Posted on 09/25/2004 6:38:50 PM PDT by Pikamax
Lennon fans threaten his killer as release looms
Paul Harris in New York Sunday September 26, 2004 The Observer
Mark Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon, could be released from jail next month in a move that has sparked fears of retribution from Beatles fans. Chapman will have a parole hearing in the week beginning 4 October, officials at the New York State Parole Division said. It will be held behind closed doors. However, one official said they had 'no idea' what the outcome of the hearing would be.
But if Chapman is released after 24 years in prison, some Lennon fans have already threatened to take action. News of the parole hearing has spread on the internet and dozens of websites have been filling up with messages from fans around the world, many already promising to take revenge on the man who gunned down Lennon on 8 December 1980 as he arrived at his New York apartment building off Central Park.
'Chapman should be executed. I would gladly get rid of him myself,' wrote a fan from Finland on one website. Another fan has already set up an online petition to have Chapman's parole denied. It is already full of messages that show Chapman's safety outside jail would be difficult to maintain. 'If Mark David Chapman is let out of jail, he wouldn't last a day. There are too many people who want him dead,' wrote a New York-based female fan.
Any security conditions for protecting Chapman if he is released will be down to the New York State Parole Board. 'It is up to them. It is nothing to do with the police,' said a spokesman for the New York Police Department.
New York is used to handling such releases. Recently Joel Steinberg, jailed for 17 years after the violent death of his six-year-old daughter, was released from jail in a move that shocked New York and generated huge media interest. Steinberg faced numerous death threats from the public but still travelled back to the city from jail in a white limousine trailed by a pack of journalists. He has since been living in a charity-run halfway house in New York and reportedly considering a career in television.
However, other recent attempts by high-profile prisoners to get parole have failed. In August a California prison board refused to parole Leslie Van Houten for the 15th time. Van Houten was a disciple of notorious 1960s killer Charles Manson and was convicted for her role in cult murders carried out by Manson's 'Family'. Van Houten, now 55 was rejected in her bid for parole despite having been a long-term model prisoner and making a tearful apology for her part in the grisly 1969 crimes.
Chapman has had two previous requests for parole, in 2000 and 2002, denied. In 2000 he outraged Lennon fans by saying he believed his victim would want him to be freed. 'I think he would be liberal, I think he would care,' he said.
He was originally sentenced to at least 20 years in prison. Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, has supported keeping Chapman in prison out of a fear for her own safety and that of their child Sean and Lennon's other son Julian.
Well, not every Lennon fan is a follower of his message. I loved his music, but hated the protest crap. There are probably a lot out there like me.
Well he`s never gonna get out. They don`t do that for high profile cases like this. I was always curious though if Lennon died rather than hire a bodyguard because he was "giving peace a chance". One of the most famous guys in the world, constantly hounded by fans, which is short for "fanatics", and he had no bodyguard.
If someone shot Chapman, they would not be murderers, just the messengers of Karma.
In an era of Jimmi Hendrix how in the hell do these bubble gum pop pre-Brittany types get such a strong fan base....
> I know I wouldn't want be within earshot of that
LOL, really, that should have been his punishment from the beginning, a 5-hour Yoko Ono concert.
Bump!
Perhaps some of Chapman's CIA/YMCA handlers are still around and can come back and shut Chapman up for good.
They could go full circle and play as enraged, vengeful Beatle fans. Yeh, that's the ticket.
;-)
bethelgrad --- Nixon really "hated the protest crap" too. Are you from The 'Burgh, by chance?
You must of missed some of the music.
I quote from --http://www.geocities.com/matwilson_2000/ch13.htm -- a controversial sourse -- (just for consideration):
The claim that John Lennon was the target of a political assassination is not original. In 1989, Fenton Bresler, an intelligent British Barrister wrote a book called The Murder of Lennon, and he raises many of the serious questions about Lennon's murder that have been almost totally ignored. In particular, he convincingly argues that Mark Chapman, Lennon's assassin was brainwashed by the CIA.
