John Hinckley Jr. Granted Release After 35 Years

John Hinckley, Jr. was 25 years old when he attempted to assassinate then President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981. Hinckley fired off six shots at Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. Although the President was not hit directly, a bullet ricocheted off the limousine waiting for Reagan and struck him in the chest. Reagan’s press secretary James Brady was shot in the head and suffered devastating injuries, including partial paralysis. Hinckley also managed to hit a police officer and a Secret Service agent, both of whom survived.

Found not guilty by reason of insanity, Hinckley was sent to St. Elizabeth’s, a Federally operated psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C. He has spent the last 35 years there but now that U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman has ruled that Hinckley no longer poses a threat to himself or to society, the would-be assassin has been granted his freedom, or at least a conditional one.

The conditions of Hinckley’s release have been neatly outlined by the Wall Street Journal in 5 Things to Know about the Release of John Hinckley, Jr. One of them is that he cannot talk to the media, nor can he try to have any form of contact with actress, Jodie Foster.

Hinckley’s obsession with the actress is what led him to try to assassinate the President to begin with. He believed that murdering an important person would somehow make him worthy of being loved and respected. In his musical “Assassins”, Stephen Sondheim has a number called “Unworthy of Your Love.” It is actually a duet performed by an actor portraying Hinckley and an actress portraying Squeaky Fromme, would-be Gerald Ford assassin. It’s just plain creepy and that’s just from the point of view of someone not personally affected. One can only imagine how disturbing this has been and still must be for Jodie Foster.