Inside Mark David Chapman's Life Today
As of 2021, it's been over 40 years since music legend, activist, and Beatles singer-songwriter John Lennon was murdered as he stood under the archway of the Dakota — the gothic, gabled historic landmark the color of sandstone that he and his wife, Yoko Ono, called home. On December 8, 1980, Lennon was approached by Mark David Chapman, a reportedly disturbed fan who later stated he was inspired to shoot Lennon after reading J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." (Per The Baltimore Sun, Chapman was later apprehended holding the book.)
According to Chapman's first-person testimony for the 1992 biography "Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman" — one deemed sensationalistic and sympathetic to Chapman upon publication — the convicted murderer's obsession with Lennon oscillated between idolization and derision. After pleading guilty to murdering Lennon in January 1981, Chapman was given a sentence of 20 years to life. And while he currently remains in prison, it's hardly the end of the story.
Mark David Chapman's unrelenting campaign for release
Though it would be fair to presume Mark David Chapman's sentence would automatically nullify any sort of possible release, the reality is that it didn't include any provisions about parole — meaning that the convicted murderer has attempted to attain it multiple times. As Rolling Stone reported in 2020, Chapman has appeared in front of a prison board 11 times to date, though each have since resulted in failure.
Per Rolling Stone, a number of Chapman's arguments for release have hinged upon how he has "found Jesus" — though, as People reported in 1981, Chapman's relationship with born-again Christianity began nearly a decade before Lennon's assassination, when he purportedly became born-again during a high school pep rally during his junior year. (The magazine also noted that Chapman allegedly expressed violent fantasies as a teenager, including wanting to commit arson on his family home.)
Over the years, Chapman seemingly correlated his religious faith to feeling "more and more shame" for the murder he committed; as Rolling Stone reported, he expressed that he was willing to stay in prison for "however long it takes," even "forever," despite his continued appeals for freedom. It appears, however, that the parole commission has repeatedly skewed otherwise in their adjudication — and for good reason.
The parole board didn't believe Mark David Chapman changed
In 2020, Mark David Chapman told the parole board commissioners that part of his motives in killing John Lennon stemmed from a jealous rage. "At the time my thinking was he has all of this money, lives in this beautiful apartment and he is into music representing a more cautious lifestyle, a more giving lifestyle," Chapman recounted to commissioners, per ABC News. "It made me angry and jealous compared to the way I was living at the time. There was jealousy in there." Later on, Chapman said that "self-glory" was the main factor in his decision to murder Lennon. "It was nothing more than that," Chapman added. "It boiled down to that. There's no excuses."
However, Chapman's answer to the panel proved to work against his favor, with the panel ruling against parole. "During the interview you stated you committed this murder to seek glory. You said 'infamy brings you glory,'" read their official decision, ABC News reported. "This panel finds your statement disturbing. Your actions represented an evil act. The fact that today, almost 40 years later, you can still speak of what you did as something that you felt was a positive ... is disturbing for this panel."
Chapman's next parole hearing is scheduled to take place in August 2022.