Original subtitles

This is going down the main drive of the DuPont Estate.

There's horses on both sides all over the place.

This main drive is just so pretty.

And this is up to the top of the hill.

And actually...

If you take a left here and take this road, right down this road, it leads to

our house.

There's our sweet old house. And we've had a lot of fun here.

There's a lot of people here that are concerned about your welfare.

You're a well-respected man, as far as I know, and I'd like to help you with

this.

No deal.

No deal?

I'm sorry, no deal.

We have to discuss.

I don't want to talk about your diplomatic favor. We have to discuss the

man who shot was killed on your property yesterday.

You have no right to tell the interstate what to do.

Keep skipping over the issue. We have to get to the issue at hand.

I'm not leaving this house right for the moment until I'm through.

The John E. DuPont story begins here in the rolling woodland of Pennsylvania on

a 1,000-acre estate that the DuPont family have called home for three

-quarters of a century.

Nestling among the trees are the purpose-built headquarters of Team

Foxcatcher.

Team Foxcatcher was the brainchild of John DuPont approximately 30 years ago.

In that time, John supported swimming, triathlon, pentathlon.

and many number of athletes in all their endeavors to be world and Olympic

champions.

My goal is to teach the youth of America

not only to become champions in sport, but to become champions

in life.

Thank you.

I'd like to draw your attention to the double doors where most of you entered,

where Mr. John DuPont will do the official ribbon cutting.

Let me congratulate John DuPont on his constant, everlasting,

generous philanthropy.

The DuPont family in the Philadelphia area is the equivalent of our royal

family, so to speak, and he was the prince.

In my younger days, I saw John for the first time walking down the pool deck.

It was like, there's the picture of someone who's fit, athletic, healthy,

vibrant, and, you know, seemed like a guy who had a passion for life and doing

good things for people.

I was like, wow, you know, that's the guy I want to be someday.

He created the sports program on the farm, developed all these facilities,

and then, you know, he discovered wrestling.

I don't remember really why John became as interested in wrestling as he did.

I know his mother was very much against it.

He tried it when he was a kid, you know, in high school.

And part of it, I think, was rebellion.

Because wrestling was one of those sports that his parents didn't want him

to do.

Wrestling is a sport for ruffians. Wrestling is a sport for the underclass.

John really wanted to be a part of it, be a part of that culture, which, you

know, those guys are tough.

David Schultz, 1983 world champion, 84 Olympic champion,

seven-time national champion. A wealth of experience out there on the mat, Mark

Scott.

It's like if wrestling's the game, Dave Schultz was the player.

Dave really just embodied the spirit of the sport.

Yeah, Dave was different.

I mean, he was sort of a hippie.

hippie wrestler it was weird really

what's the other one we do

palm trees it

was

just an unbelievable adventure living around dave when i first met him i

asked him what do you do and he's like guy russell and i remember going to his

room and i'm seeing these trophies like world trophies and pictures of the

soviet union and all this i'm like wait a minute you don't just wrestle you're

really good he's like yeah i like it basically

our focus became his his success in wrestling and i was okay with that i

wanted to be a partner in that process so all of a sudden we were all over the

world dave's up for training

I'm going to get one more run in. He's going to run up that hill he just filmed

from.

You know, Dave was kind of this guy that used to hobble along, the goofy grin and

the shuffle and kind of the little handshake.

Before he stepped out to rest, he would look like, this guy's like 80 years old

and can barely walk.

And then you stepped out on the mat with him and saw those two different sides to

his persona.

you know it's a pretty interesting human being

super mellow unassuming underdressed

always but you know a genius freak when it came to wrestling you know and you

ask him any question you wanted about wrestling and he could give you 10

different answers that all were effective solutions to whatever problem

you had and that rolls your leg off the shoulder

Get his legs off me by dropping this leg out and throw him one off with his foot,

turn belly down, and he's dust.

Oh, is it working?

Hey, violent violence here. The violent violence here in Russia.

They loved Russia.

I think he just really appreciated the culture.

Because they're passionate about wrestling.

You know, Dave was passionate about wrestling.

You know, and of course, Dave kind of learned the language a little bit so he

can kind of communicate with them.

And he was, you know, picking their brains.

Dave learned how to speak Russian because he wanted to hear what the

Russian coaches were saying.

Because, you know, they're the best coaches in the world. What are they

saying?

Russia's got like 40, 50 world championships.

They only started in the 50s.

But once they started, They were dominant.

That brings the team's score now to 11-9 in favor of the Soviet Union over the

United States.

The problem with wrestling in the United States was that when our guys got to a

certain age level, they had to drop out of the sport in order to support their

families.

Whereas the foreign countries in Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries, it was a

career for those guys. And so it put us at a huge disadvantage.

I wanted the US to beat the Russians.

All those years I had coached, we were second, second, second.

We just couldn't get over the hump to beat the Soviets.

But then John and Foxcatcher came into the picture and changed it.

He was introduced as a philanthropist that was interested in supporting and

helping wrestling in a time when we really, really needed the help at USA

Wrestling financially.

And so John started providing a stipend to USA

Wrestling. And that was part of the deal. But the real deal was the farm.

What do you think about life on the farm with John DuPont?

It's very nice out here. I like it a lot.

What are they building over there? Oh, they're building a new wrestling room.

Oh, that's good.

Do you like wrestling?

Yes, I love it. I love it. I love it. It's really fun.

Here's the new building.

It's shaping up pretty well.

John started inviting individuals one at a time to come live in the houses and

paid them a salary to be on his team.

First time I met John, he said, come on out to Pennsylvania as soon as you can.

You know, I want you to see the farm and see the facilities. And, you know, I'd

like to talk to you about coming out there.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just landed in Philadelphia.

Welcome. We hope you have a pleasant stay.

And please fly us again soon.

Flew into Philly. He had a limo pick me up, which I thought was pretty amazing.

Took me to the farm, dropped me off, and, of course, you come onto the farm,

and it's pretty much overwhelming.

