John Hinckley Jr.

• 1. Introduction

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  John Hinckley Jr. stood among several hundred onlookers outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., at 2:27 in the afternoon on the 30th of March 1981, carrying a revolver. Ronald Reagan had been president for only two months. When Reagan stepped out of the hotel, Hinckley fired every bullet in the gun toward him. Hinckley said he did it to win the attention of an actress who had never answered him. How did a young man from a wealthy Texas oil family reach that sidewalk? Why did a jury decide that he was not guilty, and how did public fury over that verdict change American law? And what did the following decades look like for a man who spent most of them inside a psychiatric hospital before walking free?

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• 2. A Drifting Son

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  John Warnock Hinckley Jr. was born on the 29th of May 1955 in Ardmore, Oklahoma. His family moved to Dallas, Texas, when he was four years old. His father, John Sr., founded the Vanderbilt Energy Corporation and served as its chairman, chief executive officer and president. His mother was Jo Ann Hinckley, born Jo Ann Moore.

  Hinckley grew up in University Park, Texas, and attended Highland Park High School in Dallas County. He graduated in 1973. The family company then set up new headquarters in Evergreen, Colorado, and the Hinckleys moved there. From 1974 to 1980 he enrolled at Texas Tech University on and off, and he never finished a degree.

  In 1975 he traveled to Los Angeles, hoping to make his name as a songwriter. It did not work out. His letters home told stories of bad luck and asked for money. He also described a girlfriend named Lynn Collins, who turned out to be invented. In September 1976 he went back to his parents' house in Evergreen.

  His family's money also tied him to a political rumor. John Sr. had financially backed George H.W. Bush in 1980, when Bush was Reagan's chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination. Hinckley's older brother Scott, a vice president at the family oil company, was due at dinner at Neil Bush's home the day after the shooting. Roger Stone, an author and conservative political consultant, has used that link to feed conspiracy theories.

  As the 1970s ended, Hinckley began buying guns and practicing with them. Doctors prescribed him antidepressants and tranquilizers for his emotional troubles. By then he had found a movie that gave his private world a plot.

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• 3. The Movie and the Actress

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  Martin Scorsese's 1976 film Taxi Driver became the center of Hinckley's inner life. Its disturbed hero, Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, plans to kill a presidential candidate. The character drew partly on the diaries of Arthur Bremer, who attempted to assassinate George Wallace. Hinckley fixated on Iris, a 12-year-old girl trafficked for sex, played by Jodie Foster. He started dressing and behaving like Bickle.

  When Foster enrolled at Yale University, Hinckley moved for a short time to New Haven, Connecticut, to stalk her. His parents had paid for him to take a writing course at Yale. He never signed up. He lived on the money while mailing Foster love letters and poems and phoning her again and again to leave messages.

  He could not get any real contact with her. In his fantasies he considered hijacking an airplane, or killing himself in front of her, to force her to notice him. He settled instead on assassinating a president. In his reasoning, a place in history would make him her equal. During the 1980 campaign he followed President Jimmy Carter from state to state. At a rally in Dayton, Ohio, he got within 20 feet of Carter.

  On the 9th of October 1980, Carter visited Nashville, Tennessee, and so did Hinckley. Police arrested him at Nashville International Airport as he tried to board a flight to New York. His carry-on luggage held handcuffs and three unloaded guns. Officers confiscated the weapons and handcuffs, fined him $50 plus court costs, and let him go the same day.

  From Nashville he flew to Dallas. On the 13th of October he bought more guns at a pawn shop there. One was the .22 caliber Röhm RG-14 revolver he would use five months later. The $3,600 his parents had given him was gone, and he returned home with no money. He then underwent four months of psychiatric treatment for depression, which did not improve his mental state.

  In 1981 his target became the newly elected Reagan. Hinckley gathered material on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. On the 20th of January 1981, Inauguration Day, he stood outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, where Reagan attended a service before taking office. An officer who had seen him there later recognized him.

