Mark David Chapman
FameRank: 5

"Mark David Chapman" is an American prison inmate who Guilty plea/pleaded guilty to Death of John Lennon/murdering John Lennon on December 8, 1980. Chapman shot Lennon outside The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman fired at Lennon five times, hitting him four times in his back. Chapman remained at the scene reading J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye until the police arrived and arrested him. Chapman repeatedly said that the novel was his statement.

Chapman's legal team put forward an insanity defense based on expert testimony that he was in a delusional and possibly psychotic state at the time, but nearing the trial, Chapman instructed his lawyer that he wanted to plead guilty, based on what he had decided was the will of God. Judge Edwards allowed the plea change without further psychiatric assessment after Chapman denied hearing voices, and sentenced him to a prison term of twenty years to life imprisonment/life with a stipulation that mental health treatment be provided. Chapman was imprisoned in 1981 and has been denied parole eight times amidst campaigns against his release.

More Mark David Chapman on Wikipedia.

I've pent up all my aggression, kept swallowing it and swallowing it.

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It was like a train, a runaway train, there was no stopping it.

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I just shot John Lennon.

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There was a successful man who kind of had the world on a chain, so to speak, and there I was, not even a link of that chain, just a person who had no personality. And something in me just broke.

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I was under total compulsion, ... Dateline NBC.

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I found out Lennon was more accessible.

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