I didn't know much about DuPonts themselves, you know, the family and

their history, but it sure wakes you up quickly with, wow, we're talking some

serious wealth here.

2,000 acres of just rolling, rolling scenery.

Robbie's running with the horses. Am I winning?

He's winning.

Here we are at the training center of Foxcatcher.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho, off to Russell we go.

They built this million-dollar wrestling facility on the thing.

Three 50-by-50 mats, and there was a weight room and a locker room and

offices. I mean, it was amazing.

This is the training room. This is our trainer, Dave.

Hi, Dan's friends.

Everyone Dan knows.

Yeah.

You know, I asked for expenses to be paid for training and then a place to

live. He said, yeah, here you go. That was it.

Not like when I was at Arizona State and I'm digging under my floor mats in my

old van looking for quarters so I can buy a Big Mac on a coupon, two for one,

buck 25.

Now, it's kind of whatever you want.

It's John's philosophy that if he can do away with some of the hindrances that

these athletes have, then they can concentrate on training.

I believe with John's continued support that one day the U.S. will be the number

one wrestling power in the world.

We never had an opportunity like that in wrestling.

And so we thought, well, this is it. This is what we need to be the best.

This is going to be real hard.

John started telling me he's going to bring in the best wrestlers in the

world, the best coaches in the world.

I really didn't believe him at first.

He was telling me he was going to bring Dave Schultz in.

And I said, really?

As soon as he said that, I said, okay, I'm in.

I

picked

up the telephone one day and I called Palo Alto, California.

And I got Dave Schultz on the telephone.

Dave just thought it was an unbelievable idea. He saw that this guy, this DuPont

guy, had been funding some swimming and some other events, and he thought, well,

maybe we have an opportunity here to grow our sport.

My name is Dave Schultz. My involvement here at Fox Catchers is as an athlete.

I train here. I work with DuPont and Humphrey. They put a training program

together for me, and I also assist in other ways.

help out with athletes, coaching, and that's about it.

What are the long-range goals for Dave Schultz looking toward the next year or

two?

I want to be the world champion in 1991 and the Olympic champion in 1992.

And then I want to quit.

Before all my hair falls out.

John wanted to be the face of the program, but you know what? He was the

money.

Dave was really the charisma, the character, the person that attracted

everybody around the world to Foxcatcher.

World champion, Valentin Jordanov.

We had a tremendously pleasant surprise this year when Valentin Jordanov agreed

to leave Bulgaria and come and join Team Foxcatcher for a couple of years.

Hi, my name Valentin Giordano.

Team Fast Catcher is good friend.

Okay.

Valo was amazing athlete.

First time he got on top of me, he just grabbed me, picked me up off the mat.

I'm going, holy shit, this guy's a little guy. How did, that can't happen.

This guy's special.

Dave and

Valo became very close

friends as well. You know, they had a common bond. Dave could speak Russian

and Valo didn't necessarily speak the greatest English.

Let's see what the guys are up to here. Oh, there's Yancho and Alexander, the

Bulgarian and the American, playing naked together in the morning.

It

was

our own community.

You know, Dave was kind of like the main house because, you know, I look at

Alexander and Danny and Nancy as family.

Yep. Danny.

Danny Rose, hi. You helping, Mom?

Xander's helping.

Oh, we're all helping. Isn't that swell?

Here's my house.

It's a quiet little spot.

You know, there were several houses on the farm that had...

people living in those houses, and they were all wrestlers.

And so I'd get out there and go from one house to the next house and hang out and

talk and party.

Who's that coming out of there?

Oh, it's the dog.

Once Fox Kitchen was created, I mean, once people came and everybody started

training together, it truly was a sports utopia.

These families and athletes, it was something you only dream of.

Yes, all right.

Into the tree.

Oh, sweet.

You know, what he's done for all the guys on the team, there's really no way

we can ever thank him except for just saying thank you, you know, and we

really have a lot of affection for him, and he's become one of our best friends

over the years that we've known him, and that's a real important part of it, you

know, the friendship that he has with all of his athletes.

For the first time in the history of wrestling in the United States, We had

athletes who could stay with the sport longer because they could afford to do

it.

In

order

to fulfill your dream, you must first have the dream.

That's my dream.

It's for America to be the best of the best.

That's a big piece of ice.

Hey,

do

you have anything to say on film?

If I try too hard to do something, I foul it up.

It's like a person when they wrestle. If they try to do something right, they'll

foul up the move.

If they do it instinctively, they'll get it right.

And score on their opponent.

Much to your surprise.

So you get stuff like that from me, just off the cap that you can use and things

like that.

That's right.

I know that.

That's why I continued on.

I'm very quick that way. I can do that.

Just let me, if I were to ramble on, you'd get all sorts of stuff.

The conversation about John being eccentric

was always out front.

You know, John is a little different.

There's no doubt about it, you know.

Does that mean he's a bad guy?

A lot of the things he did were weird.

One day, we hear that he ended up in the pond with his car.

Everyone thought that he just was going too fast, ended up in the pond.

The car company that he had bought it from gave him a loaner, and the next

day, he had a high-up official in wrestling.

He told him to get in the back seat, and he did the exact same thing, drove the

thing into the pond.

Why?

Who the heck knows?

Now, certainly, that was an abnormal behavior, and we all saw it, and we

thought, man, isn't that funny? You know, he drove his car into the lake,

brand-new Lincoln.

Oh, my gosh, look at that.

Merry Christmas, Robbie.

Hey there, Robbie.

Hey, Merry Christmas.

Go fast.

Wrestle hard.

He just had two sides sometimes where, you know, there was the normal John and

then there's the John that's just, you know, you don't know what you're going

to get that day and people would walk on pins and needles not knowing what to

expect.

Excuse me, sir!

Sir!

You have a bunch of people all in the same experience for better or worse.

On the days when John DuPont was up and feeling really good, then spirits were

great. When John was down or acting wacky, then you better, you know, kind

of spunk her down here and deal with it. John's on a rampage.

