The man who killed John Lennon outside his New York City apartment building told a parole board he was seeking fame and had “evil in my heart”.
Mark David Chapman made the comments in August to a board that denied him parole for a 12th time, citing his “selfish disregard for human life of global consequence”.
Chapman shot and killed Lennon on the night of December 8, 1980, as the singer and his wife Yoko Ono were returning to their Upper West Side apartment.
Chapman said he knew it was wrong to kill the former Beatle.
The decision to murder Lennon was “my big answer to everything. I wasn’t going to be a nobody, any more”, he said.
“I am not going to blame anything else or anybody else for bringing me there,” Chapman told the board.
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John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool. An 8-year-old Lennon is pictured here in his school uniform. All photos unless otherwise stated: Getty Images -
Lennon standing outside Paul McCartney's Liverpool home in 1960 with fellow Beatles George Harrison and McCartney. Ringo Starr was not to join the band for another two years. -
Lennon performs at the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1961. -
The Beatles holding a silver disc in 1963. -
The Beatles on stage at the London Palladium, performing in front of 2, 000 screaming fans in 1963. -
Lennon at the London Palladium in 1963. -
The Beatles wave to the crowd while in the US for their first concerts in the country, in February 1964. -
American television host Ed Sullivan smiles as he meets the famous band in 1964. -
Lennon, McCartney and Starr enjoy a few moments away from adoring fans after police smuggled them out of the side door of their hotel for a visit to Central Park, New York City, in 1964. -
Heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali poses in the ring with The Beatles in 1964. -
The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium, New York in August 1965. -
The Beatles receive MBEs at Buckingham Palace in London in 1965. -
The Beatles rehearse for 'Our World', the BBC's contribution to a two-hour live global television broadcast in 1967. -
The Beatles and friends give an audience to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1967. -
Lennon and McCartney arriving in London in 1968. They were both carrying apples to promote their new company Apple Corps. -
Yoko Ono and her husband Lennon, with his son Julian on his lap, pose with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Cream guitarist Eric Clapton and Roger Daltrey of The Who, in London, 1968. -
The Beatles performing their final live public concert on the rooftop of the Apple Organisation building in Savile Row, London, 1969. -
Lennon and Ono pose on the steps of the Apple building in London in 1969. -
Lennon and Ono in their bed in the Presidential Suite of the Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam, in 1969. The couple staged a 'bed-in for peace' for seven days. -
Ono and Lennon after having their hair cut in 1970. -
A crowd gathers outside the Dakota apartments in New York after Lennon was shot hours earlier in front of the building in December 1980. -
Fans of John Lennon hold a vigil after he was shot outside his home in New York, 1980. -
The Empire State Building in New York is illuminated light blue, to mark what would have been Lennon's 80th birthday. AP -
Yoko Ono paid tribute to her 'angels' on Twitter on what would have been Lennon's 80th birthday.
“I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was evil, I knew it was wrong, but I wanted the fame so much that I was willing to give everything and take a human life.”
Chapman, 67, said: “This was evil in my heart. I wanted to be somebody and nothing was going to stop that.”
Chapman is serving a 20-years-to-life sentence at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York’s Hudson Valley. He has repeatedly expressed remorse during his parole hearings over the years.
“I hurt a lot of people all over the place and if somebody wants to hate me, that’s OK, I get it,” he said at the August 31 hearing.
The transcript was released on Monday after a freedom of information request.
In denying him release, the board mentioned Chapman’s action has left “the world recovering from the void of which you created”.
Chapman’s next parole board appearance is scheduled for February 2024.
On the day he was killed, Lennon had earlier signed an autograph for Chapman on a copy of his recently released album, Double Fantasy.
Chapman called his actions “despicable” during his hearing in 2020, and said he would have “no complaint whatsoever” if they chose to leave him in prison for the rest of his life.
In June, John Hinckley Junior, who shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was freed from court oversight, officially concluding decades of supervision by legal and mental health professionals. Hinckley had been acquitted by reason of insanity.
