WEBVTT - Bonus Episode: A Tale of Two Killers 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.560 The Greyhound bus ticket cost about a hundred and seventeen dollars. 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:06.480 It bought twenty five year old John Hinckley Junior a 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:09.760 trip from California to Washington, d C. In March of 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:15.560 nineteen eighty one. The bus passed through Las Vegas, Cheyenne, Chicago, Cleveland, 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.000 and other cities during the four day journey. Hinckley spent 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.560 much of the trip slouched in his bus seat, watching 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:26.280 the scenery go by outside his window. The failed songwriter 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.760 also passed the time on the bus reading The Catcher 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.080 in the Rhye by J. D. Sovinger. The famous novel 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:33.800 had been in the news a lot at the time 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.920 because of its connection to a grisly murder. John Lennon 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.159 is dead. The former Beatle, who was forty, was returning 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.880 home from a recording studio with his wife, Yoko Ono, 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:47.080 when he was murdered. Police have a suspect in custody 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.120 whom they describe only as a local screwball. His attacker 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.680 made no attempt to flee. Police say he is marked 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.720 David Chapman, twenty five, who came to New York a 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.560 week ago. As we saw in season one of The Thread, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.600 police found Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman reading The Catcher 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.080 in the Rye just minutes after shooting the rock star. 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.160 John Hinckley had a lot in common with Chapman, and 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:11.679 much more than just his love of the Salinger novel. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.800 Hinckley was also a pudgy, twenty five year old loner, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.559 one who battled depression for years. He too found himself 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.959 drawn towards darker fantasies to stalking his favorite celebrity. He 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.560 also felt a need to leave his mark upon the world, 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.399 and he too would pull the trigger when the time came. 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.039 John Hinckley's Greyhound bus fair proved to be more than 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.080 just his passage across the country. It was his ticket 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.200 to a date with destiny. You see, John Hinckley was 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.920 on his way to shoot the President of the United States. 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:46.120 He just didn't know it yet. Why Lord, why must 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:52.560 I learn to testify when all alone to bees just 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:59.600 the catcher and the right. History contains many sliding doors, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.200 fateful moments that seem unrelated but that are actually connected. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.240 Every season on the Thread we take a six degrees 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.399 of separation approach to sharing some of history's greatest interconnected stories. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.320 We explore how these stories hinge on the past and 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.320 influence the future. In this special bonus episode, We're Gonna 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.640 pull on a meta thread. We'll explore some of the 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.800 surprising connections between this past season of The Thread on 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.560 the insanity defense and accused killers like John Hinckley, and 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.880 our first season of The Thread about the murder of 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.600 John Lennon and some of the events that led to it. 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.320 Lennon's death made its own ways in history, and one 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.520 of those was in the life of John Hinckley Jr. 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.760 The man who took Greyhound bus across the country and 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.320 tried to kill President Ronald Reagan. But this tale really 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.080 starts with the book Hinckley was reading on that bus ride. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:55.520 Why Lord, Why must I learn to testify? When all 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.400 alone wna Be is just the Catcher and the Rock. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.959 The author J. D. Salinger almost didn't live long enough 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.200 to write The Catcher in the Rye and the novels 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.239 beloved protagonist, the teenage rebel Holden Caulfield, could easily have 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.560 been relegated to the pages of a single story of 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.520 The New Yorker, but fate had a far more powerful 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.119 ending in store Salinger's life. Like those of so many 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:25.519 Americans was up ended in December ninety yesterday desembus some 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:35.040 nineteen forty one, a date which will live in infamy. 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.680 Salinger was drafted after Pearl Harbor and assigned to the 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.960 fourth Infantry Division. In January four he left for England, 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.200 where he joined tens of thousands of American soldiers preparing 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.400 for the Allied invasion of Europe. When D Day came, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.000 Sergeant Salinger crowded into a landing craft with thirty men, 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.920 ladies and gentlemen. We may be approaching a fateful hour, 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:02.320 all night long bulletness of Parian from Berlin, claiming that 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.880 D Day is here, claiming that the invasion of Western 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.400 Europe has begun. Salinger landed with the second Wave on 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.360 Utah Beach just after six thirty in the morning on 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:18.400 June six. Salinger wrote that when he stormed the beach 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.680 of Normandy on D Day, he had with him on 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.720 his person six chapters of The Catcher on the Rye. 