Mark David Chapman declared that he had a full list of other celebrities he would’ve killed if he couldn’t get his hands on Beatle John Lennon in a parole hearing last week, reported the New York Post.
The transcript of that 50-minute closed-door hearing was released to The Post on Wednesday October 11, 2000.
Chapman, serving a life sentence in Attica prison for the 1980 murder, was denied freedom by a three-member state Parole Board panel. He's eligible for another hearing in two years.
Chapman told the panel that within a month of deciding to kill Lennon, he thought up "a substitute list" consisting of several names.
"Probably, I thought he wouldn't be an attainable type of thing, and I did think of harming some people," he told the board.
He listed three names, which state officials blacked out from the transcript and would not release, and said there were several others he could not remember.
While none of the three other Beatles were on the list, sources said, Jack Jones, an author who has chronicled Chapman for 16 years, said Jackie Onassis, George C. Scott and Johnny Carson were among those considered killed.
The inmate cited feelings such as "vanity," "jealousy," "anger" and "stupidity" as reasons he wanted to kill Lennon and other celebrities.
While he said he was not asking the board to release him, Chapman insisted that he poses no threat to Lennon's family or other celebrities if paroled.
During the hearing, the pudgy 45-year-old detailed his mental state leading up to the high-profile murder.
He said his desire to kill Lennon began after seeing photos of the pop icon standing in front of the singer's Dakota apartment building in a book called "One Day at a Time."
"I took it upon myself to judge him falsely for ... being something other than, you know, in a lotus position with a flower, and I got angry in my stupidity," he said.
He spoke of an "obsession" on the night he killed Lennon, and claimed he heard a small voice - "probably something very evil" - telling him to "just do it."
He told the board he never considered the effect the murder would have on Lennon's family and friends.
Prison life the first few years was hard, and he said he experienced fits of rage that he learned to quell in the 1980s and '90s to the point that he says he is now free from any mental illness.
Chapman said a recent statement from Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, that she was violently shaking after witnessing the murder haunted him so much he said he considered skipping his parole hearing.
He reiterated earlier statements that he belongs in prison, and is lucky to be alive.
"I believe once you take a person's life, there's no way you can make up for that. Period," Chapman said.
He also apologized to Ono, who in a letter asked the board to deny Chapman release for a recent statement in which he suggested Lennon would forgive him and want to see him freed.
"Maybe it wasn't my right to speak my own crime victim's words," he said. – Albawaba.com.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
