Mark David Chapman Killed John Lennon For ‘Glory;’ Claims He Was “Angry and Jealous”

Written By @cabbagepatchgrl

According to transcripts obtained by ABC News, John Lennon’s murderer, Mark David Chapman, was denied parole for the 11th time. At the hearing, Chapman said he killed the Beatles legend for “glory.”

Chapman said he killed Lennon because he was ‘angry and jealous’ of how he lived his life, and he was seeking “glory” for himself.

“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 told parole commissioners.” It made me angry and jealous compared to the way I was living at the time. There was jealousy in there.”

On December 8, 1980, Lennon died after Chapman fatally shot him in front of his Upper West Side Apartment building moments after Lennon had autographed an album for him.

When asked if his thinking had changed since being incarcerated 40 years for shooting Lennon, Chapman said, “It was just self-glory, period,” later adding,” It was nothing more than that. It boiled down to that. There’s no excuses.”

Chapman said he purchased the gun three months prior to the shooting and that he left his wife in Hawaii for New York to find himself. Chapman also claimed he had a list of three other potential targets just in case Lennon didn’t work out. “I came up with whatever famous people I could,” he said.

“You called it glory, and some might call it infamy,” said one of the commissioners. Chapman replied, “Infamy brings glory.” According to the statement, this is what sealed his fate of being denied parole.

“During the interview, you stated you committed this murder to seek glory. You said ‘infamy brings you glory,” stated the panel after he was denied parole. “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 positive and in your mind gave you ‘glory’ at the time, is disturbing for this panel.”

If Chapman had been released, he pledged to become an evangelist.
“Look how low I went, but yet God still loves me and cares about me and has given me purpose and meaning in my life,” said Chapman. He then ended his plea with a statement of apology to Yoko Ono.

“I just want her to know that she knows her husband like no one else and knows the kind of man he was. I didn’t. I just judged him from a book, and I murdered him. He was in a book. He was extremely famous. I didn’t kill him because of his character or the kind of man he was. He was a family man. He was an icon. He was someone that spoke of things that now we can speak of, and it’s great.”

He then continued on to say, “Back in the ’60s when you said the things that he said, you were a creep. I remember I was in my 20s, and I was conscious of the times and the press and presidency and all of that and how they looked upon anti-war people. Now we realize that Vietnam was a horrible mistake. This has to go, and you put your life on the line back then when you felt that way. This was the kind of man he was. I assassinated him, to use your word earlier because he was very, very, very famous and that’s the only reason, and I was very, very, very, very much seeking self-glory, very selfish. I want to add that and emphasize that greatly. It was an extremely selfish act. I’m sorry for the pain that I caused to her. I think about it all of the time.”