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• 4. Six Bullets

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  A Greyhound bus carried Hinckley from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., where he arrived on the 29th of March 1981 and spent the night in a hotel. The next morning he read a newspaper and learned Reagan's schedule. That afternoon the president would speak to an AFL-CIO conference at the Hilton Hotel. Hinckley used the morning to write to Jodie Foster. In the letter he said:

  "Over the past seven months I've left you dozens of poems, letters and love messages in the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone a couple of times I never had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself.... The reason I'm going ahead with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you."

  He then took a taxi to the Hilton.

  The first of his six shots critically wounded White House Press Secretary James Brady. The second hit police officer Thomas Delahanty. The third missed. The fourth struck Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, who had deliberately placed himself in the line of fire to protect Reagan. The fifth hit the armored glass of the presidential limousine. The sixth ricocheted off the side of the car and lodged in Reagan's chest, wounding him seriously.

  Bystanders and agents acted within moments. Alfred Antenucci, a labor official from Cleveland, Ohio, standing close by, struck Hinckley in the head and dragged him down. Within two seconds, Secret Service agent Dennis McCarthy, who was unrelated to Timothy McCarthy, threw himself on top of Hinckley. His aim was to keep the gunman alive, so that he would not suffer the fate of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was killed before facing trial for Kennedy's death. Frank J. McNamara, another labor official from the Cleveland area, joined in and punched Hinckley hard enough to draw blood.

  Brady faced a long recovery and stayed paralyzed on his left side. He died on the 4th of August 2014. The medical examiner attributed the death to the "gunshot wound and consequences thereof" and ruled it a homicide. No charge followed. A jury had already acquitted Hinckley of the shooting, and the District of Columbia's year and a day rule barred prosecution for a death occurring more than 33 years afterward.

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• 5. The Battle of the Experts

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  Marine Corps Base Quantico was Hinckley's first stop in custody, and there he met his defense lawyer, Vincent J. Fuller. Officials soon moved him to the Federal Correctional Complex at Butner. Over four months, both prosecution and defense psychiatrists interviewed him. He tried to kill himself twice in custody, in May and again in November 1981.

  The prosecution stressed planning. Hinckley had bought a gun, followed Reagan, traveled to Washington, left a note describing his plan, chosen especially destructive ammunition and fired six times. The defense countered that his obsession with Foster showed he was legally insane. Because the case was in federal court, prosecutors carried the burden of proving his sanity beyond a reasonable doubt. Most of the trial became a contest between psychiatric experts.

  William T. Carpenter, testifying for the defense for three days, diagnosed schizophrenia. He argued that Hinckley had merged several figures from fiction and real life into himself, including Travis Bickle and John Lennon. Carpenter concluded that Hinckley could not emotionally grasp the wrongness of what he did, because he was consumed by the prospect of a "magical unification with Jodie Foster".

  David Bear, also for the defense, described Hinckley's conduct as following "the very opposite of logic" and saw no sign of faking. He pointed to a CAT scan of Hinckley's brain that showed widened sulci. Bear said that feature appears in about one-third of people with schizophrenia but only two percent of people without it. Ernest Prelinger told the court that Hinckley had an above-average IQ but scored highly abnormally on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Only one person in a million with that score, Prelinger said, would not be seriously mentally ill.

  Park Dietz, testifying for the prosecution, diagnosed dysthymia and three personality disorders: narcissistic, schizoid, and a mixed type with borderline and passive-aggressive features. None of these, he found, made Hinckley legally insane. His report stated there was "no evidence that Hinckley was so impaired that he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or conform his conduct to the requirements of the law". Sally Johnson, a psychiatrist at the federal prison, had interviewed Hinckley more than any other doctor. She stressed that he had planned the shooting and craved fame. In her view his interest in Foster was no different from any young man's interest in a movie star.

  The judge told the jurors to apply a test taken from the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code. Under it, the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt one of two things. Either Hinckley had no mental disease or defect on the 30th of March 1981, or he still had substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct and to conform it to the law. The jury deliberated for 24 hours over four days. On the 21st of June 1982, it found him not guilty by reason of insanity on all 13 charges.

