At Lennon’s murderer still denied conditional freedom

For the fourteenth time, John Lennon’s killer, Mark Chapman, has been denied conditional freedom.

Chapman, 70 years old, mortally fired Lennon at the entrance of the New York apartment of the Beatles icon in December 1980. The musician and Yoko Ono were returning to the Upper West Side palace after a recording session. Lennon, who was 40 at the time, had signed an autograph in Chapman just that same day.

The killer of the former Beatle, who mortally shot Lennon in December 1980, appeared before the Commission for Conditional Freedom on August 27, and the decision was recently published online by the State Department for Correction and Community supervision. Chapman had without success asked for conditional freedom in August 2020, and then had to wait for more two years before he could access a new hearing. As reported by the foreign newspapers, the transcription of the last hearing was not made available immediately, but previously Chapman had expressed remorse for his crime.

“I will not blame anything else or anyone else for bringing me there,” Chapman said to the commission during the previous hearing: “I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was evil, I knew it was wrong, but I wanted so much the fame that I was willing to give everything and remove a human life”.

Mark Chapman is currently serving a sentence for 20 years to life imprisonment at the Green Haven Correctional Facility, north of New York City, after declaring himself guilty of second degree murder. His next hearing for conditional freedom is now scheduled for February 2027.