Mark david chapman interview
Mark David Chapman’s deranged confession, John Lennon’s final words revealed 43 years after shocking murder
John Lennon’s murderer Mark David Chapman’s deranged confessions are being heard for the first time, revealing how he gunned down the Beatle when a voice in his head said “Do it! Do it!”
The killer’s words will be part of a new Apple TV+ documentary, “John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial,” released Wednesday, ahead of the 43rd anniversary of the murder on Friday.
It will also detail the Beatle’s last moments described on camera for the first time by two of the witnesses to his murder — and how his final words were: “I’m shot.”
The documentary casts new light on how Chapman, 68, who has repeatedly failed in his bids to be paroled for the murder, confessed to it behind bars, claiming he shot Lennon because he was “a phony.”
Under hypnosis, in preparation for a trial that was slated to have him pleading insanity, Chapman recalled sitting on the curb, seeing a black limo pull up to the building.
The door opened and Yoko Ono emerged. He remembered seeing Lennon exiting next.
“I see a struggle,” he says, eerily calm. “Part of me didn’t want to do it. Part of me did. I had a voice in my head, saying, ‘Do it! Do it! Do it!”
By then, Chapman had already walked 6 feet toward the famous Beatle. “Took the gun out of my pocket and aimed at him and just fired away, all five shots. It felt like it was not me but it was me.”
Taxi driver Richard Peterson and Dakota Building concierge Joe Hastings also ended almost precisely 43 years of silence to describe in second-by-second detail how they saw Lennon fall outside the front door of the building where he lived with wife Yoko Ono and son Sean, 6.
Peterson tells how he watched the killing unfold from his taxi, believing momentarily that he was watching a movie being made.
“This kid says, ‘John Lennon,'” Peters Source: Photo by K. Ramsland In this age of looking back, it was inevitable that a documentary would be made of the footage surrounding the fatal shooting on December 8, 1980, of former Beatle, John Lennon. The shooter, Mark David Chapman, will come up for parole for the 13th time in February 2024. Maybe 13 will be his lucky number, but it's unlikely. The world will not forgive him, no matter how unstable he was at the time of the crime. It's been 43 years since that terrible moment when Lennon died from multiple gunshot wounds. For many fans, it's still horribly fresh. The new three-part documentary, John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial (produced by 72 Films), is available on Apple TV+ for the grim anniversary. It contains footage we've seen about the shooting. Still, thanks to multiple Freedom of Information Act acquisitions, we also hear from people who haven't been shown before sharing their experience that day. From a taxi driver to attorneys and psychiatrists who interviewed Chapman during the days following the shooting, there's an array of new perspectives on the wretched offender. For lore collectors, this series is a needed addition to the records. Still, questions remain. At first, it seemed that Chapman would offer an insanity defense. His legal team was prepared, and there seemed to be a good reason for this stance. The various diagnoses differed, but several mental health experts were prepared to testify for the defense that Chapman was psychotic. He'd shown different facades during the assessments, but because he also had good contact with his mental state evaluators, he fit into a gray area. The prosecution offered three clinicians who said Chapman's delusions, while fantastical, fell short of psychosis. He was found competent to stand trial. One controversial expert was Milton Kline, a psychologist versed in hypnosis who'd once consulted for the CIA's mind control program and had bragged that he could persuade people to act against thei .
Jack Jones
While millions of words have been written about John Lennon's influence on music and popular culture, not much has been known about John Lennon's assassin - Mark David Chapman.
Investigative Reporter Jack Jones has written what must be termed the definitive book on Chapman Titled Let Me Take You Down, Inside The Mind of Mark David Chapman, The Man Who Shot John Lennon (Villard Books) It's the culmination of six years of interviews with Chapman on over 200 hours of tape. It is both frightening and revealing in its content.
Jack Jones spoke with us about his research and interview with Mark David Chapman - the man who shot John Lennon.
Q - Jack, I would imagine that like millions of people who first heard Lennon's assassin described as a whacko, you thought there must be more to it than that and so you decided to write this book. Was that in fact your motivation?
A - Not really. I got interested in the project through a counseling group at Attica ( Prison - where Chapman is currently serving his 20 years to life sentence for the murder of Lennon ). I just felt sort of weak in the knees after I found out that John Lennon had been murdered. I thought of Martin Luther King and the Kennedy assassinations and I just thought Oh My God! I guess you subconsciously think 'They', (whoever they are) they've killed another one. But, you sort of lump all these people together, which is, I've learned now, a mistake to do. It's a shame that somebody didn't get to Lee Harvey Oswald before Jack Ruby did, just so the questions about whether there was any sort of conspiracy could've been answered. I think that's one value of my book, which is such a thorough examination of Mark David Chapman. If people still think there was a conspiracy involved in John Lennon's assassination, then they're just dyed in the wool, paranoid, conspiracists who are never going to change their mind no matter what the