  Soon afterward Hinckley wrote that the shooting was "the greatest love offering in the history of the world". He was disappointed that Foster did not return his love.

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• 6. The Law Bends

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  Fewer than two percent of American felony cases had involved an insanity defense before Hinckley's trial, and almost 75 percent of those attempts failed. The test used in his case dated from 1962, when the Model Penal Code widened the older M'Naghten rule. By 1981-10 of the 11 federal circuits and a majority of states had adopted it.

  Public anger at the verdict reversed that trend. Congress and a number of states passed laws making the defense harder to use. Congress turned down the Model Penal Code test, and by 2006 only 14 states still used it. Eighty percent of the insanity-defense reforms enacted between 1978 and 1990 came soon after the Hinckley verdict. Many of the new laws also moved the burden of proof onto the defendant.

  The Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 was the first time Congress set one insanity standard for every federal criminal trial. It dropped the Model Penal Code's volitional element and kept a purely cognitive test. A defendant had to show that, because of a severe mental disease or defect, he was "unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts". Idaho, Kansas, Montana and Utah went further and abolished the defense entirely.

  The case also brought the "guilty but mentally ill" verdict into wider use. It is generally reserved for defendants whose illness did not impair them enough to count as insanity. Such a defendant typically receives the same sentence as one found plainly guilty, but the label opens the door to medical evaluation and treatment. Studies suggest jurors often like it as a compromise.

  Rules of evidence shifted too. Federal courts and some states now limit or bar expert witnesses from stating conclusions on the "ultimate" question of whether a defendant is legally insane. Most states, however, have not adopted that restriction.

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• 7. Hospital to Freedom

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  St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., became Hinckley's home after the verdict. Tests on admission found him "unpredictably dangerous", a man who might harm himself or others. In 1983 he told Penthouse that a typical day meant he would "see a therapist, answer mail, play guitar, listen to music, play pool, watch television, eat lousy food and take delicious medication". In 1985 his parents published Breaking Points, a book about their son's mental condition.

  Around 1986, Hinckley and the hospital began pursuing conditional releases, each needing a judge's approval. The Reagan family often spoke against them. That year a judge refused to move him to a less restrictive ward. In 1987 the hospital asked for a 12-hour unescorted Easter pass so he could see his parents. Glenn Miller, who had first evaluated him, testified that he did not believe Hinckley was suicidal or a danger to Foster, Reagan or Brady.

  Miller also disclosed that Hinckley had written to the serial killer Ted Bundy, tried to get Charles Manson's address, and received a letter from Manson follower Lynette Fromme. The hospital withdrew the request for "administrative" reasons while insisting its clinical view had not changed. A fresh request for more privileges in 1992 was later withdrawn too. Even so, St. Elizabeths gradually allowed supervised trips outside the hospital.

  In 2003, Hinckley won court approval for his first release plan: six local day visits with his parents, then two overnight visits if those went well. On the 17th of June 2009, Judge Friedman allowed a dozen 10-day visits to his mother and a driver's license. He had to carry a GPS-enabled cell phone outside her home and could not speak to the news media. Prosecutors objected that he still posed a danger and had unhealthy thoughts about women. They cited a song he recorded, "Ballad of an Outlaw", which they said reflected "suicide and lawlessness".

  His lawyer filed a petition on the 29th of March 2011, the day before the 30th anniversary of the shooting, seeking more unsupervised time at his mother's Virginia home. At a hearing on the 30th of November, the Justice Department argued that Hinckley had deceived doctors before and remained dangerous. By December 2013 the court had approved up to eight 17-day visits to his mother, who lived near Williamsburg, each followed by an evaluation.

  On the 27th of July 2016, a federal judge ruled that he was no longer a threat to himself or others and could leave St. Elizabeths. Patti Davis, one of Reagan's daughters, and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump both condemned the decision. He left institutional care on the 10th of September 2016, bound by many conditions. He had to live full time with his mother in Williamsburg, work at least three days a week and record his browser history. He could not contact the Reagan, Brady or Foster families, watch or listen to violent media, view pornography or talk to the press.

