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One day, the Hinckleys received a phone call
from California telling them of good news. John now had a girlfriend
named Lynn Collins, he said. She was a young actress from an affluent
family. A trip to the Golden State had been her parents’ college
graduation gift to her.
Only after John’s arrest for shooting the
president would his parents learn that Lynn Collins was a figment of
his imagination. He modeled her on the character of Betsy in Taxi
Driver. A psychiatrist would say that she had been invented in an
attempt to manipulate his parents into sending money to him. And
later, she became real to him.
John wrote his parents telling them that he had
cut a professional demo of his songs at a recording studio. In his
letter, he said, “I hope you’re as optimistic about things to come as
I am!” In reality, John had cut no demo and made no contacts in the
music business.
Unable to make a go of it in music, John claimed
to be disgusted by the “phony, impersonal Hollywood scene.” He
returned to Evergreen in September 1976. His parents allowed him to
move back into the family home but only on the condition by his father
that his mother not take care of his room for him. John easily agreed
to that. A neat person, he kept himself and his surroundings clean
and tidy.
He got a job as a busboy in a dinner club. He
worked there for a few months, then wanted to give California another
try. He returned in 1977 and was again dissatisfied. So he went back
to Lubbock and Texas Tech where he changed his major from Business
Administration to English. Living in an off-campus apartment, he
suffered a variety of physical ailments and frequently visited the
Texas Tech clinic complaining of problems with his eyes, throat and
ears, as well as a persistent case of light-headedness. Lonely and
floundering, John spent more and more of his time thinking about
fantasies revolving around Taxi Driver and Jodie Foster.
John began collecting guns as Bickle did in
Taxi Driver. He purchased his first firearm, a .38-caliber pistol,
in August 1979. In September, he “founded” an organization he called
the “American Front” and termed it an “alternative to the
minority-kissing Republican and Democrat parties.” This new political
party was “for the proud White conservative who would rather wear
coats and ties instead of swastikas and sheets.” John called himself the Party’s “National Director”
and drew a list of members from different states. Everything about
the group was invented including the names of its supposed members.
In December of that year, he took a photograph
of himself holding a gun to his head. He would later tell defense
psychiatrists that he had twice played Russian Roulette. He began
seeing doctors and getting tranquilizers and antidepressants. At
Christmas time, John informed his parents that he was traveling to New
York City. He said that he would make the round of publishers to try
to interest them in a novel he had written. In reality, he stayed in
his Lubbock apartment.
January 1980 saw John suffer an “anxiety attack”
which led him to a doctor who tested him for dizziness. He continued
loading up on firearms. He formed a company called LISTALOT that
offered its customers a variety of lists. The business amassed an
income of $59 with an outgo of $57.
After coming across a May 1980 issue of People
that said Jodie Foster was attending Yale University, John decided to
plan a trip to New Haven to meet her and “rescue” her, as Travis Bickle had rescued Iris in
Taxi Driver.
In early June, John signed up for a summer
session at Texas Tech. He also went to the firing range to practice
shooting the weapons he had purchased and suffered trouble with his
hearing as a result. He purchased Devastator bullets with exploding
heads. As usual, he suffered an array of minor but troubling physical
ailments including dizziness and allergies. He saw a doctor who noted
John’s “flat affect throughout examination and depressive reaction”
and prescribed an antidepressant.
In a letter to his sister Diane, he seemed aware
of his own deterioration. “My nervous system is about shot,” he
wrote. “I take heavy medication for it which doesn’t seem to do much
good except make me very drowsy. By the end of the summer, I should
be a bonafide basket case.” He also started taking prescribed Valium
for his nerves.
August saw John back in Evergreen, Colorado,
house-sitting for his parents who were traveling in Europe. He met
with psychologist Darrell Benjamin. The psychologist believed his
client extremely immature and recommended that he put a plan for his
future into writing.
In September, when John’s parents returned from
their trip, he told them that he had enrolled in a writing course at
Yale. They gave him $3,600 to cover it. He believed he was embarking
on the beginning of a beautiful relationship. The truth that Foster
was a 19-year-old woman attending one of the most prestigious colleges
in the country, rather than the 12-year-old streetwalker she played in
Taxi Driver, did not deter John. In his mind she needed him as a
knight and savior.
John left letters and poems in Foster’s
mailbox. He was able to get her phone number and had two
conversations with her in which she gave him a polite but firm
brush-off.
“I can’t carry on these conversations with
people I don’t know,” she told him. “It’s dangerous, and it’s just
not done, and it’s not fair, and it’s rude.”
“Well, I’m not dangerous,” he told her. “I
promise you that.” He tape-recorded his conversations with Foster.
In his confused mind, John came to believe he
knew a way to Foster’s heart. He would assassinate a president, thus
proving his own importance and imitating Travis Bickle who had
intended to kill a presidential candidate. John followed Jimmy Carter
around with the idea of shooting him.
 |
| President Jimmy Carter
(AP) |
John traveled to Nashville where President
Carter was scheduled to make a campaign appearance. An airport
security device detected handguns in his suitcases. The firearms were
confiscated. John was in custody for a few hours and paid a $62.50
fine. | 
