The Killer Of John Lennon Shares New Details About Murder, Denied Parole For Ninth Time

Mark David Chapman gunned down Beatles legend John Lennon in cold blood. In a new interview, the murderer claims that he almost left one bullet to use on himself. However, although he had the ability to kill the talented star as John and Yoko were returning home to their home across from Central Park, after a late night recording session on Decemeber 8, 198o, Chapman said he was too much of a coward to end his own life.

John Lennon in George Harrison’s psychedelic painted Mini in Kent, 1967. pic.twitter.com/9Ej87RtGlM

— Music History (@TimeinMusic) September 13, 2016

During a recent parole hearing, the killer spoke openly about his motive and state of mind on the day he decided to take from the world one of its most notable musicians of the time. The description he gave about the murder, during an August 24 interview with three members of the parole panel was chilling and is even said to be his most eerie to date. The transcript of the interview was released Friday.

Lennon’s killer was first asked why he emptied his gun into Lennon. Chapman responded, “to ensure his death. I knew from the beginning to empty the gun,” he said. “It was my plan.

The convicted then spoke on the subject of suicide and how it had crossed his mind during and following the murder, but that he was not able to follow through, as the New York Daily News shares.

“I did have a thought of saving the last bullet and putting in it in my mouth. But no, not me. I’m too much of a coward to take my own life. I tried that, put it in my mouth, and I just couldn’t do it. But the plan was to kill him.”

Chapman was denied parole for the ninth time, but not before he shared about how he had conned his wife into letting him go back to New York so he could “find himself,” after an attempt several months earlier in New York when he first intended to kill Lennon. Chapman shares that he aborted that effort after not being able to locate Lennon. His wife urged him to go back home to Hawaii after he had actually confessed his plans to her following seeing the movie Ordinary People.

When he arrived home, Chapman told his wife that he had thrown the gun he had purchased to carry out the crime in the ocean, but he hadn’t. Although his wife was conned, Chapman shared that his mother was aware something was off when he told her of his plan to go back to New York City “to be alone for a little bit….I need a little bit of timeout.”

I still love this. John Lennon and Yoko Ono / Jhene Aiko and Childish Gambino pic.twitter.com/CfzT8uJBW1

— Eric. just Eric. (@EricTheWriter) September 10, 2016

While at lunch with his mom in Hawaii, she asked him if he was up to something.

“My mother looked at me and said, ‘You’re not going to do anything funny, are you?'” Chapman said. “I said, ‘No mom. No way.'”

“Of course that was a lie and I caused her pain.”

Chapman shared that the thought first came to him to kill Lennon while he was sitting in his apartment looking at a picture of the legend on the cover of an album. It was the initial point of his spiral to madness.

“The thought came to me — wouldn’t it be something if I killed him?” Chapman told the parole commissioners. “Once I had that thought, I couldn’t get rid of it. It became an obsession.”

Although married, Chapman shared that he felt like “a big nobody and my self esteem was zero.” He believed killing Lennon would give him attention, which, of course, it did, and made him somebody.

“I really have no excuses except to say that it was the attention that I thought I needed,” he said. “It was a solution, a horrible solution, but it was a solution and I made a very bad decision to end an innocent man’s life based on utter selfishness.”

Chapman even recognizes the sociopathic nature experienced following taking Lennon’s life, making it known that even after seeing Lennon with his 5-year-old son on the morning he killed him, later waiting for his return from the studio, and shooting an innocent star in cold blood, he had no remorse or guilt.

About his reaction, he states he felt “[n]othing. That’s a true sociopathic mind. I didn’t care.”

[Feature Photo by Harry Benson/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]