I mean, everyone else would kind of say, yeah, he's a little strange, and Dave

always saw the good in the guy.

He was the guy who could talk to DuPont on a normal level all the time.

If you needed something and you were afraid to contact John about it, Dave

would do it for you.

He was the one person who could influence John in a positive direction

and the one person who could keep things on the right path so that it continued

to benefit the sport and it continued to benefit Dave.

Sanders' birthday party, April 8th. We got the eagle.

Atama Kazuchi, the mallet head, and the little paisan.

John was this wealthy man, and then he was also, like, a scared kid, you know,

that never really had a childhood.

And, you know, and you could see that, you know, that he wanted to be part of

the team. He wanted to be one of the guys.

Here's the loving mother.

And the rest of the boys. Hey, how come no one has their party hats on?

Like, ice cream, but...

He's trying to lose a little weight so he can soar a little higher.

He was lonely, you know, and we were his friends.

His family didn't see him much. He said the wrestlers were his family.

Your background, your childhood, has definitely been different.

How has that affected...

That's a difficult question to answer.

You assume one thing and I know something else.

He wasn't real good socially.

Told me himself that he had his meals in his own room fed by a maid until he was

like 13 or something.

You know, his brothers and sisters were older.

So I got the sense there was some loneliness growing up.

His father had divorced and moved somewhere, I think.

He's like, you don't know how lucky you are to be able to talk to your father.

I'd have to set up an appointment to see my father.

And half the time he wouldn't see me anyway.

His privileged lifestyle was great, but, you know, he didn't have the

socialization that kids develop naturally, you know, when you're in your

own neighborhood as a kid, meeting the kid next door. He didn't have that.

He just had his mom around, mostly.

Welcome to Foxcatcher Farms.

This room is the main trophy room where a lot of our sports trophies are housed.

Mother is now going to be 90 years old in June.

Her original ribbons are here in this room someplace.

Mrs. DuPont was a real pillar keeping John on track.

And then when she passed away, you know, there was a big void.

1991 with the Eagle.

John, do you have any words for posterity? Yeah.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

Wrestle hard, wrestle fast.

This is me.

The Schultzes were there on the farm, and they would come up to the big house

during Christmases.

They were the family to John at that point in time.

Alexander, how do you like turtle soup?

How do you like turtle soup?

He called me directly, which he didn't call me very often. He just called the

house and said, Hey, Nancy, I don't think we have a high chair in the house,

so remember to bring a high chair.

And it really warmed my heart.

He wanted to make that Christmas day something nice, something nice not only

for him, but something nice for my kids.

There was something inside of him that really was trying to connect.

So I felt like, and I know Dave did, we kind of wanted to befriend the guy,

especially if he was willing to help the sport. So you kind of felt like you

should reach out to him because he's reaching out to the sport.

John DuPont's a very generous person. He's a very giving person.

I think he's a, I kind of look at him more as one of the athletes, I guess,

than anything else.

You know, he likes to do the same things we do. He likes to come in and wrestle

and have fun.

This isn't going to work too well. I'm afraid to go hard with Robert, you know?

I understand that.

I'll tell you when it hurts.

No, it's too late then.

You're used to working out with somebody who's fit and who's trying to take you

apart every day in a wrestling practice, which is what you want.

You can work out with John, and he's, you know, let's say a 55-year-old guy,

kind of frail, you know, kind of slow, a little bit timid.

Uh-oh.

So you'd wrestle with him, you'd let him score a bit.

You know, it was kind of like play wrestling.

And in his own mind, he said, yeah, I'm hanging with these guys.

John, Dan, you're picked up?

John would enter wrestling tournaments.

John couldn't wrestle.

Stance, stance!

Get your head in there!

Dave was getting paid X amount of dollars a year, and part of his duties

were obviously that.

That's why he coached John.

You want to see that better way to roll? Yes, yes.

You're locking here and rolling, right?

That's the way I like to do it. I like to do it another way. Go ahead.

If you can't, shove his head down, and then step over his head and lock.

Oh, boy.

As much as John... did sports, he was never an elite athlete.

He could understand it, but just down into his cells in his body, it takes

something else, and he never had that.

Don't let him pin you! Get your arm out of there! Oh, that was it.

That was it.

John DuPont wanted to be a world champion like the world champions that

he employed and had in his club.

And so he started a new style, essentially, called the Masters.

Well, Masters Wrestling, there's not a lot of guys still wrestling in your 40s

and 50s.

Most of your athletes have made up their mind whether they want to win or lose

when they go out to compete.

They don't have that determination, that desire, that burning desire to win at

all costs.

John just wanted so bad to be such a great wrestler, and he couldn't do it

physically.

So he had people help him do it.

They're doing these staged events where you have these gorillas coming out to

wrestle John and then rolling on their back and John's the champion and the

people are cheering his name. It was completely absurd.

And then somebody else on the farm is coming around with a bunch of cash

afterward and, you know, paying the guy off.

In John's mind, he was actually at the wrestling the Bulgarian champion,

actually. took him down and he thought it was real now a lot of the guys knew

that you know okay we're just we're doing this and john thinks it's real

okay let's let him think it's real

so

i mean it's just it wasn't right

But we, you know, we wanted to make him... He loved that stuff. He was so

happy.

Everyone was just kind of pacifying the guy because he was good for the sport.

If you go out there with that determination and that desire and that

fierceness, you will win.

And your future opponents will fear you.

There are three things that always were a part of the estate.

The DuPont family, the wrestling, and then the hunting side.

It was very difficult to be able to hunt on that estate.

You had to be invited, and the people that controlled the hunting were the

Newtown Square Police.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

The cops, we better get out of here.

Mr. Fairland, what are you doing today?

Not much. As little as possible at this point, to be honest with you. It's

getting close to quitting time.

Yeah.

Dick Fairlam, who was the sergeant of police, he lived on the estate. He was

one of the tenants.

He handled who would be permitted to hunt on the property.

John had an awful lot of friends.

And I suspect that much of that was because he was generous with respect to

a lot of Delaware County.

