Hearing Focuses On Hinckley's Ties to Women

How he was coping was more of an issue among the experts.

Robert Phillips, a psychiatrist who has examined Hinckley for the government, testified that Binks was disconnected from the "obvious reality" of Hinckley's interactions with women. They are not necessarily "pathologic," Phillips said, "but they are a concern."

"It is normal for Mr. Hinckley to engage in these explorations," Phillips said. But who he has sought out bears more examination, the psychiatrist said.

The intern, who shared Hinckley's interest in animals, was one woman he had his eye on. When asked about her, Hinckley told Patterson, "She's beauuuuuuutiful," the psychiatrist testified.

Then there was the chaplain. Hinckley admitted that he scheduled a meeting with her not for spiritual reasons but for a chance to see a "pretty lady," Patterson said. "He was taking a shot," Patterson told the court.

And there was the visitor, a woman, who for several years has brought Hinckley food for the cats he tends to on the St. Elizabeths campus.

After he told her of his sadness over the breakup with deVeau, the woman asked Hinckley what she could do to help. Hinckley asked whether she had considered being "intimate" with him, according to testimony.

No, she told him, she did not think of him in that way.

When Binks, Hinckley's psychologist, was asked for his assessment of the encounter, he said he talked to Hinckley about it and was not concerned. Hinckley was trying, Binks said, to make sure the woman's signals weren't crossed.

"I believe," Binks said, "that he was seeking clarification."