Nearly 45 years after the shocking murder of John Lennon, his killer Mark David Chapman has told a parole board that he shot the music icon out of a selfish desire to “be a somebody.”
“This was for me and me alone, unfortunately, and it had everything to do with his popularity,” Chapman, 70, said during an August hearing at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Dutchess County, according to a transcript obtained by The New York Post.
“My crime was completely selfish.”
Chapman, who shot the 40-year-old Beatle outside his Manhattan apartment building, The Dakota, on December 8, 1980, was denied parole for the 14th time.
He apologised for the “devastation” he caused to Lennon’s fans and loved ones, but the board ultimately rejected his plea, citing a lack of “genuine remorse or meaningful empathy.”
When asked why he wanted to kill Lennon, Chapman replied, “to be famous, to be something I wasn’t.”
“And then I just realised, hey, there is a goal here,” he continued.
“I don’t have to die and I can be a somebody. I had sunk that low.”
Chapman had previously told parole boards that he acted out of a desire for notoriety and because he “had evil in my heart.”
He recounted the events leading up to the murder, explaining that he had flown from Hawaii to New York months earlier, identifying with Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye and viewing Lennon as a “phony.”
Chapman said he initially staked out the building in October 1980 but did not see Lennon. Two months later, “after the compulsion started building again,” he returned.
“That morning of the 8th, I just knew. I don’t know how I knew but I just knew that was going to be the day that I was going to meet and kill him,” Chapman told the board.
When Lennon stepped out of a limousine with his wife, Yoko Ono, Chapman fired four shots into his back, only hours after Lennon had autographed an album for him.
He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
Now 70, Chapman spends his time attending nightly Bible study, playing volleyball with other inmates and maintaining contact with his wife, Gloria, to whom he has been married for 46 years.
“This was a human being,” he said of Lennon.
“Here I am living so much longer, and not just family but his friends and the fans, I apologise for the devastation that I caused you, the agony that they must have gone through. I had no thought about that at all at the time of the crime, I didn’t care.”
Despite his remorse, Chapman will remain behind bars.
He will next be eligible for parole in 2027.
Today, he says he no longer seeks fame.
“I don’t have any interest at all in being famous,” he said.
“Put me under the rug somewhere. I don’t want to be famous anymore, period.”
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