He had an outdoor shooting range on the property where we went to do our

firearms training.

He had a helicopter one time, and he lent that out to surrounding townships

if they needed it.

He rode around town, you know, with officers. He had a uniform and

everything. He was paid a dollar a year just to be a reserve officer.

We had a little hunting camp set up on the property, and every hunting season

we would all meet up at the hunting camp and go hunting together.

Most of the hunters were police officers.

That was, you know, the thing about that place. It was like our own world.

You could do so many things back there that the average person could not even

consider doing.

And John himself would hunt out of a window of his town car with a rifle,

which was illegal in the area at the time.

As a result of his connection with people of consequence and his close

personal relationship with law enforcement in the county, he thought he

could do what he wanted.

He flew the Foxcatcher flag above the American flag on Foxcatcher.

He was the ultimate authority.

He thought this was DuPont land.

The advantages of being a multimillionaire are fairly obvious, but

what are the disadvantages?

There are many disadvantages to having money, and that is you are targeted by a

great number of people who would like to take it away from you.

He was a DuPont, and people were always after him to donate to this, to donate

to that. I think he'd been sued for some things that were real or not real.

So many people were there to use John.

John had no idea who his real friends were, I don't believe.

I'm sure in his own mind he was trying to figure out, are these guys here

because they like me, or are they here because I'm providing this facility for

them, or I'm paying them?

That probably played around in his mind over and over, I'm sure.

Guy's got a lot of money. He's living on a big property.

So to me, it was like, all right, a little paranoia was probably

appropriate.

You know, I think it progressed a little bit further than that.

He would actually videotape the woods.

across the field, and he would tape it for hours on end, and then he'd sit and

watch it, and it was still a picture of the woods, and he would try to get

people to buy into the things he was seeing in the woods.

Okay, look at that and tell me, do you see something moving in there? And you'd

say no, and he'd get a little frustrated, you know, and then he'd fast

forward, all right, now look at this, this is where it is, you know, look,

look at this, do you see something moving, or do you see this, do you see?

you know, a shape in there, a form in there.

No.

I thought maybe it's a psychological game he's playing, or maybe it's just a

power trip on his part.

Like, I want to see if they'll just follow me and believe something.

You know, when you're in that moment situation, you're like, are you serious?

You know?

You can't just nod because sometimes he would mean it in psychosis or whatever,

but other times he would bait you. He'd look out over the field and say, you see

those deer?

They're really people dressed up as deer. They're mechanical deer and

someone's planting them there. And if you say, oh yeah, John, I see what you

mean. He'll say, no, they're not. They're really deer.

There were guys that fueled his paranoia and, you know, oh yeah, maybe I see it.

You know, those kind of comments would just get him to go even farther.

I generally went somewhat along with it to a degree, just because my position

was not one of great security.

Whereas Dave Schultz, being, in my opinion, the truest friend John had,

would not agree.

Some of the guys who stayed at Foxcatcher developed an affection for

John, and Dave probably more than anybody.

And Dave genuinely...

liked John and tried to help him.

We'd take turns staying with John, kind of watching him and making sure he was

okay. And we'd do it in shifts. You know, like, I'd leave at, like, 9.30,

and after the kids would go to sleep, Dave and Vallow would come up, and

they'd hang out at the big house until, like, 11.

It was very benign. You'd just sit over there and watch television, or you'd go

down and play pool.

It was an ongoing process where he was helping us be wrestlers.

And we were trying to help him to be social.

And, you know, that's kind of the way I always looked at it.

You know, I felt sorry for John because he was so needy.

He would obsess on people and sort of want to be around that person most of

the time. And so, you know, when I came, I think it was probably Robbie.

Dave was that person, I think, you know, while I was there.

And Dan, the same kind of thing with Dan, you know, we'd really want to have

Dan around.

And towards the end of the time I was there, it was Valentin.

How you doing today, Eagle?

Super. I'm ready.

Here's an optimist, always ready for a little action.

How you doing, Valo?

Good. Good.

I'm ready for Eagle.

Are you ready for Eagle?

Yes. I don't know.

Like, it would be over at the big house and be like, okay, you know.

time to time to go valentine's coming sort of implied that you leave now and

valentine's gonna sit down and i'm gonna i'm gonna hang with him yeah it

was a lot of valentine you know and the more he would obsess over valentine the

more he would obsess over this whole uh i'm a bulgarian

john started sponsoring the bulgarian team

And he decided that he originally was Bulgarian.

He was a descendant of whomever.

I was like, no, you're not. You're not Bulgarian. You guys are French.

You're one of the most famous French families in the world.

He'd have none of that. You know, no, no, you know, this is why I identify

with Valentin, because of my Bulgarian heritage.

John was frustrated, very frustrated, because he wanted to be very close with

Valentin Yordanov.

And Dave and Vala were very, very good friends.

So I think there was a big jealousy of Dave.

What is his opinion?

He can't talk.

He's so cute.

He is. I don't know if he's mad or not. Don't be mad, John.

Come on, man. Don't be mad at me.

I just got to get a little tape work. We sign in Bulgaria.

We sign in Bulgaria.

There it is. I know you're fired up, man. I know I'm not. Fuck the world. I'm

going to kill them all. Oh, shit.

Oh, God, Nick. This is going to be a dark, bleak trip.

We're talking about a triangle there.

You know, where does DuPont fit with that really close friendship triangle?

And DuPont was kind of the outside the circle.

Yeah, he said, fuck the world, kill them all, I think. Yeah, I think that was the

direct quote. I think that was the quote.

Okay.

He observed how people did like to gravitate towards Dave.

And I think that sort of got to John a little bit.

You could just tell because... When John would go through some of his fantasies,

sometimes he threw Dave in there.

He believed Dave Schultz and Rob Calabrese had a weather machine and

could control the weather.

He also got convinced there were tunnels going into the mansion, going out of the

mansion, and that Dave Schultz used these tunnels to mess with him.

Oh, what do we have here?

