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UYD Obituaries

John du Pont, 72

John E. du Pont, an heir to the DuPont Co. chemical fortune who was known as a generous if eccentric patron of amateur wrestling before he inexplicably shot and killed Olympic gold medalist Dave Schultz in 1996, died Dec. 9. He was 72.

He called the wrestlers he supported "Team Foxcatcher" and envisioned them filling the roster of the 1996 U.S. Olympic wrestling team. They lived and trained at the 14,000-square-foot facility he built on his property in Pennsylvania.

On Jan. 26, 1996, Mr. du Pont drove to the guesthouse where Schultz was living with his wife and two children. The heir fired three shots from a .38-caliber handgun out the window of his Lincoln Town Car. Schultz lay in the driveway, dying in his wife's arms.

Among other things: he drove 2 brand new Lincoln Town Cars into a pond back-to-back, believed he was the Dalai Lama of the United States, had razor wire installed in his walls, evicted all three black wrestlers from his property, blew up a family of foxes, and founded and ran the Villanova wrestling program in 1986 only to have it dismantled two years later on the grounds that he fired an assistant head coach for not wanting to be his gay lover.

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