Age, Biography, and Wiki
Mark David Chapman was born on May 10, 1955, in Fort Worth, Texas, but grew up in Decatur, Georgia. He gained notoriety for assassinating John Lennon on December 8, 1980, outside Lennon's New York City apartment building, The Dakota. Chapman's life was marked by an obsession with the Beatles and a deep emotional connection to J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, which influenced his actions significantly.
| Occupation | Criminals |
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| Date of Birth | 10 May 1955 |
| Age | 70 Years |
| Birth Place | Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Taurus |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is no publicly available specific information on Mark David Chapman's height, weight, or other measurements.
Around 10:50 p.m., Lennon and Ono returned to the Dakota in a limousine. They got out of the vehicle, passed Chapman, and walked toward the archway entrance of the building. From the street behind them, Chapman fired five hollow-point bullets from a .38 special revolver, four of which hit Lennon in the back and shoulder. One newspaper later reported that Chapman called out "Mr. Lennon" and dropped into a combat stance before firing. Chapman said that he does not recall saying anything, and Lennon did not turn around.
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Dating & Relationship Status
While Chapman's personal life is not extensively detailed, he was married to Gloria Hiroko Abe from 1979 until their divorce in 1981, shortly after the murder.
His father, David Chapman, was a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force and his mother, Diane (née Pease), was a nurse. As a boy, Chapman stated he lived in fear of his father, who he claimed was physically abusive towards his mother and unloving towards him. Chapman began to fantasize about having God-like power over a group of imaginary "little people" who lived in the walls of his bedroom.
In 1971, Chapman became a born-again Presbyterian and distributed Biblical tracts. He met his first girlfriend, Jessica Blankenship, and began work as a summer camp counselor at the YMCA in DeKalb County, Georgia. He was immensely popular with the children at the camp, who nicknamed him "Nemo" (after the protagonist of the Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas), and he was promoted to assistant director after winning an award for Outstanding Counselor. Those who knew Chapman in the caretaking professions said he was an outstanding worker.
Chapman joined Blankenship as a student at Covenant College, a Presbyterian liberal arts college in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. However, he fell behind in his studies and became racked with guilt over having a previous affair. He started having suicidal thoughts and began to feel like a failure. He dropped out of Covenant College after just one semester, and his girlfriend broke off their relationship soon after. Chapman returned to work at the resettlement camp but left after an argument with a supervisor.
In 1977, Chapman spending the last of his savings impulsively relocated to Hawaii, where he attempted suicide by carbon monoxide asphyxiation. He connected a hose to his car's exhaust pipe, but the hose melted and the attempt failed. A psychiatrist admitted Chapman to Castle Memorial Hospital for clinical depression. Upon his release, he began working at the hospital as a maintenance worker. After Chapman's parents began divorce proceedings, his mother joined him in Hawaii.
In 1978, Chapman embarked on a six-week trip around the world. The vacation was partly inspired by the film and novel Around the World in 80 Days. Using his YMCA connections for free or discounted accommodations, Chapman visited Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, New Delhi, Beirut, Geneva, London, Paris and Dublin. The trip concluded with a brief visit to Atlanta to visit his family. He also began a romantic relationship with his travel agent, a Japanese American woman named Gloria Abe, whom he married on June 2, 1979. Chapman got a job at Castle Memorial Hospital as a printer, working alone rather than with staff and patients. He was fired by the hospital but was later rehired but resigned after an argument with a nurse. After this, Chapman took a job as a night security guard at a high-end apartment complex and began drinking heavily to cope with depression.
Chapman went to New York City in late October 1980 intending to kill Lennon, but left to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend Dana Reeves in Atlanta before returning in November. While in New York, Chapman was inspired by the film Ordinary People to stop his plans. He returned to Hawaii and told his wife Gloria that he had been obsessed with killing Lennon, showing her the gun and bullets; Gloria did not inform the police or mental health services. Chapman later said that the commandment "thou shalt not kill" flashed on the television at him and was on a wall hanging that his wife put up in their apartment. He made an appointment to see a clinical psychologist, but he did not keep it and flew back to New York on December 6, 1980. At one point, he considered ending his life by jumping from the Statue of Liberty.