When it was, you know, getting bad, he'd be like... There's people in the walls,

and I think it's Schultz or something.

You know, he'd say something crazy, and I'd say, Dave Schultz isn't in your

walls, John.

Schultz, where are you from?

We were all like brothers on the estate.

We trusted each other.

Hi there.

And DuPont, we trusted him up to a point, but, you know, the fact that he

would hire a security firm to protect him, and he would say that he's

protecting him from one of us.

What?

Some friends from Secret Service contacted me and said that John DuPont

had been involved with some threats.

And so that's what prompted him to reach out to us.

His security became an issue, and that's where things got creepy.

Having these special force FBI, you know, CIA guys around him, John became

super hyper paranoid.

It was tunnels. It was mechanical trees, which he thought were built by his

father as props for garden parties.

And so whether I believe it's a fact or not, it's worth an investigation.

So we started out with these low-level investigative efforts.

Dig a hole right there in the yard, and let's see what we find.

Let's bring a medley tank and see what we find.

And then we got ever more sophisticated. As John kept insisting, we brought in

some technical equipment and some technical people.

They would never say, oh, no one's in your walls. We'll go in your walls and

look. We'll get x-rays. We'll knock the walls down.

I'm like, why don't you just tell them no one's there, you know?

It wasn't my job to question what his concerns were, but to try to

allay his fears.

In other words, to factually say, this individual is not a threat for these

reasons, or this doesn't exist.

John had definitely been acting worse, acting more erratic.

It just kept getting stranger and stranger.

During that one period of time, the color black was something bad to him.

He said that black was color deaf, so you couldn't wear black shirts.

He got rid of all the black horses.

I had a black car. I had to get rid of that.

Hey, you looking at me?

Yeah.

And then he'd fired all the athletes that were African American off the team.

Now we start talking. I mean, what's going on with this guy? Why would he do

something like this?

We talked to them about it. You know, you really don't want to be in this

position of being perceived as racist on this.

And he didn't buy into that and said, well, it's not that. I just don't want

black.

Kevin Jackson was at the peak of his game.

And to have to call him up and say, Kevin, I got bad news for you, was just

heartbreaking.

Reg has explained to me, yeah, he won't let me drive my black van on the

property. He's kicked off Pritchard and Fisher.

And then he looks at me and says, you too.

And for me, it's hard for me to believe because I'm already Olympic champion,

world champion.

That's the last thing I expected.

When that happened with Kevin Jackson, I felt that we should have disassociated

from DuPont at that point in time.

And I was just purely asking for someone to hold him accountable for his actions.

You got four or five black guys getting kicked off a team by your main sponsor,

and nothing's done, nothing's said, and he's still VIP, still your main guy?

Maybe that should have been enough of a warning.

But in any case, for whatever reason, we didn't really do anything about it at

that point.

I guess to some degree we were taking advantage financially of the benefits

that we were getting.

And there it is. Final team score, 21-15.

The United States wins the World Cup.

Right now, it's about 2 o'clock in the morning.

Had to entertain you and Dave at the big house.

Lots of fun. You know, this thing is really beautiful.

Some of the colors aren't, the shine.

John became more and more nocturnal.

About 11 o'clock at night, he would get himself spun up.

And as we found out later, it was probably by virtue of chemical

enhancement.

I knew that he was doing cocaine because he would stay up. I mean, I'd be at his

house staying and he wouldn't sleep. I could hear him up walking the halls, you

know, all night.

You know, he became obsessed.

I would, like, try and ask him about a piece of furniture, but then he would

slowly get into the wood grain of the furniture and then actually seeing bugs

or something or creatures.

Whether you know it or not.

Your little slime bug friends have added to the golden gloss that it has. It

would not have that if it had not been for them.

What's this thing?

All sorts of friends go with it.

He thought bugs were underneath his skin, and he would scratch them until

they would bleed.

And we're going, well, he's doing something. He's doing drugs, you know,

and he's going crazy.

Subjectively, in my observations, yeah, it got worse and worse.

He had periods there where he was walking around in draping red clothing,

saying he's the Dalai Lama.

Rubber legs.

There were a few concerns that Dave shared with me about John carrying

a handgun around the place. And one time, I think he had

seen some things in the trees, and he actually shot up into the trees.

He would walk around carrying it under here, you know, and it's like that thing

could fall and go off and hit you.

So I didn't like to be around him when he was carrying his gun around.

Every day when I drive the 10 miles to Foxcatcher, the closer I got, the more

nervous I got.

I'm getting nervous to where I'm shaking, going into work.

We called it the solar system at the farm. You know, the big house being the

sun. And the closer you got to the sun, the more likely you were to get burned.

So really, the athletes tried to not get too close to the sun.

But then there's a group of guys that really cared about John.

Robbie and Dave were the ones that would go talk to him and say, are you okay?

What's going on?

We approached him and said, John, you're getting way too paranoid.

We talked to Dr.

Gustigian about it. He said, there's probably just chemical imbalance here.

It could probably be fixed with medicine. And we went and told him that,

and he got really mad.

He's like, I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me, you know.

You guys just don't believe me.

Things just started going south real quick.

And then, you know, then he started the whole thing with Dan.

This is my house on the back side.

When things really started to go down, Dan was close to the center.

I was living there on the farm.

And then, not even through John's own words, but through his attorney, that

John wants you to move off the estate.

Well, that was a little bit of a bitter pill to swallow.

John initially told Dan to leave the farm.

Dan didn't do it right away. So John had a U-Haul brought to his house and parked

it in front.

And it just sat there.

Move yourself and save.

Okay.

Boy, we got some wild maniac down this way a bit.

I was in the weight room lifting, and he came in with the gun.

He walked up to me, and he gets the gun, and he points it at my chest. He goes,

don't you with me. I want you off this farm.

And I just shrunk my head, and I showed him the palms of my hands, and I just

said, John, I don't know what this is all about.

I've only tried to be your friend.

And it was just enough he backed up, he put the gun down, and then he ran back

to the big house.

There's that beautiful-looking eagle.

