The man who killed John Lennon outside his Manhattan apartment in 1980 spoke to a parole board at the Wende Correctional Facility, trying to convince officials to release him.
It didn’t work.
Chapman spoke to the board in August, and the board denied his release. Officials at the prison, where Chapman is serving a sentence of 20 years to life, released a transcript of the hearing on Nov. 15.
Chapman said that he used hollow-point bullets to make sure he killed Lennon but said he did not want Lennon to suffer, according to the transcript, obtained by the Daily Mail.
“I secured those bullets to make sure he would be dead. It was immediately after the crime that I was concerned that he did not suffer,” he said.
Chapman also said that he was planning to carry out the murder two or three months before he actually did it but he went to a movie theater and “had a strike of conscience” and chose to go home to his wife instead.
He recalled meeting Lennon and that the musician was nice to him.
“When you went back, I think you said you went back to your room, why didn’t you say, okay, well, nice guy, I am not going to do this?” one of the parole board members wondered.
“I was too far in. I do remember having the thought of, ‘Hey, you have got the album now, look at this, he signed it, just go home.’ But there was no way I was going to go home,” Chapman replied.
Release Denial
In the release denial, the three-member board said that Chapman carefully planned out the murder of Lennon and that if he was released, someone could try to kill him for the same reason he killed the former Beatle—”to assume notoriety.”
“You admittedly carefully planned and executed the murder of a world-famous person for no reason other than to gain notoriety,” the three-member panel wrote in a decision obtained by CBS.
“While no one person’s life is any more valuable than another’s life, the fact that you chose someone who was not only a world renown person and beloved by millions, regardless of the pain and suffering you would cause to his family, friends, and so many others, you demonstrated a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life and the pain and suffering of others. This fact remains a concern to this panel,” the panel continued.
Chapman will be up for parole again in August 2020.
