The man who shot John Lennon outside his New York City apartment building in 1980 told a parole board that he knew it was wrong to murder the beloved former Beatle, but that he was chasing fame and had “evil in his heart.”
Mark In August, David Chapman delivered these remarks to a parole board that rejected him release for the twelfth time, noting his “selfish disdain for human life of global consequence.” Chapman, in a transcript obtained by state officials on Monday in response to a freedom of information request, stated that the decision to murder John Lennon was premeditated “my primary response to everything. I was no longer going to be a nobody.”
Chapman told the board, “I am not going to blame anything or anyone else for getting me here.” “I knew what I was doing, I knew it was terrible, I knew it was wrong, but I craved recognition so badly that I was willing to sacrifice everything and take a life.”
Chapman murdered John Lennon on December 8, 1980, as he and Yoko Ono returned to their Upper West Side apartment. Earlier that day, Lennon had signed a copy of his just released album “Double Fantasy” for Chapman.
67-year-old Chapman told the board, “This was a sin in my mind. I desired to become somebody, and nothing could stop me.”
Chapman is serving a term of 20 years to life in Green Haven Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley of New York. Throughout the years, he has often expressed regret during his parole hearings.
At the August 31 hearing, he stated, “I’ve wounded a lot of people all over the world, and if someone wants to hate me, that’s fine, I get it.”
In rejecting his release, the board stated that “the world is healing from the void you created.” The next parole board hearing for Chapman is slated for February 2024.
John Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was officially released from court supervision in June, following decades of legal and mental health supervision. Hinckley was found not guilty due to insanity.