The man who shot John Lennon in front of his apartment building on the Upper West Side on December 8, 1980, explained himself to a New York parole board with big words. Mark David Chapman admitted that killing the Beatle was wrong from his point of view.
But he was striving for unconditional fame and had “evil in my heart,” the online edition of USA Today and other US media quote him as saying.
The 67-year-old spoke to the inspectors in August 2022. Reason: “his selfish disregard for a human life of global importance”. Ultimately, he was denied parole for the twelfth time.
Chapman said the decision to kill Lennon “was my final answer to everything,” according to a transcript released Monday (November 7) by authorities in response to a “freedom of information request.” I didn’t want to be a nobody anymore!”
“I will not blame anyone or anything for getting this far,” Chapman told the committee. “I knew what I was doing and I knew it was evil. It was fundamentally wrong, but I wanted stardom so badly that I was willing to give it my all and I took a life.”
As a reminder, Chapman killed Lennon on the night of December 1980 when he and his wife Yoko Ono were returning to their Central Park apartment. Earlier, Lennon Chapman signed an autograph on the cover of his recent album Double Fantasy.
“Evil dwelt in my heart. I wanted to be someone and nothing could stop me from doing that,” Chapman repeated his deadly mantra.
He is serving a sentence “from 20 years to life” at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. Over the years, he has repeatedly admitted remorse at his parole hearings.
So also at the hearing on August 31, 2022: “I hurt a lot of people and if someone wants to hate me, that’s fine, I can understand that.” Chapman’s next appearance before a parole board is possible in February 2024.
“USA Today” remembers John Hinckley Jr., who carried out a 1981 gun assassination attempt on then President Ronald Reagan. He was released from judicial supervision in June 2022. Decades of surveillance by lawyers and psychologists have thus come to an end. Hinckley was acquitted of “insanity” at the time.
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