And Dan's like, dude, I just pulled a gun on him, and he stuck it in my chest

and said, get off the farm.

But that's typical stuff.

You know, a lot of people made a joke out of it.

I called the police.

I told them John had pulled a machine gun on me, and he laughed. He said,

well, I've known John a long time. He's always been a little different.

Newtown Square police officer.

There was a growing number of incidents prior to this.

Minor incidents, nothing serious.

Arguments, fights, allegations back and forth.

Early the next morning, we had woken up.

This is by far the weirdest situation I have ever seen in my life.

Here's the moving van.

John, or somebody, I don't know if it's John or who, burnt down this house

next door.

This is weird, man. This is a place that's turned into like a battle zone or

something. There was a big old fire in here with flames coming out of the

windows.

Here's the inside.

Unbelievable.

Wow. This is so weird.

Oh, shit. I hope this comes out.

Look at that shit. There's the tree through the wall and chairs.

Wow.

And then that was it. As soon as the smoke cleared, I called USA Wrestling

immediately. I flew out to Colorado to meet with them and plead, get those guys

out of there.

That was the one incident where a gun was pulled where we all asked ourselves,

wait a second, maybe this is more than just eccentric behavior.

The executive director of USA Wrestling calls me up and says,

I need you on a conference call.

We're going to debate this issue.

So we get on this conversation, and the conversation digresses quickly.

And there were some people on the board who were adamant that, hey, we need to

cut ties.

You know, we should probably just take steps to separate ourselves from John.

Obviously, we couldn't kick him out of the sport. He was free to do whatever he

wanted to do, but we could turn back his resources.

But then Dave says, and this was probably the deciding moment after this

hour-long debate, argument, you know, we get down to this and Dave says,

I have my family and children on the farm. If I thought for one moment they

were in danger, I would pack up and leave.

And so I thought, well, that's convincing.

Okay, you ready to run to Jim?

Come on, run to me. Okay, put your feet down and run to Jim. Come on, run to me.

Run to me. Come on. Come over here.

Come over here.

I flew

back to the Foxcatcher just right around

the middle of November, and there was some tension.

I just pulled the truck back up and started loading so I could get the hell

out of there.

This is David Schultz. The number one surfer, Dan Shea, just fell off the

wave.

It's clean, huh?

It's looking good.

Clean. It's looking good.

Dave said, you know, it's just drawn, you know. I think he just was fixated on

you and, you know, tried to really keep directing it towards me.

You gotta be kidding me, right?

Got the van in the van.

Dan took that movie van, he filled it up and took it, and left his van over at

Dave's house, and that caused all kinds of problems.

Now, John is focusing on Dave's house, on Dave.

Like, why is the truck there? What's in the truck? You know, who knows what went

through his mind.

What do you call a baby mouth? Does she have a mouth like a baby's?

Look it.

Uh-huh. A funny mouth.

Isn't that funny?

Some of the people who work security for DuPont informed him that Shade was on

the property.

And DuPont got high or drunk or both and went to David's home with a rifle

looking for Shade.

He did come down to the house carrying a shotgun, was drunk.

And then as soon as he came in the door, Dave just stopped me at the front door

and said, John, you can't come in my house like this, especially not with a

gun. Give me the gun. And John gave him the gun.

And John was so drunk, he fell down. He just stumbled and fell down. He hit his

head on a windowsill and cut his head open.

We had to call a doctor and have him stitched up.

In the morning, he woke up. He's like, what happened? What's going on?

Looked like raging bull, you know.

Couldn't open it, big puffed up.

He said, what's it look like? I said, it looks like you got hit with a bat.

And from that, DuPont manufactured the story that he'd been assaulted by Shade

and wanted the police to look into it. And I think he went to the state police

as well as the local police.

And then it really put Dave in a bad situation because they went down to

question Dave, and he'd said, no, that's not true. Dan was here for about 10

minutes and left.

When they found out what had occurred, they just kind of sat on it for a while.

There was no criminal activity on the part of Shade, who wasn't even there,

and none on the part of David Schultz.

But DuPont...

began to bear hostility towards David, feeling that he betrayed him.

And the relationship with David began to deteriorate right at that point.

It was so strange and too much weirdness. There's just no reason to

live in an environment like that.

And we had a little conflict over it even.

I'm sorry, but I'm drawing a line in the sand. We're going to leave. And then

Dave started saying, well, we'll move to California as soon as the Olympics are

over.

We were six months away from the Olympic trials, and Dave...

He was like 37, I think.

So for him, this is his last chance to be on an Olympic team and win another

gold medal.

A lot of us put a blind eye to any dangers because we were pursuing our

dream, you know, and it was more or less a game of, you know, John being paranoid

and us helping him and, you know.

So... John loved Dave.

He loved Dave, and then Dave also became, like, his demon that was after

him.

He had gotten madder and madder and madder.

Dave should have got out of there.

I mean, Dave should have got out of there. Dave should have left.

From tunnels to spying on him, from everything else, he came to the

determination that Dave was responsible for it.

And he was going to do something about it.

Warm of 96.

It's still snowing. It's been snowing straight for 24 hours.

And this is the scene at Fox Kitchen Farms.

There's Dave's window. You can't even see out of Dave's office windows.

Nobody can go anywhere. Dave went to borrow the plow from the dairy people.

Mommy!

What do you think of the snowstorm, Danny?

It's great!

It's the biggest in Pennsylvania!

Dave was in the gym that morning, came into my office.

He had kids, K-I-D-S, written on his forehead.

And I said, kids? Why'd you write kids on your forehead, David Marker?

He's like, oh, that's to remind me I have to pick the kids up at school.

And I said, Dave, you don't seem like the kind of guy that's going to be

looking in the mirror a whole lot, so why would you write it there?

So he said, that's why I wrote it here, too.

And he had it written in his hand, kids.

So that's the last thing he said to me.

I got there, went immediately in to see John.

He says, we've had a storm on the property. He says, there's a lot of

trees down and some damage to the fences and so forth.

