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The man who shot John Lennon outside his New York City apartment in 1980 told the parole board he knew it was wrong to kill the beloved ex-Beatle, but he was after fame and had “an evil in his heart”.
Mark David Chapman made comments in August at a board that denied him parole for the 12th time, citing his “selfish disregard for human life with global consequences.” Chapman said in a transcript released Monday by state officials under a freedom of information request that the decision to kill Lennon was “my important answer to everything. I’m no longer a nobody.”
“I don’t blame anyone else or anyone for taking me there,” Chapman told the board. “I know what I’m doing, I know it’s evil, I know it’s wrong, but I want fame so much that I’d give anything to take a life.”
Chapman killed Lennon on the night of December 8, 1980, as he and Yoko Ono were returning to their Upper West Side apartment. Earlier in the day, Lennon autographed Chapman on Chapman’s recently released album Double Fantasy.
Chapman, 67, told the board, “It’s evil in my heart. I want to be someone and nothing can stop that.”
Chapman is serving a 20-year to life sentence at Greenhaven Correctional Facility in New York’s Hudson Valley. He has repeatedly expressed remorse at parole hearings over the years.
“I’ve hurt a lot of people all over the place, and if someone wants to hate me, that’s okay, I get it,” he said at the Aug. 31 hearing.
In denying his release, the board mentioned that Chapman’s actions had brought “the world back from the void you created.” Chapman’s next parole board appearance is scheduled for February 2024.
In June, John Hinckley Jr., the man who shot and killed President Ronald Reagan in 1981, escaped court oversight, officially ending decades of oversight by legal and mental health professionals. Hinckley was acquitted of insanity.
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