Du Pont Psychotic, Judge Rules Suspect In Wrestler’s Murder Goes To Hospital, Not Prison

Chemical heir John E. du Pont, who claims to be Jesus, the Dalai Lama and the last of the Romanovs, was pronounced a psychotic Tuesday and ruled incompetent to stand trial in the slaying of an Olympic wrestler.

Common Pleas Judge Patricia Jenkins ordered du Pont committed to a mental hospital, where he will be examined every three months. He can eventually be brought to trial if doctors conclude he can help with his own defense and understand the murder charges he faces in the Jan. 26 shooting of Dave Schultz.

During a three-day hearing, four doctors and two former du Pont lawyers said the 57-year-old millionaire believes he is the Dalai Lama, the Christ child, the heir to Hitler’s Third Reich and the last surviving heir to the Russian throne.

They said he believes that assassins have targeted him, that Republicans killed Schultz and that the CIA considers him its top consultant.

Prosecutors, however, noted du Pont signed his own name - not the Dalai Lama or the Christ child - on contracts with his lawyers. And jail workers testified he showed no psychosis in prison, answered to “John” and received coaching from his lawyers.

Schultz, 36, was living with his wife and two children on du Pont’s estate outside Philadelphia while training and coaching at a sports complex there. After the shooting, du Pont, an avid gun collector, holed up in his mansion for two days before police captured him.

After du Pont’s arrest, relatives, neighbors and wrestlers said he apparently had been suffering from delusions for years. They said he once tore up his mattress to get animals out, cut off pieces of his skin to get rid of “bugs from outer space” and thought Nazis lurked in his trees.

He was accused of pointing a gun at a wrestler on his estate, and a neighbor said he once drove two Lincoln Continentals into a pond.