"I Killed For Christ!" says Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's Assassin
traveler
A retired Corrections Officer who spent the last twenty years of a
forty-year career at Attica State Prison in New York claims that Mark
David Chapman is "coddled by the system and living high off the hog"
at the prison where he was sent for pumping four hollow point .357
magnum bullets into the chest, back, and left arm of ex-Beatle John
Lennon on December 8, 1980 outside the Dakota Apartment Bldg. in New
York City. Lennon was pronounced dead from catastrophic blood loss
soon after he arrived at the hospital. The slaying was noted not only
for its famous victim but for the callous brutality with which he was
dispatched. After committing the murder, Chapman dropped his gun, sat
down against a wall, and began reading a copy of J.D. Salinger's
Catcher in the Rye, telling authorities that he identified with the
protagonist in the book who's metaphorical goal in life was to save
children who were playing in a field of grass from falling off the
cliff beside the field. Later, Chapman claimed that the Beatles had
ruined his life with their music and their example, especially John
Lennon, whom he had once idolized.
Retired Corrections Officer, James Fergueson, says, "I had
several conversations with Mark" and that after the two became
friendly, "he shared some things with me that he doesn't usually talk
about." Previously, Chapman had admitted that he idolized Lennon for
several years and even attempted to imitate his lifestyle, but that
once he became a Born Again Christian, he soured on the rock star,
especially after Lennon made the infamous remark, "the Beatles are
more popular than Jesus Christ!" Sales of their music plummeted in the
Deep South, where Fundamentalist Christianity is embedded as nowhere
else in the nation. When Lennon left the Beatles for a solo career
and penned one of his most famous songs, "Imagine," in which the
singer/songwriter says, "Imagine there's no heaven," Chapman claimed
he became determined to kill the famous rock star. "The kids in my
church group used to sing,'Imagine John Lennon is dead,' then we'd all
laugh about it," Chapman said.
Fergueson claims that in his talks with Chapman, he attempted to
point out that as a professed Christian, Chapman's murderous act was
in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus Christ. "I told him,
'Jesus would never have killed John Lennon. He might have sat him
down and had a long talk with him, but he would have forgiven him for
any misguided opinions he held. The last thing he would have wanted
was for someone like you to go out and gun him down right in front of
his wife and then claim you did it because you love Jesus.' When I
told him that, he became very defensive and responded, "I killed for
Christ and you can go to hell with all the rest of the secular
humanists who reject him as their Lord and Savior!" I didn't talk to
Mark for a long time after that, but when I finally did about a year
later, he admitted that what he'd done to Lennon was 'stupid.' He
said he enjoys his life now and he wouldn't have become famous or so
well taken care of if he hadn't done it. You wouldn't believe how
well he is treated by the state of New York. He has no contact with
any of the other prisoners because they are afraid he will be severely
beaten or killed. There are a lot of people who admired John Lennon
and many of them would like to see Chapman die a terrible death for
what he did that night. Mark works in the prison library and the rest
of the time he sits on his ass reading the Bible." Fergueson also
said that some people think Chapman was paid to kill Lennon and
promised a cushy life behind bars if he did it. "The state of New
York knows more than they are telling," he said. Recently, Chapman
was denied his application for parole. "It's for his own good," says
Fergueson. If he ever gets out of jail, he's a dead man."
Dave Foster
TTNS
traveler
I think I heard that guy on the radio. He was going along pretty well
and the talk show host was beginning to get some interesting calls
about it when they abruptly kicked him off the show. My guess is the
FBI knows all about why Chapman killed Lennon and who paid that fat-
assed Jesus freak to stalk him (they did).
traveler
It's the way we do things here in the good ole USA. You are harassed
and persecuted for being being a nonconformist, and if ever you rise
to a level where they can no longer make your day to day existence a
living hell at will, as Lennon finally did, they just knock you off
and go on about their business. I recently read a bio of Sam
Giancana, the Chicago Mob boss who was utilized by the CIA on various
covert operations (including, he claimed, the JFK assassination). He
was quoted as saying that the line between organized crime, Big
Business, and the US Government was so blurred now that they are
practically indistinguishable. There interests are more alike than
different. Live long enough and you realize that the biggest crooks
are at the top of the heap. They ARE the establishment.