John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial has been narrated by Kiefer Sutherland, and will look into both the original crime in 1980, alongside its aftermath.
To make the documentary, the filmmakers were “granted extensive Freedom of Information Act requests from the New York City Police Department, the Board of Parole and the District Attorney’s office”.
Mark David Chapman fatally shot the former Beatle outside his New York apartment on 8 December, 1980. He pled guilty in 1981, and was sentenced to twenty years to life in prison. He has since been up for parole 12 times, and was denied each time.
People gathered at Central Park, New York, to mourn the death of John Lennon, December 1980
“I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was evil. I knew it was wrong, but I wanted the fame so much that I was willing to give everything and take a human life. I am not going to blame anything else or anybody else for bringing me there,” Chapman said when up for parole in 2021, according to Sky News.
“This was evil in my heart. I wanted to be somebody and nothing was going to stop that,” he continued. He added that killing Lennon was “my big answer to everything. I wasn’t going to be a nobody anymore”.
The announcement comes just after Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr announced the release of their final Beatles song, ‘Now and Then’, based off of recordings Lennon made before his death and using the help of AI.
The three-part documentary doesn’t have an official release date yet.
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