Opening 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.
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Following 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.
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Du Pont first came up for parole in December 2009. After sentencing, he had spent three months receiving treatment at a state hospital before being transferred to a state prison for the duration of his sentence.
I called his prison once to ask what kind of living conditions he had there. I was told he was in an eight-foot by ten-foot cell with another prisoner. He was in a special wing, with older prisoners on one side of the block and child molesters on the other. Those were the two groups of prisoners most likely to be abused by the general population, so they were kept in a more secure area. What an idiot du Pont must have been to trade tens of millions of dollars for that kind of existence.
During the trial, I didn’t agree with testimony that du Pont was paranoid schizophrenic. I didn’t like that the prosecutors accepted the diagnosis, either. My analysis of du Pont was that he was an evil, selfish drug addict. But now I agree that John was mentally ill. He was not insane as his lawyers claimed, but I recognize that he did have a sickness.
When John became eligible for parole, I wrote a letter to the parole board requesting that his bid be denied. I didn’t think they would let him out, but with what he could do with his money, you just could never be too sure about anything regarding John.
He earlier had hired a private investigator to come to my house in Utah and ask if I would be willing to help John get out of prison. I opened the door with a video camera rolling and asked the private investigator what he wanted. When he told me, I shut the door and sent the video to the Delaware County prosecutor’s office.
Du Pont was denied parole.
On Thursday, December 9, 2010, I received word that John had passed away. He was found early that morning in his cell, unresponsive. John had been receiving treatment for severe emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was seventy-two when he died.
In accordance with instructions in his will, du Pont was buried in a red Foxcatcher wrestling singlet. Eighty percent of his estate was bequeathed to Valentin Jordanov and members of Valentin’s family.
Du Pont’s death was a nonevent for me. I think my dad said it best when he told a reporter that as far as he was concerned, John had died the day he killed Dave.
There was a bit of a feeling for me that John’s dying meant there was one thing fewer to think about. I had considered that if he ever did get out of prison, he might put out a hit on someone in our family.
But other than that, I didn’t care about John.
He had taken my brother and my career from me, but I had found my ultimate victory over John in 1996 when I won in UFC.
Du Pont underestimated me as a fighter. He never gave me enough credit for who I was, for how tough I was. John is dead now, though. He is a part of my past that I have died to.
But still, sometimes when I’m thinking about my brother, remembering the good times we experienced together, the adversity we battled to overcome, both together and on our own, when I’m regretting that Dave can’t be here to be proud of what I have become, I catch myself thinking about his murderer, too.
And I wish John du Pont had never lived.