John Hinckley Apologizes to Jodie Foster

As Ronald Reagan's daughter speaks out on possibility of release
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 28, 2021 1:00 AM CDT
John Hinckley Apologizes to Jodie Foster
In this Nov. 18, 2003, file photo, John Hinckley Jr. arrives at U.S. District Court in Washington.   (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

After a judge granted him unconditional release next June assuming he remains mentally stable, would-be Ronald Reagan assassin John Hinckley issued a number of apologies for the 1981 shooting. In addition to the American people, Reagan, and the three other people who were injured, Hinckley apologized to Jodie Foster, whom he was obsessed with at the time and trying to impress, MSN reports. His lawyer says Hinckley expresses his "profound regret" to those people. Hinckley, now 66, has not been allowed to actually contact Foster, or any of his victims or their families, as part of the terms of court-imposed rules.

In the Washington Post, Reagan's daughter Patti Davis writes that she's still haunted by the shooting, and says that with his unconditional release, he'll be allowed to contact anyone he wants—including her, a possibility that she fears. "I don’t believe that John Hinckley feels remorse. Narcissists rarely do. I don’t believe that the man who wrote letters to Charles Manson and Ted Bundy while he was in St. Elizabeths Hospital regrets what he did. He and his attorney have worked the system from the beginning and, finding a judge who was sympathetic to them, made this day inevitable." (More John Hinckley stories.)

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