On December 7, Chapman accosted singer James Taylor at the 72nd Street subway station. According to Taylor, "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon." He also reportedly offered cocaine to a taxi driver. That night, Chapman and his wife talked on the phone about getting help with his problems by first working on his relationship with God.
Around 5 p.m., Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were leaving the Dakota for a recording session at the Record Plant. As they walked toward their limousine, Chapman, without saying a word, held out a copy of Lennon's album Double Fantasy (1980) for Lennon to sign. Amateur photographer Paul Goresh was standing nearby and took a picture as Lennon signed the album. Chapman said in an interview that he tried to get Goresh to stay, and he asked another loitering Lennon fan to go out with him that night. He suggested that he would not have murdered Lennon that evening if the woman had accepted his invitation or if Goresh had stayed, but he probably would have tried another day.
Chapman was formally charged with second-degree murder which was the most serious murder charge in New York State law for killing a non-law officer. He confessed to police that he had used hollow-point bullets "to ensure Lennon's death." Chapman's wife had known of her husband's preparations for killing Lennon, but took no action because Chapman did not follow through at the time; she did not face any charges. Chapman later said that he harbored a "deep-seated resentment" toward his wife, "that she didn't go to somebody, even the police, and say, 'Look, my husband's bought a gun and he says he's going to kill John Lennon.
Chapman is in the Family Reunion Program, and has been allowed regular conjugal visits since 2014 with his wife since he accepted solitary confinement. The program allows him to spend 44 hours alone with his wife in a specially built prison home, a trailer on prison grounds equipped with a kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom. He also gets occasional visits from his sister, clergy, and a few friends. In 2004, Department of Correctional Services spokesman James Flateau said that Chapman had been involved in three "minor incidents" between 1989 and 1994 which included delaying an inmate count and refusing to follow an order. On May 15, 2012, he was transferred to the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, which is east of Buffalo. On March 30, 2022, he was transferred to the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, New York, which is in Dutchess County.
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| Husband | Gloria Abe (m. 1979) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Mark David Chapman's net worth is estimated to be approximately $1 million, although this figure is uncertain due to his long-term imprisonment and the legal restrictions on earning opportunities. The "Son of Sam" law and similar legislation prohibit him from profiting from his crime, limiting his ability to earn substantial income through interviews or book deals.
Career, Business, and Investments
Before his imprisonment, Chapman held low-income jobs, including working as a security guard and a printer. He did not have any notable business or investment ventures due to his criminal record and subsequent incarceration.
Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American man who murdered English musician John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of The Dakota, his apartment building on the Upper West Side, Chapman fired five shots at the musician from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver. Lennon was hit four times from the back. He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Chapman remained at the scene following the shooting and made no attempt to flee or resist arrest. Raised in Decatur, Georgia, Chapman was initially a fan of the Beatles, but was infuriated by Lennon's lavish lifestyle, the lyrics of "God" and "Imagine", and public statements such as his remark about the band being "more popular than Jesus". In the years leading up to the murder, the J. D. Salinger novel The Catcher in the Rye took on great personal significance for Chapman, to the extent that he wished to model his life after the novel's protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Chapman also contemplated killing other public figures, including David Bowie, Johnny Carson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul McCartney, and Ronald Reagan. He had no prior criminal convictions and had recently resigned from a job as a security guard in Hawaii.
Chapman worked in the prison as a legal clerk and kitchen helper. He was barred from participating in the Cephas Attica workshops, a charitable organization helping inmates adjust to life outside prison. He was also prohibited from attending the prison's violence and anger management classes due to concern for his safety. He told a parole board in 2000 what he would do if paroled: "I would immediately try to find a job, and I really want to go from place to place, at least in the state, church to church, and tell people what happened to me and point them the way to Christ." He also said that he thought that he could find work as a farmhand or return to his previous trade as a printer.
