By HASANI GITTENS
June 19, 2008
Would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr., is a "narcissistic" ladies' man, according to a government filing that argues against him being given more freedom from his loony-bin lockup.
Hinckley, 53, shot President Ronald Reagan in March 1981 in a twisted attempt to impress actress Jodie Foster - an homage to the movie "Taxi Driver" - and now has four different girlfriends, court papers indicate.
"A review of his medical files reveals symptoms of his narcissism - in the form of continued inappropriate and unrealistic relationships with several women, as well as a reluctance to accept responsibility for his own behavior," the US attorney for Washington, DC, writes in the motion, filed this month.
In early June, administrators at St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital asked a federal district judge to expand release privileges for Hinckley.
But prosecutors said the hospital itself noted that, while out on leave, he "maintain[ed] near simultaneous sexual relationships with Miss M. and Miss G. . . . [and] rekindled a relationship with Ms. DeVeau. Then in November 2007, he met a fourth woman, Ms. B."
All that on six visits of six days each a year, with two emergency visits to see his ailing father and attend his funeral. Ms. G, the government indicates, could be the one to send Hinckley over the edge again, since "she has a long-term boyfriend whom she has repeatedly told Hinckley she has no intention of leaving."
In the hospital's own words, Hinckley does not "recognize the likely futility of romancing this particular woman."
Hinckley's delusions of grandeur have a chilling resemblance to the unrequited love for Foster that drove him to shoot Reagan, wounding the president, a secret service agent, a police officer and Press Secretary James Brady.
He's been in St. Elizabeth's in Washington since being found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982.
In 1999, Hinckley, because of progress in his treatment, won the right to supervised furloughs, and has since had them increased in number and even has some unsupervised visits in and around his parents' home in the DC area.
But the government in its current petition argues that "expansion of his release conditions is improvident and endangers the community."
