John Hinckley, Jr. is the mentally unstable man who, in 1981, tried to shoot and kill President Ronald Reagan.
Hinckley came from a wealthy, well-connected family in the oil business. Young Hinckley had no desire to follow his father's footsteps and instead migrated to Hollywood to seek his fortune in the music business. He had little luck in that effort but developed an unhealthy fixation on child actress Jodie Foster, who had played an underage prostitute in the 1976 film "Taxi Driver." That movie involved a plot to assassinate the president.
The deranged young man decided that he would get Foster's attention by killing then-president Jimmy Carter. When that didn't work out, he targeted Carter's successor in office, Ronald Reagan.
This time he very nearly succeeded. One of the bullets he fired missed the president but ricocheted off the presidential limo and hit Reagan in the chest. Another hit Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, leaving him partially but permanently paralyzed. He also managed to wound a police officer and a Secret Service agent.
At his trial, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He resurfaces in the news from time to time in regard to the length of supervised visits he is allowed with his parents.
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