Mark David Chapman

Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American man who murdered musician John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of the Dakota, his apartment building on the Upper West Side, Chapman fired five shots at him from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver; Lennon was hit four times from the back. He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Chapman remained at the scene following the shooting and made no attempt to flee or resist arrest.

Raised in Decatur, Georgia, Chapman was initially a fan of the Beatles but was infuriated by Lennon's lavish lifestyle, the lyrics of "God" and "Imagine", and public statements such as his remark about the band being "more popular than Jesus". In the years leading up to the murder, the J. D. Salinger novel The Catcher in the Rye took on great personal significance for Chapman, to the extent that he wished to model his life after the novel's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Chapman also contemplated killing other public figures, including David Bowie, Johnny Carson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul McCartney, and Ronald Reagan. He had no prior criminal convictions and had recently resigned from a job as a security guard in Hawaii.

Chapman's legal team initially intended to mount an insanity defense based on the testimony of mental health experts who said that he was in a delusional psychotic state at the time of the shooting. However, he was more cooperative with the prosecutor, who argued that his symptoms fell short of a schizophrenia diagnosis. As the trial approached, Chapman instructed his lawyers that he wanted to plead guilty to murder based on what he had decided was the will of God. The judge granted Chapman's request and deemed him competent to stand trial. He was sentenced to a prison term of 20 years to life with a stipulation that mental health treatment would be provided.

Chapman refused requests for press interviews during his first six years in prison; he later said that he regretted the murder and that he did not want to give the impression that he killed Lennon for fame and notoriety. He ultimately supplied audiotaped interviews to journalist Jack Jones, who used them to write the investigative book Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman in 1992. In 2000, Chapman became eligible for parole, which has since been denied 14 times.

Early life

Chapman was born on May 10, 1955, in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, David Chapman, was a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force and his mother, Diane (née Pease), was a nurse. His younger sister, Susan, was born seven years later. As a boy, Chapman stated he lived in fear of his father, who he claimed was physically abusive towards his mother and unloving towards him. Chapman began to fantasize about having God-like power over a group of imaginary "little people" who lived in the walls of his bedroom.

Chapman moved to Decatur, Georgia, at an early age and attended Columbia High School. He later recalled being targeted by bullies due to his lack of athleticism. By the time he was 14, Chapman was using drugs and skipping classes, and at one point ran away from home to live on the streets of Miami for two weeks.

In 1971, Chapman became a born-again Presbyterian and distributed Biblical tracts. He met his first girlfriend, Jessica Blankenship, and began work as a summer camp counselor at the YMCA in DeKalb County, Georgia. He was immensely popular with the children at the camp, who nicknamed him "Nemo" (after the protagonist of the Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas), and he was promoted to assistant director after winning an award for Outstanding Counselor. Those who knew Chapman in the caretaking professions said he was an outstanding worker.

On the recommendation of a friend, Chapman read J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). The novel eventually took on great personal significance for him, to the extent he reportedly wished to model his life after its main character, Holden Caulfield. After graduating from high school, Chapman moved for a time to Chicago and played guitar in churches and Christian night spots while his friend Micheal McFarland did impersonations. After his stint in Chicago, Chapman worked successfully for World Vision with Vietnamese refugees at a resettlement camp at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, after a brief visit to Lebanon for the same work. He was named an area coordinator and a key aide to program director David Moore, who later said Chapman cared deeply for children and worked hard. Chapman accompanied Moore to meetings with government officials, and U.S. president Gerald Ford shook his hand.

Chapman joined Blankenship as a student at Covenant College, a Presbyterian liberal arts college in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. However, he fell behind in his studies and became racked with guilt over having a previous affair. He started having suicidal thoughts and began to feel like a failure. He dropped out of Covenant College after just one semester, and his girlfriend broke off their relationship soon after. Chapman returned to work at the resettlement camp but left after an argument with a supervisor.

In 1977, Chapman—spending the last of his savings—impulsively relocated to Hawaii, where he attempted suicide by carbon monoxide asphyxiation. He connected a hose to his car's exhaust pipe, but the hose melted and the attempt failed. A psychiatrist admitted Chapman to Castle Memorial Hospital for clinical depression. Upon his release, he began working at the hospital as a maintenance worker. After Chapman's parents began divorce proceedings, his mother joined him in Hawaii.

In 1978, Chapman embarked on a six-week trip around the world. The vacation was partly inspired by the film and novel Around the World in 80 Days. Using his YMCA connections for free or discounted accommodations, Chapman visited Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, New Delhi, Beirut, Geneva, London, Paris and Dublin. The trip concluded with a brief visit to Atlanta to visit his family. He also began a romantic relationship with his travel agent, a Japanese American woman named Gloria Abe, whom he married on June 2, 1979. Chapman got a job at Castle Memorial Hospital as a printer, working alone rather than with staff and patients. He was fired by the hospital but was later rehired but resigned after an argument with a nurse. After this, Chapman took a job as a night security guard at a high-end apartment complex and began drinking heavily to cope with depression.

As his psychological state worsened, Chapman developed a series of obsessions, including artwork, The Catcher in the Rye, and the English musician John Lennon. In September 1980 he wrote a letter to a friend, Lynda Irish, in which he stated, "I'm going nuts." He signed the letter, "The Catcher in the Rye." Chapman had no criminal convictions prior to his trip to New York City to kill Lennon.

Murder of John Lennon

Motive and planning

Chapman reportedly started planning to kill Lennon three months prior to the murder. A longtime fan of Lennon's former band the Beatles, Chapman turned against Lennon due to a religious conversion and Lennon's highly publicized 1966 remark about the Beatles being "more popular than Jesus." Some members of Chapman's prayer group made a joke in reference to Lennon's song "Imagine": "It went, 'Imagine, imagine if John Lennon was dead.'" One of Chapman's childhood friends, Miles McManushe, recalled that Chapman said that the song was "communist."

Chapman had also been influenced by Anthony Fawcett's John Lennon: One Day at a Time, which detailed Lennon's lavish lifestyle in New York City. According to Gloria, "He was angry that Lennon would preach love and peace but yet have millions." Chapman later said: "He told us to imagine no possessions and there he was, with millions of dollars and yachts and farms and country estates, laughing at people like me who had believed the lies and bought the records and built a big part of their lives around his music." He also recalled having listened to Lennon's solo albums in the weeks before the murder:

I would listen to this music and I would get angry at him, for saying [in the song "God"] that he didn't believe in God, that he just believed in him and Yoko, and that he didn't believe in the Beatles. This was another thing that angered me, even though this record had been done at least ten years previously. I just wanted to scream out loud, "Who does he think he is, saying these things about God and heaven and the Beatles?" Saying that he doesn't believe in Jesus and things like that. At that point, my mind was going through a total blackness of anger and rage. So I brought the Lennon book home, into this The Catcher in the Rye milieu where my mindset is Holden Caulfield and anti-phoniness.

Chapman's planning has been described as "muddled." Over the years, he has both supported and denied whether he felt justified by his spiritual beliefs at the time or had the intention of acquiring notoriety. The only time he made a public statement before his sentencing—and for several years afterward—was during a brief psychotic episode in which he was convinced that the meaning of his actions was to promote The Catcher in the Rye, which amounted to a single letter mailed to The New York Times asking the public to read the novel.