Indeed, all the "traditional" motivations that are ascribed to Mark Chapman are relatively absurd compared to Bresler's analysis. On December 17, 1992, Chapman was interviewed on Larry King Live, and that was certainly an eye opener in terms of exposing the real Mark Chapman. In a nutshell, Chapman reflected the demeanour of a cold, dispassionate, methodical, cold blooded murderer. In particular, Chapman ascribed a phoney motivation to account for Lennon's murder, and that is certainly the mark of a cover up. On the one hand, Chapman claimed that he "was so bonded with Lennon" and on the other, he boldly asserted that he "struck out at something he perceived to be phoney, and that extraordinary contradiction, reflects duplicity, deception and the fact that Mark Chapman was not a "lone nut."
*******
Since he murdered John Lennon, Mark Chapman boasted: "I murdered a man. I took a lot more with me than just myself. A whole era ended. It was the last nail in the coffin of the '60's."After killing his target and simultaneously satisfying the paranoia of "time warp patriots" who are in a perpetual war against the so-called 1960's, Chapman did not flee the murder scene, he calmly started to read his copy of The Catcher in the Rye when amazed New York City police officers arrested him. Chapman obviously wanted to get caught -the implication being that he would plead guilty and the Lennon case would close without investigation.
Over the years, when asked why he murdered Lennon, Chapman would direct attention to the book The Catcher in the Rye. That in turn, directs attention towards patriots like George Herbert Walker Bush, who claim to have been most influenced by the books War and Peace and The Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the Rye is about a "crusade against phoneyness" and Mark Chapman, who used the assassination of Lennon to promote the book, claimed that he was motivated by Holden Caulfield, the book's sixteen-year-old "crusader". In a nutshell, Holden Caulfield hated phonies and Mark Chapman's crusade against a "phoney" like Lennon was "ideologically" aligned with the agenda of overzealous "patriots" who were occupied by the obsession to neutralize the influence of popular antiwar activists. In the awkward words of Mark Chapman: "I have a small part in me that cannot understand the world and what goes on in it. I did not want to kill anybody... I fought against the small part for a long time. I'm sure the large part of me is Holden Caulfield. The small part of me must be the Devil."Seeking to activate the "big part" of Mark Chapman, his "handlers" could have easily exploited his evident compassion for children and made him believe that "phonies" like John Lennon were ultimately responsible for the horror and the dislocation of war.
Friends and associates made a point of having observed a very close bond between Mark Chapman and children, and that certainly provided the opportunity to exploit his Achilles heel. In the words of Mark Chapman: "I never wanted to hurt anybody my friends will tell you that. I have two parts in me the big part is very kind, the children I worked with will tell you that."Chapman struggled to avoid hurting Lennon but his "big part won" and he took his gun out of his coat pocket and shot Lennon in the chest, in the left arm and in the head.
Mark Chapman had evidently mustered up the courage he required to satisfy the agenda of patriots who considered themselves to be exempt from the normal restraint of the law, because in their eyes, the "big picture", the "big part", the national security interest or whatever else they chose to call it, was essentially a license to kill -and John Lennon was clearly a priority target.
In the final analysis, the terrifying reality is that the impressionable Mark Chapman is just one of hundreds of thousands of young people who are not appreciably distinct, in the absence of the "exposure" they receive. Under the circumstances, since Chapman travelled the world as a guest of the YMCA, it is reasonable to expect the organization that sponsored Chapman's psychologically harrowing adventures to assume at least some responsibility for the extraordinary mental transformation -from Mark Chapman, the compassionate young man, to Mark Chapman, the awkward, reluctant assassin who had to be prodded, to murder John Lennon.
********
I liked John's music, so I was interested in finding out why this guy killed him. I still don't know why, but it is interesting to read of the CIA/YMCA connection.
Yep...Attica ...in SEG or SHU....whatever they call it there.
They know he would be killed propmtly in the GP.
What's wrong with NY?
They may let this idiot scumbag out and they releases Steinberg after only 17....I got pals who are doing more than that for smuggling weed.
Hedda Nussbaum shoulda done some time too.
No justice.
Hey, Jihn's wearing Dick Gephardts's father's old milkman jacket!
now what kind of press would one of us receive if we ever threatened John Hinkley? Geez....
Hey, John's wearing Dick Gephardts's father's old milkman jacket!
His killer should not be released.
In the case of John Lennon, I suspect that his fans were mostly average American music fans .... not necessarily peaceniks. I was a teenager when the Beatles were famous. I was not a peacenik. In fact, I'm a death penalty fan. I suspect that most people who liked Lennon have a similar makeup.
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