Police Talk to Du Pont Heir as Siege Continues

Wary police conducted intermittent negotiations Saturday with a volatile member of the Du Pont chemical dynasty who remained barricaded in his vast manor house with an arsenal of weapons more than a day after he apparently killed an Olympic wrestler on his estate.

Police SWAT teams took cover in howling wind and driving rain, adopting a waiting strategy as they faced the lone suspect in the case, John E. du Pont, a crack shot who once tried out for the Olympic pentathlon team.

There were reports that Du Pont, who relatives said had become increasingly eccentric since his mother died in 1988, could even have an armored personnel carrier stashed on his snow-flecked, 800-acre estate in Newtown Square, a fashionable suburb west of Philadelphia.

“Our prime concern is for the safety of our officers, as well as the safety of Mr. Du Pont,” Township Police Lt. Lee Hunter said. “Negotiations seem to be going very well.”

Police said that after Olympic gold medalist Dave Schultz was shot in the driveway of his modest home on the estate about 2:50 p.m. Friday, Du Pont retreated to his white-columned mansion, which is modeled after Montpelier, the Virginia home of James Madison. At first he remained in a bedroom but he was seen in other rooms in the house Saturday.

The 36-year-old wrestler, who lived on the estate with his wife and two small children, was hit in the chest and an arm with bullets from a .38-caliber revolver. He died in a hospital emergency room.

In 1984, Schultz won the 163-pound competition at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He was working as a coach at the 14,000-square-foot Foxcatcher National Training Center on Du Pont’s estate while training for a comeback at this summer’s Games in Atlanta.

Investigators said they were uncertain why he was slain.

About 75 officers, including three SWAT teams, surrounded the estate’s fenced fields. A roadblock was set up at the front gate. Police said Du Pont held no hostages.

Ironically, in the 1970s, Du Pont was named an honorary member of the Newtown Square police force, contributing bulletproof vests and other equipment to the department and teaching marksmanship to some of the officers.

Early negotiations with Du Pont were complicated by inoperative phone lines, damaged in a fire at the estate in October. After initially communicating with Du Pont on cellular phones, police and telephone company officials managed to rig up a phone system early Saturday.

Throughout the day, officers’ phone contact with Du Pont became more frequent and their conversations longer, sometimes lasting up to several minutes, Hunter said. Police took a man and a woman up the manor house’s drive but wouldn’t say if they talked with Du Pont.

Police said there are tunnels under the house--mainly for heating and the electrical system--that have exits beyond the house, and they were guarding those and all other exits.

Dan Chaid, a friend of the victim and a fellow wrestler, told police that Nancy Schultz, the slain wrestler’s wife, told him that Du Pont had approached her husband’s car and had opened fire--not giving him any time to flee.

“John was probably high on drugs and just got delusional,” Chaid said. He also said Du Pont had threatened to kill him in October.

Chaid said the heir to the chemical, pharmaceutical and plastics fortune often carried a .38-caliber pistol as he roamed his estate, and that he abused cocaine and alcohol.

Former residents of the estate also told tales of bizarre behavior by Du Pont.

For example, Vicky Welch, whose father for a time tended horses for Du Pont, said that just before Christmas one year, Du Pont drove an armored personnel carrier onto her frontyard, demanding that her husband come out and play.

Neighbors said Du Pont would also sometimes summon contractors to dig into walls and under floors in an attempt to find listening devices.

Other neighbors said the 57-year-old heir had driven two new Lincoln Continental automobiles in quick succession into a pond on his property.

In 1985, Du Pont’s former wife, Gale Wenk du Pont, filed a civil suit charging physical abuse during their marriage, which lasted just a year. The suit said he threatened her with a gun, a knife, tried to strangle her and even pushed her out of a moving car.

Court papers said he accused his wife of being a Russian spy and threatened to shoot her.

Victor Krievins, who worked as a former business manager for Du Pont, confirmed for police that his onetime client had a large cache of weapons. He also told of the armored personnel carrier, but it was uncertain whether the vehicle was on the estate.

Du Pont’s interest in sports began with swimming at a private high school. He continued swimming at the University of Miami and then went to California in hopes of training for the Olympics.

George Haines of the Santa Clara, Calif., Swim Club converted him to a pentathlete: in the Olympic Games the pentathlon consists of running, horseback riding, shooting, swimming and fencing.

Du Pont failed to make the 1968 Olympic team but made it in 1976 as the team’s manager.

In 1986, Du Pont started a wrestling program at Villanova University, not far from his home. He established scholarships for some of the wrestlers and named himself head coach. But the program soon ran into problems and the school dropped it after Du Pont flew wrestlers to meets on his private jet and allowed some of the scholarship winners to reside at his estate.

In a lawsuit filed in 1988, Andre Metzger, a former assistant coach at the university, charged he was dismissed because he declined to become Du Pont’s lover.

A lawyer for Du Pont at the time labeled the accusation “totally false.”

A year after Villanova dropped Du Pont’s wrestling program, he built the Foxcatcher National Training Center and began recruiting Olympic-caliber wrestlers to train.

Du Pont’s mother, Jean Liseter Austin du Pont, died in 1988 and some relatives said his behavior became more bizarre after her death.

A great-great grandson of E.I. du Pont, the French-born industrialist who founded the chemical company, Du Pont is one of hundreds of heirs to the family fortune. His wealth was estimated at $46.2 million in his ex-wife’s 1985 lawsuit.

Times staff writer Ann O’Neill in Los Angeles contributed to this story.