Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
John Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, was a fan of The Beatles and a former security guard from Hawaii, per USA Today. Chapman, a YMCA employee, fatally shot Lennon outside his New York City apartment on the night of December 8, 1980. The musician was returning to the apartment with his wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon’s killer was 25 years old at the time and reportedly confessed to the murder moments after shooting the 40-year-old.
People Magazine stated that Mark David Chapman had met John Lennon earlier that day. He had traveled from Miami to New York City to shoot the artist, who even signed a copy of his Double Fantasy album during their previous encounter on December 8. Lennon’s killer shot him with a .38-caliber pistol, which he bought in Hawaii three months before the crime. Chapman fired five shots at Lennon, out of which two hit him in the back and the other two in the shoulder.
In June 1981, Lennon’s killer, Chapman, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for shooting Lennon, reported CNN. Two months later, he received a prison sentence of 20 years to life and continues to serve time even today. The killer first became eligible for parole in 2000 and has attempted to secure parole 12 times since then. However, the parole board had denied his request each time.
According to the New York Department of Corrections, Mark David Chapman is in the Green Haven Correctional Facility.
Where did John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman shoot him & why?
Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon at 10:50 p.m. on December 8, 1980. The incident occurred outside Lennon’s building, the Dakota, in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. People Magazine stated that per The Washington Post, Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, were returning to their apartment at the time. The duo arrived outside the apartment building in a limousine and were heading toward the entrance. Someone called out his name from behind and as soon as Lennon turned to look, the killer shot him.
Medical staff at the Roosevelt Hospital pronounced him dead not long after the shooting. Dr. Elliot Gross, the medical examiner who worked on the case, claimed the musician’s “death occurred within a very short time.” He revealed that the 40-year-old was “essentially pulseless” at the time of his arrival at the hospital. John Lennon’s cause of death, as Dr. Gross ruled, was from several gunshot wounds, which caused “massive hemorrhaging and shock.”
Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, had reportedly confessed to the crime while still at the scene. People Magazine stated that Chapman said, “I just shot John Lennon” to the building’s doorman after the incident. During his several attempts for parole, he told the board that it was fame and jealousy that motivated him to murder the musician, per USA Today.
Claiming to be a longtime The Beatles fan, Chapman has admitted that he was jealous of their riches. He told the parole board in 2020 that he was “angry” and “jealous” of their “money” and “lifestyle” among other things, per ABC News. The killer said, “My thinking was he has all of this money, lives in this beautiful apartment, and is into music representing a more cautious lifestyle, a more giving lifestyle. He claimed it made “me angry and jealous compared to the way I was living at the time. There was jealousy in there.”
Two years later, in September 2022, the killer told the parole board that he was “seeking fame.” He added, “I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was evil. Aware that “it was wrong,” he said he “wanted the fame so much that I was willing to give everything and take a human life.”
Apple TV+ docuseries John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial chronicles the artist’s murder by Mark David Chapman.
