Charged man ‘spaced out’

Press, 1 April 1981, Page 1

Charged man ‘spaced out’

John W. Hinckley, jum, (above), aged24,acollege drop-out who ;has* been charged with- shooting .Mr Reagan, was- 'recently.; under psychiatric care, his • shocked ,family said • yesterday. Hinckley’s •’ parents said, ; “John : has been under repaint psychiatric care. 'lte evaluation did not alert, tis to the seriousness ofyfais condition.” f, '. . This family made no. wfj•. erenCe to the nature of Hinckley’s psychiatric problems but a ' local pawnshop manager,* MF Jonathan Morris,' Who had ; been in touch with 1 him recently said, “He seemed spaced out but not J.oft? drugs.”- -H'iß Mr Morris said' Riat Hinckley /. had come into his shop m Denver to inquire about buying a gun _ -earlier tliis month but he, had hot' made a purchase, pawning his guitar and his typewriter for $5O instead, The; police; in Washington said after the shooting that the .22 calibre pistol used in the shooting had been bought by Hinckley from a pawn .shop in Dallas last October 13, 1 four days after his arrest in Nashville while thehPresident Carter was in that city. An F. 8.1. spokesman said that: Hinckley bad been arrested by airport police in Nashville after trying to board an aircraft with three hand guns in a bag. He had been fined $62. . Hinckley yesterday was formally charged with attempting to assassinate Mr Reagan and with assaulting a Secret Service officer. He was remanded in custody to tomorrow. Hinckley faces a prison term of up: to 10 years

and » sl9»Wo:.fine assault charge and up to, life- imprisonment S for, #• tempting .to assassinate, the President ■ -.■/<>•■ < Friwids of tttejfafnlly have described Hinckley as a misfit in a success- ; orientated, family/ s His father, John -W. Hinckley, sen., is the president of the Vanderbilt Energy Company, ian, oilexploration firm that? last tear, did business valued at $4.8 million. Hinckley’s brother, Scott, a. vice-pres-ident of - the firm, once described him to a friend as “a renegade”. Young Hinckley did . poorly;; in ; school. and attended the Toxas Technical College for-seven years without receiving a degree. > In.' an ■ application■;. for work at the “Rocky Mountain News” in Den- . ver he ; said: that he.was <a graduate of the college and also said that he had studied creative writing at' Yale University. He listed his hobbies in the application as “sports, reading, and politics” although acquaintances said that they knew of no political actlv-' ities in which he was involved. - . A teacher, Mr Bill Lierman, . who knew Hinckley, as a member of Dallas’s Highland Park High School rodeo club, described the youth as quiet but likeable. Hinckley’s parents said that they were “grieved and heartbroken” by their . son’s arrest but that they loved their troubled child and would stand by . him. Policemen ’ stood guard at the Hlnckleys’ luxurious twwstorey home'. in • the affluent Denver mountain suburb of Evergreen as reporters and photographers flocked there.