  In November 2018, Judge Friedman let him live on his own, once his doctors approved the location. A federal judge approved unconditional release on the 27th of September 2021, to take effect in June 2022. Michael Reagan, the president's son, backed the ruling, while Davis again opposed it. On the 15th of June 2022 all court restrictions on Hinckley ended. In an interview with CBS that month, he said he felt remorse and apologized to the Reagan and Brady families and to Jodie Foster.

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• 8. Songs and Screens

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  The punk band Jodie Foster's Army, from Phoenix, Arizona, formed in 1981 and took its name from the assassination attempt. Its self-titled song referred to Hinckley. The Ohio new wave band Devo recorded "I Desire" for its 1982 album Oh, No! It's Devo, using lyrics lifted straight from a Hinckley poem. That caused controversy, and Hinckley says he has never been paid royalties. The Lansing, Michigan, band the Crucifucks released "Hinkley Had a Vision" in 1984, expressing a wish to kill the president. Wall of Voodoo's 1985 song "Far Side of Crazy" took its title from a line in his poetry. Carmaig de Forest gave Hinckley a verse of "Hey Judas", blaming him for lifting Reagan's popularity. The Detroit band Majesty Crush drew "No. 1 Fan" (1992) from his obsession with Foster.

  Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's 1990 musical Assassins includes Hinckley as a character. In "Unworthy of Your Love" he and Lynette Fromme sing a duet about their fixations on Foster and Charles Manson. Andrea Kleine's 2015 novel Calf fictionalizes his life before the shooting and invents a version of Leslie deVeau, a former girlfriend he met at St. Elizabeths Hospital. On television and film, Steven Flynn played him in Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1991), and Christian Lloyd in The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001). Kevin Woodhouse took the part in The Reagans (2003), Kyle S. More in Killing Reagan (2016), Erik Stocklin in the series Timeless (2018) and Lauden Baker in the film Reagan (2024).

  The punk singer GG Allin was arrested by the US Secret Service in Illinois in September 1989 after writing to Hinckley. Agents discovered Allin had an outstanding warrant for assault in Michigan. A skit on The Whitest Kids U' Know satirized Reagan's presidency with a fictional Hinckley. In the 2006 American Dad! episode "The Best Christmas Story Never Told", Stan Smith travels to 1970 and persuades Martin Scorsese to give up drugs, so Taxi Driver is never made. Without the shooting, the episode imagines Reagan losing the 1984 election to Walter Mondale.

  Hinckley's own music took a long road. After his early failure to make it as a songwriter, he later posted songs online anonymously and drew little interest. In October 2020 a federal court ruled that he could display and sell his art, writing and music under his own name, though his treatment team could take that privilege away. Since December 2020 his YouTube channel has carried videos of him with a guitar, playing original songs and covers such as Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love".

  In January 2022 he said he was looking for bandmates. On the day his restrictions ended, a planned Brooklyn, New York, show, which would have been his first live performance before an audience, was canceled. The venue cited security concerns for "vulnerable communities" after it received threats. Three concerts planned for that summer, in Chicago, Hamden, Connecticut, and Williamsburg, Virginia, were also called off because of threats. In July 2022, Asbestos Records agreed to press some of his songs on vinyl, and the album came out on the 12th of July 2023.

  After his release he also took up painting, using his pet cat as a model. By May 2023 he had sold several pieces on eBay. In December 2024 he announced a music store in Williamsburg, Virginia, but dropped the plan quickly because of negative publicity and security worries. In 2025, Wild Blue Press published his autobiography, John Hinckley Jr.: Who I Really Am, covering his upbringing, the shooting, his trial and his release.

  Hinckley still comments on public events. After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July 2024, he posted, "Violence is not the way to go. Give peace a chance." In April 2026, after a shooting connected to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, he criticized the lack of security at the Washington Hilton. He called it "spooky" that it happened at the same hotel as his own attack.

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