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.919 This is Kin Slowinski, author of J. D. Salinger, A 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.440 life no one else had copies. In other words, if 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:37.719 something were to happen to Salinger, Holden would die. Salinger 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.840 lived through D Day and he carried these six chapters 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.560 throughout the war as if, I think, as if there 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:50.880 were sort of talisman, as if he derive strength from them. 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.080 The Catcher in the Rye would also survive the war, 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.960 but its survival and publication meant that others would die, 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:04.120 most famously John Lennon and nearly Donald Reagan too. Okay, 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.360 flash forward thirty five years to the streets of New 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.640 York City. Salinger's great novel has found its way into 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.320 the hands of the person that news reports will soon 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.600 refer to as the local screw ball. On December, Mark 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:22.159 David Chapman was a very confused person. He was literally 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.640 living inside of a paperback novel J D. Salingers a 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.720 catching a Rye. This is Mark David Chapman speaking to 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.520 CNN's Larry King. He's talking about himself in the third person. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:39.000 He was vacillating between suicide, between catching the first taxi home, 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.559 between killing uh as you said an icon. In his mind, 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.039 Chapman believed that he had become a living version of 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.120 the novel's protagonist. He had come to New York the 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.440 scene of the novel, in part because he felt like 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.159 he was destined to become Holden Caulfield. Chapman was also 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.000 tired of being a nobody. He wanted to do something 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.800 that would make himself famous and draw attention to his 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:05.000 favorite novel. Chapman got a hotel room and then uh 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.080 I left the hotel room, bought a copy of The 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.119 Catcher in the Rye, signed it to Holding Caufield from 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:16.240 Holding Caufield, and wrote underneath that this is my statement. 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.680 But Chapman was still vacillating. He was looking for a sign, 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:21.800 a sign that he was meant to be doing what 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:23.919 he was in New York to do, that he was 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:25.720 meant to go down in history as the killer of 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:30.320 John Lennon. Then he found it on page on the 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.960 book read it was Monday and all and pretty near Christmas, 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.720 and all the stores were open. Chapman couldn't believe it. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.520 It was Monday, near Christmas and he was in New 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.479 York with new hope. Chapman pursued his mission, with The 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.839 Catcher in the Rye in hand. He waited for Lenin 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:51.520 outside the musician's apartment building near Central Park. Later, Chapman 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.360 fired five hollow point bullets and his childhood hero. Then 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.159 he returned to his book. This is Lennen biographer Tim Riley. 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:04.640 The report sorry that he starts reading this novel as 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.840 the chaos erupted around him. So the police cars arrived. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.400 People point out, this is the gunman right here. He's 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.600 standing there reading this novel. It's bizarre. Years later, Chapman 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.360 described the scene to see an End's Larry King. It 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.280 was like the film strip broke. I took the Catch 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.680 in the Ryo out of my pocket. I paced, I 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.720 tried to read it. I I just couldn't wait, Larry 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:40.559 until those police got there. I was just devastated. John Hinkle, Jr. 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.200 Was born just nineteen days after Mark David Chapman in 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.600 the year nineteen fifty. He was born in Ardmore, Oklahoma, 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.560 just one miles north of Chapman's birthplace in Fort Worth, Texas. 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.720 He was also a loner who kept to himself. He 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.320 too had a vivid fantasy life. Hinkley was infatuated with 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.320 the teenage actress Jodie Foster. He her long love letters. 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.840 He called her on the phone, conversations he tape recorded, 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:16.160 who is there? Hell? Oh, no, Luke, I really. Hinckley 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.200 became obsessed with winning the love of Jodie Foster, and 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.480 that quest took on a new urgency when Hinkley's favorite musician, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.360 John Lennon, was gunned down on New York sidewalk in December, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:32.640 an unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.720 New York City. John Lennon shot twice and looked back. 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:43.720 Rushed the Roseveld Hospital, dead on arrival. Three weeks after 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.960 Lennon died, John Hinckley spent New Year's Eve alone. He 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.760 was extremely depressed. He drank peach brandy and ranted into 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.520 a tape recorder. The audio from those tapes was never 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.160 made public, but some of the statements Hinkley made on 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.079 them were in them. He drew a direct line between 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.800 John Lennon's death in his own situation. I just want 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.680 to say goodbye to the old year, which was nothing. 