He says, let me take you around and show you.

And he comes out with a camera and a pistol, which was a little unusual.

So we're driving around, and he's showing me what trees fell and so forth.

We go to the right, to the backside of the property where Dave's house was.

We were having lunch in the house, and we heard a car pull up.

So Dave kind of walked over here, and he said, it's John.

So John pulled his car up right about here.

As Dave walks up, John picks the pistol up and immediately swings it out the

window and shoots Dave.

And so I just remember rolling him over, and he was doing this thing that he used

to do when he was training real hard. He was going... Like trying to concentrate,

like trying to keep himself alive.

And all of a sudden, he just stopped breathing.

And I said, I love you, and I gave him a kiss on the forehead.

And he died.

He died right then.

My first reaction was... I think I said, John, what are you doing?

As I got out of the seatbelt and proceeded to get out of the car, he

threw the car in reverse and fled.

He had gone back to the house and said, police will be coming.

Don't let them in.

The SWAT team assembled here initially, and we gave them a briefing of what had

occurred.

We knew that he had a variety of weapons, a lot of handguns, rifles.

We knew that one end of the mansion was a combination library safe room, and

that had a vault door, and we knew that that could be used to hold up ends, so

to speak.

I guess the news spread fast. I think John shot somebody.

They're saying it might be Dave.

Okay, so they were messing around, and the gun might have fell and hit Dave,

and he's going to the hospital.

I was just briefed at the command center.

Negotiations are ongoing.

Situation is status quo.

They have made contact with Mr. DuPont.

It's Dupont, sir. What do you want?

Basically, to resolve the situation.

There's always this other stage here, and the thing is, I want to get the

thing resolved and get the lights off the lawn here and a few other things

that are annoying me. They're the only property here, and they're going to get

out of here.

Stay on the line. We'll try to resolve this. Goodbye.

Mr. Dupont?

a bizarre story has been unfolding for hours in a wealthy pennsylvania suburb

it involves a violent murder and a heavily armed standoff with police it

also involves the heir to a huge fortune a dupont who has turned his estate into

a massive fortress we found out it was

Found out it was Dave.

We went in the emergency room. I was like, where's Dave Shills? And she's

like, he's gone.

I'm like, well, where'd they take him? She's like, no, he's gone.

And nobody knew what, nobody said anything. Just couldn't, just shocked

and couldn't, speechless.

After I left the hospital, they had to take me straight to the police station

where I had to start giving a statement about what happened.

All I could think about is I want to get home to my kids because they didn't know

yet.

My mom got home and brought me and my sister upstairs and all the other adults

brought everyone to the basement.

She sat us down on this bed and she just like took some breaths and she

said, today, John DuPont pulled up to the house.

and shot a gun and killed your father.

And then we just sat in the basement and cried for, it felt like hours.

We tend to wait as long as it takes to resolve this problem without anyone else

being injured.

As the night went on, and then it went into Saturday, and then into Sunday, it

was kind of unprecedented that a SWAT situation would go this long.

Last evening at approximately 9 o'clock, 9 p.m., negotiations with Mr. DuPont

continued.

The phone call with Mr. DuPont was extremely cordial and positive, and that

was the last contact with Mr. DuPont. Mr. DuPont chose to go to bed at that

particular time, and all negotiations or contacts with Mr. DuPont ended at 9 o

'clock last night.

Lieutenant, why would this man be allowed to go to sleep?

I wish I had a better answer than, I don't know.

DuPont's threats and increasingly bizarre behavior led some residents to

ask why local police did not take action.

They wondered if DuPont and the police had perhaps developed too chummy a

relationship. Several years ago, we were all up at the range practicing on the

inside and outside range.

Did you live there?

No, ma'am. Did you shoot with him or practice with him? I've never shot a gun

with Mr. DuPont at all, no.

Would it be fair to say that a lot of the people whose guns are trained on him

are wearing bulletproof vests that he provided?

I can't disclose that or can't comment on that right now.

As you well know, Delaware County response teams have been working under

very, very difficult situations with the weather.

Heat was, in fact, turned off to the DuPont Mansion late Friday evening, so

there was no heat at this time inside the mansion.

Get the heat turned on over there.

Okay, but I don't know if we can send a maintenance guy into the property to do

that. Would you allow me to go over a ticket with the thing?

I would have to let...

The people know that are out there that you're going to do that.

So that you don't get hurt and no one gets hurt.

Well, no one would be hurt. I would just go over myself.

Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll talk to my bosses. You talk to your

bosses first and call me back. Okay, well, believe it or not, they're on

another line for me and they told me that that's okay.

All right.

I'd love to go and do it.

Okay, are you going to be armed?

No. Okay. Please don't come out armed, okay?

No, I won't. Okay.

Then over the radio, we hear, he's coming out, he's coming out.

He then exits the back door of the property and starts walking towards the

greenhouse.

An officer came out from behind a tree, started giving him commands.

He kind of threw his hands up and then put them down and up and kind of turned

back towards the house.

A fast officer by the name of Officer Lund chased him down.

It's my understanding there was a tackle involved, but that was it.

Tonight, the nearly 50-hour standoff on the grounds of the DuPont Estate in

Delaware County has ended.

John DuPont walked out of his mansion and was apprehended by police. He is in

jail tonight, charged with murdering wrestler Dave Schultz.

Thank you.

It was very surreal.

There's almost a fogginess around some of the memories that it doesn't feel

like. It's almost like an out-of-body experience. You almost feel like you're

watching it or something.

Completely not knowing which end is up and life had fallen apart.

Life had literally fallen apart.

I'm angry. I wish I could have seen it coming or could have did something about

it.

It's just sad that, you know, Dave had to die.

For what?

You know, the sport was shocked back to reality that, well, this happened.

Everybody who knew Dave, everybody who knew what was going on, everybody who

had some thought of what might be going on, we all have some part to blame, some

guilt to carry.

If Dave had left, well, then, like... Who's going to keep it together?

