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:
“Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
—Bible: New Testament, Mark 3:35.
Jesus.
“I hardly know an intellectual man, even, who is so broad and truly liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock,—that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens you would view.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Good government is the outcome of private virtue.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)