.

John made eye contact with me one time, his head cocked back, just staring down his huge beak of a nose at me. His mouth was open like a fish gulping water and stayed open in that manner most of the time during the sentencing phase.

When it came to my turn to speak to the court, I shared how I had watched du Pont use cocaine and that I didn’t believe him to be insane. But I talked mostly about my brother and how great he was.

It wasn’t easy to sit up there and talk about Dave in that setting. I’m not typically a crier. The two times I have cried in public are at the memorial service and that day in the courtroom. I didn’t
try to prevent myself from crying, though. I knew that the more emotion I showed, the harsher du Pont’s penalty might be. I didn’t have to fake or exaggerate any emotions; they were real and plentiful. I just wanted to reveal on the outside what I was feeling on the inside.

Du Pont spoke before he was sentenced. He said he had been ill when he killed Dave. He said he was sorry for any inconvenience he caused to Dave’s wife and children.
Inconvenience?
He didn’t apologize to me or our parents. It was just as well, because I didn’t believe a word he said.

He knew that he was facing spending the rest of his life in prison. His money had bought him an outstanding defense team—Thomas Bergstrom probably won his client a lesser verdict that most attorneys would not have—but his money wasn’t going to benefit him now. His lack of ability had been the reason he had come up short of achieving his athletic dreams. Now how he would spend the rest of life came down to his ability to act as if he was sorry and place the blame on something other than who he truly was: a greedy manipulator who would do whatever it took to get whatever he wanted.

Judge Jenkins sentenced du Pont to thirteen to thirty years in prison for the murder of Dave and three to six months for the simple assault. John was fifty-eight at the time.

—

F
ollowing the sentencing, I returned to BYU. Provo had been a good place for me. My personal life had never been as stable as it was after I moved to Provo and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The city and university were pleasantly clean, and becoming a part of the LDS Church caused me to clean up my act. I also earned a master’s degree in exercise science at BYU, with a 3.7 GPA.

We had a good wrestling program building at BYU. When I became head coach in 1994, it was known that the program was in danger of being dropped by the school. In 1995, Rondo Fehlberg was hired as athletic director. Rondo had wrestled at BYU in the late ’60s and early ’70s. A three-time conference champion and once an All-American, Rondo was a member of BYU’s athletic Hall of Fame. Rondo was supportive of our program.

Our team improved each season. We also took care of business in the classroom: Three times, we had the highest grade-point average of any wrestling team in the nation; three other times, we had the second-highest. It was just pure luck I was there at the time. We had good kids in the program.

But a change in the university presidency during Rondo’s tenure eventually meant the end of our program. In 1999, the school announced it would phase out wrestling, along with gymnastics, over the next school year. The demands of meeting the standards of Title IX were cited as the reason, but the root existed in revenue shortages, because wrestling was a nonrevenue sport.

During that time, I also went through a difficult divorce. It was a long process in and out of courts that kept me from moving out of Utah until the divorce was settled. That prevented me from taking a wrestling job elsewhere in the country, although the number of available jobs continued to decrease.

As a result of the divorce, I lost my kids, my money, and the house I had built with my two hands. By that point, I couldn’t land a job interview with any university.

Losing my job and the divorce rocked my world, but I bounced back because I had proved to myself I had what it took to overcome adversity. I was a fighter.

Team Foxcatcher had been in decline even before Dave’s death and du Pont’s conviction. I don’t know the exact number, but at its peak in wrestling, there had been a few dozen wrestlers across the country representing du Pont’s team. At the time of the murder, I believe there were about fifteen wrestlers on the team, and I knew of only four still living and training at the farm.

Most of the remaining team members held a bonfire to burn their Team Foxcatcher uniforms after du Pont was arrested.

At the US Olympic trials in June 1996, less than five months after Dave’s death, a few wrestlers were still being funded by du Pont and wore their Team Foxcatcher gear, outraging members of the team who had left because of the murder.

“Throw that Foxcatcher guy out of there!” Dan Chaid yelled during one of the wrestler’s matches.

Coach Dan Gable told the media he had advised the wrestlers not to wear the gear. One Foxcatcher wrestler claimed he wore his singlet to honor Dave and put it away after the first round.

Brian Dolph, who had been at Foxcatcher with Dave, had Dave’s initials tattooed on the underside of one of his arms. Whenever that arm was raised in victory, Dave’s initials would be displayed. Other former team members wrestled with black patches on their singlets.

USA Wrestling created grants to temporarily aid wrestlers who had been funded by du Pont. Dave’s widow formed the Dave Schultz Wrestling Club largely to help former Foxcatcher wrestlers continue competing, including ’96 Olympic gold medalist Kurt
Angle. In 1999, she won a wrongful death lawsuit settlement against du Pont. The amount was not disclosed, but media reports called it the largest ever paid by one person in the United States. The wrestling club remained in existence until 2005.

All throughout wrestling, steps were taken to honor Dave’s memory and recognize his contributions to the sport.

The Dave Schultz National High School Excellence Award was established by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame to annually honor the country’s outstanding high school senior wrestler. Dave’s name was added to the Most Outstanding Wrestler Award presented each year at the California high school state championships. The recipient received a trophy with Dave’s image etched in glass.

USA Wrestling created the annual Dave Schultz Memorial International tournament at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. The tournament still attracts the top international freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestlers in the world.

In 1997, Dave was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma, an honor I had received two years earlier. In 2010, I had the thrill of standing alongside Alexander and Danielle as Dave and I were inducted together into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame. We were introduced as the best wrestling brothers the United States has ever produced.