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:10.120 Total misery, total death. John Lennon is dead. The world 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:16.599 is over. Forget it. Anything that I might do in 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.440 one would be solely for Jodie Foster's sake. One of 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.000 my idols was murdered, and now Jody is the only 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.760 one left. In another recording, Hinckley played the guitar and 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.680 saying Lennon's hit song Oh Yoko, substituting the name Jody 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.440 for Yoko. His love of Jodie Foster, along with John 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.920 Lennon's untimely death, was about to lead Hinckley to attempt 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:44.880 his own historic murder. Almost four months later, after his 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:48.280 epic greyhound bus ride, John Hinckley checked into a hotel 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.360 in Washington, d C. In his suitcase, he carried his 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.520 copy of The Catcher in the Rye as well as 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.920 a biography of John Lennon. He had started to fantasize 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.880 about something new, a way to draw attention to himself 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.920 and demonstrate to Foster how much he loved her. Hinkley 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:06.480 had read in the newspaper that President Reagan was giving 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.480 a speech across town that day. So that morning, March thirtieth, 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.040 Hinckley stood in his Washington hotel room. He loaded his 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.079 gun and stashed it in his jacket pocket. He placed 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.200 a John Lennon penn into another pocket. He then left 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.240 the hotel. He, like Mark David Chapman, was about to 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.240 leave his mark on history. There were shots fired to 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.000 justice President Reagan E. Merchanty from the Washington Hilton Hotel 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.040 Today after delivering a speech, Ronald Reagan had a life 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.560 threatening gunshot wound, but he survived. After Reagan's near death 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.480 and John Lennon's murder, The Catcher in the Ride kept 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.680 turning up at crime scenes. In nine, Robert John Bardo 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:48.680 had a copy of it on him when he murdered 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.640 the actress Rebecca Schaefer, so they container I did. Throughout 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:58.280 the eighties, Kinselwinski again become the symbol of now just 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.680 only disaffected youth, which to what it had been for 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.800 us before that, but it's crazy disaffected youth. Mark David 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.400 Chapman was his seck individual. Chapman's defense lawyers were confident 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.400 he would be found not guilty by reason of insanity, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.840 but Chapman insisted on pleading guilty. He claimed he killed 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.199 Lennon to promote the reading of The Catcher in the Rye. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:21.680 When the judge asked if he had anything to say 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.680 at his sentencing hearing in Chapman stood and read a 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.800 passage from the book. He was sentenced to twenty years 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.280 to life, and he remains incarcerated in a maximum security 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.400 prison in New York State. John Hinckley Jr. Did plead 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.080 insanity at his trial, which lasted seven weeks. The jury's 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.120 verdict in that case shocked many across the country. John W. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.360 Hinkley Jr. Has been found not guilty by reason of 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:52.240 insanity on all thirteen counts. Hinckley was sentenced to be 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.560 confined to a psychiatric hospital in Washington, d c. Where 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.120 he would remain until he was released in twenty sixteen. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.480 The real legacy of Hinckley's trial, however, came in the 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.440 changes to the law that followed, including efforts in many 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.560 states to narrow or abolish insanity plea laws. The U. S. 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.000 Supreme Court will hear challenge to one of those laws 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:15.520 this October. And such is the way that history so 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.520 often works. One thing leads to another like a series 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.560 of domino slowly falling. J. D. Salinger survives the war 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.840 he finishes writing The Catcher in the Rye. The novel 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.000 finds its way into the hands of a disturbed young 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.839 man named Mark David Chapman. Chapman murders his hero John Lennon, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.200 an equally disturbed fan of Lenin's, decides to leave his 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.959 own mark on the world. Five months later, John Hinckley Jr. 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.880 Nearly kills the President of the United States and the 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.840 public outrage over his acquittal on grounds of insanity, changes 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.400 how decades of criminal defendants will be treated, and the 0:12:50.440 --> 0:13:00.760 dominoes keep falling and will continue to fall. The Thread 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.719 is produced by Robert Coulos, Sophia Perpetua and me Sean braswell. 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.040 Chris Hoff engineered our show. This episode features the song 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.920 Catcher in the Rye by Sammy Walker. To learn more 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.520 about The Thread, visit aussi dot com, Slash the thread 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.200 all one word, and make sure to subscribe to the 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.000 Thread on Apple podcasts, follow us on I Heart Radio 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.160 or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Check us out 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.120 at ausi dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. If 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.600 you love surprising, engaging stories from history, look no further 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.640 than the flashback section of ausi dot com. That's o 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:43.160 z y dot com.