Mark David Chapman - Motivation and Mental Health

Motivation and Mental Health

In trying to excuse his behavior it was put forward that, as a young boy, Chapman was "very sensitive and that his parents' anger towards each other intruded upon his normal development. He retreated from a very early age into a fantasy world." In his first explanation after his arrest, recorded by his lawyer, Chapman started off saying "I think I have some problems, and I don't know what some of them are." He went on to explain that he felt the main problem was he'd been too sensitive all his life, that he'd pent up all his aggression, that he often felt treated disrespectfully or carelessly, and would worry or feel haunted or confused by things people had done perhaps years previously.

Chapman was a fan of The Beatles, particularly Lennon, but later, after becoming a Christian, was reportedly angered by Lennon's infamous 1966 remark that The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus". The comment had not been taken offhandedly by many in the South and there were demonstrations, album burnings, boycotts, and projectile throwing. Some members of Chapman's prayer group at Columbia High sang a twisted version of Imagine referring to Lennon being dead. Chapman's childhood friend Miles McManushe recalls him referring to the song as "communist". Jan Reeves, sister of one of Chapman's best friends, reports that Chapman "seemed really angry toward John Lennon, and he kept saying he could not understand why John Lennon had said it. According to Mark, there should be nobody more popular than the Lord Jesus Christ. He said it was blasphemy."

Chapman had also read in a library book (John Lennon: One Day at a Time by Anthony Fawcett) about Lennon's life in New York. "He was angry that Lennon would preach love and peace but yet have millions ," according to his wife Gloria. Chapman later said that "He told us to imagine no possessions, and there he was, with millions of dollars and yachts and farms and country estates, laughing at people like me who had believed the lies and bought the records and built a big part of their lives around his music."

Chapman has said that after converting to Christianity he "never again disbelieved in the Lord or Christ or in the fact that I knew him and could of course talk to him any time I wanted to and get back into a deeper relationship with him". He remained within the denomination of Presbyterianism. Links have been drawn between Chapman's psychological disturbance and his perception that he was being tempted by Satan, and able to be saved from sinful human nature through praying to God. Chapman says that in the weeks prior to the murder, the message Thou Shalt Not Kill flashed on the TV at him, and was also on a wall hanging put up by his wife in their apartment. On the night before the murder, Chapman and his wife discussed getting help with his problems by first working on his relationship with God.

At some point, Chapman had become obsessed with the novel The Catcher in the Rye after rereading it for the first time since high school. He was particularly influenced by protagonist Holden Caulfield's polemics against "phoniness" in society, and the need to protect people, especially children. He was holding a copy of the book when he murdered Lennon, in which he had written "This is my statement." After his arrest, he wrote a letter to the media urging everyone to read the "extraordinary book" that may "help many to understand what has happened." When asked if he wanted to address the court at his sentencing, Chapman read a passage from The Catcher in the Rye that describes Holden Caulfield's fantasy of being on the edge of a cliff and having to catch all children from falling. A psychiatrist at the sentencing, Daniel Schwartz, said that Chapman wanted to kill Lennon because he viewed him as a "phony." Chapman later said that he thought the murder would turn him into a Holden Caulfield, a "quasi-savior" and "guardian angel."

Chapman recalls having listened to Lennon's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album in the weeks before the murder and has stated: "I would listen to this music and I would get angry at him, for saying that he didn't believe in God... and that he didn't believe in the Beatles. This was another thing that angered me, even though this record had been done at least 10 years previously. I just wanted to scream out loud, 'Who does he think he is, saying these things about God and heaven and the Beatles?' Saying that he doesn't believe in Jesus and things like that. At that point, my mind was going through a total blackness of anger and rage. So I brought the Lennon book home, into this The Catcher in the Rye milieu where my mindset is Holden Caulfield and anti-phoniness." Chapman further said, "So the child and the adult conspired together to kill the phony. Then the child and the adult went to the Dakota on the morning of December 8. The adult, very charming, knows his way around-even invited one of the fans to lunch across the street-the child, frightened, alternately praying to God and the devil to get him out of this. The adult was praying to God. He was a fake adult, but he was scared and he knew that the child was about to do something very evil and wrong. The child was praying to the devil and the adult was praying to the Lord. The spiritual dichotomy: Devil-God. And the inner dichotomy: the child-the man. They're out there in front of the Dakota late one night."

Chapman later said that while the character of Holden Caulfield was not violent, he did "have a violent thought of shooting someone, of emptying a revolver into this fellow's stomach, someone that had done him wrong". And that the character was "a very sensitive person and he probably would not have killed anybody as I did. But that's fiction and reality was standing in front the Dakota."

Following the murder, Chapman underwent dozens of assessments by different psychiatrists. He described his anger toward his father, who he said used to hit his mother. He spoke of his identification with Holden Caulfield and with Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz, and his conferences with the "Little People," an imaginary set of people with whom he had interacted and taken guidance from and controlled, starting from when he was a child. He also provided a list of other celebrities he had thought about killing. Chapman later told journalist Jack Jones that he had told his "Little People" he intended to go to New York and kill Lennon and they begged him not to, saying "Please, think of your wife. Please, Mr. President. Think of your mother. Think of yourself." Chapman says he told them his mind was made up, and that their reaction was silence.

Chapman also said that, while in New York, he had thought of leaping to his death from the Statue of Liberty. Overall the psychiatrists concluded that, while delusional, he was competent to stand trial. However, six were prepared to testify for the defense that Chapman was psychotic. The prosecution presented three psychiatrists who said that Chapman fell short of full psychosis. Chapman has since said he thinks he was suffering from schizophrenia, a diagnosis made by some in his pre-sentencing psychiatric assessments. Journalist Jack Jones has referred to him as a sociopath.

Chapman stated to his parole board hearing in 2000 that "I feel that I see John Lennon now not as a celebrity. I did then. I saw him as a cardboard cutout on an album cover. I was very young and stupid, and you get caught up in the media and the records and the music. And now I've come to grips with the fact that John Lennon was a person. This has nothing to do with being a Beatle or a celebrity or famous."

In his 2006 parole board hearing, when asked if he murdered Lennon to become famous, Chapman said "The result would be that I would be famous, the result would be that my life would change and I would receive a tremendous amount of attention, which I did receive... I was in a very confused, dark place. I was looking for reasons to vent all that anger and confusion and low self-esteem." In taped interviews in the early 1990s Chapman had said he did not think he could have stopped the course of events, that he had felt under a great compulsion, like a runaway train. But in the 2006 parole hearing he said "I believe that if I really wanted to, I could have changed my mind; I had ample opportunity to do it and I didn't do it and I regret that deeply."