I'm sure he felt a responsibility also to people like me, who he basically

pledged to me that everything will be fine.

DuPont will do what he says.

We're going to train to make the Olympic team.

He achieved everything there was to achieve in wrestling.

And most of all, and you've heard it repeatedly, he was a great friend to his

teammates and really to everyone that he knew.

I felt like Dave was a best friend.

But I also acknowledged he had about a thousand of those best friends. That

anybody who developed a relationship with Dave, that's how you felt.

You know, you felt like the most important person to Dave. It was really

a unique skill.

My best friend is gone forever.

For the memory will stay with me.

For the sixth best year for my life.

You know, as much as people have so many great stories about him and getting to

know him and who he was, I don't.

That's the shittiest part.

While I have no idea why John committed the senseless and brutal killing of my

husband, I am confident that the police and the authorities will conduct a

thorough investigation and bring him to justice.

There was never any factual disputes in terms of what took place. I mean, there

was never a doubt that John DuPont killed Dave Schultz. That really wasn't

the issue.

The issue was obviously going to be a mental health issue.

The defense plea was not guilty by reason of insanity.

If accepted by a jury, results in an acquittal.

You can walk out the door.

Once they raised the claim, the burden is on the prosecution to demonstrate

that the defendant is not insane.

And with someone like DuPont, that was a real problem because this is a person

whose behavior would cause an average person when they heard about it. Say,

that guy's crazy.

He's insane.

There became a division right after that took place, and there were camps. I

mean, there was definitely two camps.

You were either on the side of Dave Schultz or you were on the side of John

DuPont.

At this time in his life when he really needs some support, much of that support

has either dissipated.

or evaporated or just simply left him.

DuPont's attorney, Wolchuk, contacts all of us and wants us to come in and meet

with him in his office.

I got offered to come back to be the athletic trainer. We want to start

Foxcatcher up again in respect to Dave and Nancy and, you know, we'll double

your salary.

I just...

I wanted to walk out right then. I couldn't even look at the guy. You know,

I just... Does he think we're that stupid?

Nancy wanted everybody to desert, basically.

She certainly didn't want him supported by us any.

It was hard because, you know, you got the wrestlers. That was my life, you

know? That was like a family there.

And it's gone.

Um... I had a house there I couldn't really leave.

Yeah, I just... Everybody's gonna make their own decisions, right?

I could've stayed.

A lot of people did stay.

My mother and father, say hello.

The Dimitrios were the closest family we had on the farm. They lived with us.

Danny. Bye-bye.

Bye, Nancy.

Bye-bye.

And then after my dad was killed, we just went our separate ways. Valo, he

didn't support us. You know, he wasn't there for us after that.

Okay, Tig, you're on.

I don't think it was, like, any dark intentions or, like, I want to help

DuPont get free or anything like that.

But I understood that if the right motivating factors are there, people can

be temporary.

You know, in your life, no matter how big they are for a moment, they can be

temporary.

Opening statements are to begin today in the murder trial of multimillionaire

John DuPont.

I'd never been involved in a case where there was that much financial support.

We were able to do focus groups. We did two of them. We had some of the best

psychiatrists probably in the world.

As the case unfolded, the defense strategy appeared to be very strong.

On the day of the murder, John DuPont was clean-shaven. His hair was short. He

was dressed appropriately.

And from that day forward, he grew a long beard, he grew his hair long, and

you've got the jury seeing him being wheeled in and out of court, looking

more and more disheveled and crazy with each passing month.

So we were very, very concerned.

Three, two, and one.

If the jury of six men and six women finds DuPont not guilty by reason of

insanity, he would be held in a mental hospital until doctors decided he was no

longer a danger to society.

Then he could go free.

They ended the seventh day of deliberations and still no verdict.

The jury deliberations were excruciating.

Anytime you try a case, you're hoping that the jury is going to come back

relatively quickly.

But they kept asking questions. and kept deliberating.

I was scared that he was going to get out and come kill us.

Hello, and now my eye.

Because I don't know why he did it in the first place.

So, you think you can escape my clutches?

I'm coming to get you.

Almost there, children.

Chopper 6 saw the vans pulling the jury to the courthouse.

I would like to be able to say to him that at some point he will go home

again.

Tuesday night, and the big story on Action News tonight is the fate of John

DuPont. The question, did John DuPont shoot David Schultz? The answer, yes.

Do you find him guilty in the third degree?

Yes.

John DuPont is going away for a long time, guilty of murder.

I think people thought that he might use money to try out for justice.

Well, that did not occur.

Dave Schultz's widow Nancy laid her head on her father's shoulder when the

verdict was read, it is the end of a year-long struggle for justice.

It is comforting to know that DuPont is not above the law, and he must now be

held responsible for David's murder.

I'm relieved that the criminal trial is over.

I look forward to returning to California and focusing my attention on

my family.

One, he was in prison.

John DuPont had a bunch of the pieces of property painted black here on the

estate. The houses were painted black.

And basically, it was just because he was depressed and everything, so he just

painted the estate to look like he was suffering in the prison.

I was flying to Chicago, and someone had a newspaper next to me, and in the

newspaper it said, like, John DuPont dies in jail at whatever age he was at.

And I was like, can I see that?

I was relieved.

I mean, I didn't want to worry about it anymore.

I didn't want him to sit in a jail for the rest of his life.

But I was so sad because everyone was... so happy that he died.

And I just thought it was so unfair.

I mean, when my dad died, everyone mourned.

And this guy never had anybody to love him.

And then he died, and everyone's happy?

It's just sad.

I am more saddened by the situation we are in at the moment.

Alexander's family will always be close to me.

Schultz will always stay close to my heart.

This is Danny's nursery when she was first born.

And then this was our

room over here.

And it's really falling apart.

These are boxes from when we first moved in. Look, there's Alexander's bedroom.

Anything else? Can you expand on that?

Hi, guys.

Hi, Mom.

Have you seen that this is a pig or a dog?

This? This is a what?

That's Nicky. What is Nicky? A pig or a dog? A pig dog.