ATHLETE SHEDS LIGHT ON DU PONT.

Byline: Jere Longman The New York Times

Exactly one mile. That is the distance from John E. du Pont's front door to his own. Thousands of times, from the age of 8 until now, 32-year-old Mike Gostigian has made the trip to the rolling du Pont estate to swim in the pool, run on the wooded trails, ride horses and practice target shooting and fencing, events that make up the modern pentathlon.

Twice, Gostigian has become an Olympian, fulfilling a dream that du Pont once held as his own.

"I was like a son to him," Gostigian said. "He fathered my sports career."

No active athlete has known du Pont longer or perhaps gained such penetrating witness to the trajectory of the man's life - from magnanimous benefactor of Olympic sports to worried multimillionaire who feared he also might have been an intended victim of Patty Hearst's kidnappers to erratic recluse who believed his house was haunted and that he was the dalai lama.

For nearly a decade, Gostigian was also friends with David Schultz, the Olympic wrestling champion who lived on the du Pont estate and helped coach the club that du Pont sponsored, Team Foxcatcher.

Gostigian described Schultz, as others did, as a man who was as generous with his friendship as du Pont, a 57-year-old chemical company heir, had been with his money.

Now that du Pont is charged with murdering Schultz, the question plays like a turntable in Gostigian's head: Why? How did a vital relationship between two men degenerate to the point that one is said by police to have shot the other to death?

Of course, no one can know for certain. Du Pont has issued no statements and remains jailed without bond pending a preliminary hearing Thursday. In the silence, Gostigian is as qualified as anyone to offer his firsthand account of a life that deteriorated beyond eccentricity into accusations of violence.

"His heart was in the right place, but his mind wasn't," Gostigian said from San Antonio, where he is preparing for this week's Olympic pentathlon trials.

"Dave was the person closest to John," Gostigian said. "He was the guy John leaned on for support. He was a calming influence, a confidant. But Dave wasn't a yes man. If John said he saw things coming out of the walls, Dave said nothing was coming out of the walls. I think John might have harbored some kind of delusional fear of him."

Three incidents in the 1980s seemed to send du Pont into a personal tailspin, Gostigian said.

First, an automobile accident left him with injured knees and shoulders and hindered what had been a vigorous life as a sportsman. Second, a brief marriage failed. Third, du Pont's mother died in 1988. He had lived with his mother, Jean Austin du Pont, after his parents separated when he was 3, and has said that he was not close to two older sisters and an older brother.

"She was John's most significant person," Gostigian said. "When he lost her, life changed for John."