Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American prison inmate who was convicted for killing former Beatles member 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 later remained at the scene reading The Catcher in the Rye until the police arrived and arrested him. Chapman repeatedly claimed 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 to plead guilty based on what he had decided was the will of God. Judge Edwards allowed the plea change without further psychiatric assessment, and sentenced Chapman to a prison term of 20 years to life with a stipulation that mental health treatment be provided. Chapman was imprisoned in 1981 and has been denied parole seven times amidst campaigns against his release.
Read more about Mark David Chapman: Early Life and Education, The Plan To Murder John Lennon, The Murder of John Lennon, Trial and Sentencing, Imprisonment, Parole Applications and Campaigns, Motivation and Mental Health, Impact
Famous quotes containing the words mark, david and/or chapman:
“Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”
—Bible: New Testament, Mark 10:18.
Jesus.
“True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)