WASHINGTON (AP) – The man who shot President Ronald Reagan wants more than anything to “fit in” and be “a good citizen.” He tried to get a fast-food job, and loves to drive. His musical tastes run from Elvis and Paul McCartney to Nirvana.
John Hinckley Jr. has been barred for years from talking to the media, but court documents made available this week contain rare snippets of his voice.
A federal judge is deciding whether to allow Hinckley to live full-time outside St. Elizabeths, the mental hospital that has been his home since he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1981 shooting that wounded Reagan and three others.
Hinckley has spent longer stretches of time on the outside in recent years, staying at his mother’s home in Williamsburg, Virginia, where the hospital says he’s ready to live full-time. Prosecutors have pushed for tight restrictions including wearing an ankle bracelet, a requirement the judge has dismissed in the past.
More than 100 pages of documents made public in the case provide a fuller picture of what Hinckley has been doing in the last two years as his visits to Williamsburg increased to 17-day stretches. He has volunteered at a local mental hospital and made required visits with therapists, but he also shops at Target, Best Buy and J.C. Penney.