Social Network
Given his imprisonment since 1980, Chapman does not have an active presence on social networks. His life and actions are more closely monitored by legal and media entities than by any personal online presence.
Chapman had also been influenced by Anthony Fawcett's John Lennon: One Day at a Time, which detailed Lennon's lavish lifestyle in New York City. According to Gloria, "He was angry that Lennon would preach love and peace but yet have millions." Chapman later said: "He told us to imagine no possessions and there he was, with millions of dollars and yachts and farms and country estates, laughing at people like me who had believed the lies and bought the records and built a big part of their lives around his music." He also recalled having listened to Lennon's solo albums in the weeks before the murder: "I would listen to this music and I would get angry at him, for saying [in the song 'God'] that he didn't believe in God, that he just believed in him and Yoko, and that he didn't believe in the Beatles. This was another thing that angered me, even though this record had been done at least ten years previously. I just wanted to scream out loud, 'Who does he think he is, saying these things about God and heaven and the Beatles?' Saying that he doesn't believe in Jesus and things like that. At that point, my mind was going through a total blackness of anger and rage. So I brought the Lennon book home, into this The Catcher in the Rye milieu where my mindset is Holden Caulfield and anti-phoniness."
Chapman declined all offers for interviews following the murder and during his first six years at Attica, later stating that he did not want to give the impression that he killed Lennon as a route to acquire fame and notoriety. Despite his claim that he refused all interviews during those six years, James R. Gaines interviewed him and wrote a three-part, 18,000-word People magazine series starting in 1981 and climaxing in February and March 1987. Chapman subsequently told the parole board that he regretted the interview. He gave a series of audio-taped interviews to Jack Jones of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, and Jones published Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon in 1992. Jones asked Chapman to tell his story for Mugshots, a CourtTV program in 2000, with his first parole hearing approaching. Chapman refused to go on camera but consented to tell his story in a series of audiotapes.
Chapman first became eligible for parole in 2000 after serving twenty years in prison. Under New York state law, he is required to have a parole hearing every two years from that year onward. Since that time, a two- or three-member board has denied Chapman parole thirteen times. Before his first parole hearing, Yoko Ono sent a letter to the board requesting that Chapman should stay behind bars and serve out the remainder of his life sentence. In addition, New York State Senator Michael Nozzolio, chairman of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, wrote to Parole Board Chairman Brion Travis saying: "It is the responsibility of the New York State Parole Board to ensure that public safety is protected from the release of dangerous criminals like Mark David Chapman."
* 2014: Chapman's eighth parole application was denied. Chapman told the board, "I am sorry for being such an idiot and choosing the wrong way for glory.... I found my peace in Jesus. I know him. He loves me. He has forgiven me. He has helped in my life like you wouldn't believe." The board was unmoved, telling Chapman that it believed that "there is a reasonable probability that you would not live and remain at liberty without again violating the law."
Education
While specific details about Chapman's educational background are not widely documented, he attended high school and later became involved with the YMCA, working as a counselor.
In conclusion, Mark David Chapman's life and financial situation are marked by his infamous crime, leading to a life of imprisonment and legal restrictions on earning opportunities. His notoriety far exceeds any financial wealth he may possess.
Chapman moved to Decatur, Georgia, at an early age and attended Columbia High School. He later recalled being targeted by bullies due to his lack of athleticism. By the time he was 14, Chapman was using drugs and skipping classes, and at one point ran away from home to live on the streets of Miami for two weeks.
On the recommendation of a friend, Chapman read J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). The novel eventually took on great personal significance for him, to the extent he reportedly wished to model his life after its main character, Holden Caulfield. After graduating from high school, Chapman moved for a time to Chicago and played guitar in churches and Christian night spots while his friend Micheal McFarland did impersonations. After his stint in Chicago, Chapman worked successfully for World Vision with Vietnamese refugees at a resettlement camp at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, after a brief visit to Lebanon for the same work. He was named an area coordinator and a key aide to program director David Moore, who later said Chapman cared deeply for children and worked hard. Chapman accompanied Moore to meetings with government officials, and U.S. President Gerald Ford shook his hand.
