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Two years after he was discharged from a mental hospital, John W. Hinckley Jr. lives in a modest house on a golf course, runs a small antiques business, adopted a cat named Theo, and drives for his mother and older brother.

“This is the best I’ve ever felt in my life,” he told a psychiatrist about his life in the historic colonial-era town of Williamsburg in coastal Virginia, according to court records. “I’m happy as a clam, to be honest.”

But at 63, Hinckley continues to face challenges, some universal and some unique to the man who shot and nearly killed President Reagan outside a Washington hotel on March 30, 1981.

He doesn’t like to exercise and in recent years has gained as much as 40 pounds. He walks with a limp and suffers from arthritis and hypertension.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.

This photo taken by presidential photographer Mike Evens on March 30, 1981, shows police and Secret Service agents reacting during the assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. (Credit: Mike Evens / AFP / Getty Images)
This photo taken by presidential photographer Mike Evens on March 30, 1981, shows police and Secret Service agents reacting during the assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. (Credit: Mike Evens / AFP / Getty Images)