John Lennon’s accused murderer sat quietly in a hospital prison ward Wednesday as officials tried to piece together the conflicting identities of drug-user “born-again” Christian, jilted lover and child of a broken home that apparently drove him to kill the man he most admired.
Mark David Chapman, a 25-year-old unemployed security guard and obsessive Beatles fan from Honolulu, was confined to a spare second-floor cell in Bellevue Hospital for 30 days of psychiatric test to determine his comptency to start trial.
Chapman, a one-time rock musician himself, laces up to 15 years to life in prison if convinced of the second-degree murder charges against him.
Lennon’s body was removed from the city medical examiner’s office and taken to a funeral chapel for cremation. There will be no funeral.
Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, has said she would set the time for a silent prayer vigil for the slain rock star later in the week
A prison guard four assigned to continuous suicide watch on Chapman said he hadn’t heard the accused killer say “two words since his morning” when he was screened by hospital psychiatrists.
He said all the furniture in the room had been removed except for a bed. A barred window “fogged over” with some opaque paint admitted a faint light from a courtyard. The television in the day room was turned down so Chapman could not hear news reports of Lennon’s death.
“We’re being really careful because of the nature of this ” Bellevue Hospital spokeswoman Sandy Smith said.
“He’s not a screaming crazy” Ms. Smith said. “It was an uneventful night. Everything is really normal”
Dr. Henry Weinstein of the Forensic Psychiatric Unit at Bellevue, was expected to head the psychiatric examination of Chapman but the hospital said it would have no comment on the result until they were presented in court.
Dr. Marvin Stone, a ward doctor at Bellevue, said Chapman seemed ” a little bit depressed. He would like to know how his family is doing. He has asked about his wife and his mother”
Stone added Chapman’s appetite “is a little off… At the moment he doesn’t seem to have any active plans for suicide. He asked for less noise”
A police source who was present when Chapman was interviewed immediately after Lennon was shot to death said the suspect told detectives “Mst of me didn’t want to do it but a little of me did. I couldn’t help myself.”
In Chicago David Moore the executive director of the Duncan YMCA remembered Chapman as a”fantastic kid” when they worked together in Fort Chaffee, Ark. at Indochinese resettlement camp in 1975.
“He was one of the most compassionate staff members we had” Moore said. “He came to be a team coordinator, one of five in the entire camp. It was a pretty responsible job for a guy only 20”
“He was a dedicated Christian who had been “born again” with a firm religious faith Moore said “He was very much a Beatle fan and played their music constantly. I can remember one night we had a discussion at home about that comment by one of the Beatles (Lennon) that they were more important to the world than Jesus Christ.
“I can remember him saying “Who the hell are they to compare themselves to Jesus?” He harped on it a little. He thought they were being arrogant.”
Moore added that Chapman’s troubled childhood in Georgia led him to run away from home several times and to turn the drugs.. barbiturates and amphetamines and maybe even heroin”
Moore said Chapman was “madly in love” with a girl named Jessica but said he “”become unglued when he couldn’t cut in school and the girl told him to pack off.” That’s when he headed for Hawaii, where he learned his parents were getting divorced. Then he had a nervous breakdown.”
Moore said the last time he saw Chapman was in 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland.
“He told me he had tried to commit suicide in Honolulu that he felt life wasn’t worth living,” Moore said.
At Chapman’s arraignment his court appointed lawyer, Hebert Adlerberg, said his client had attempted suicide a second time within the last six weeks with the same 38-caliber Charter Arms revolver he allegedy used to kill Lennon Monday night.
Detectives continued their search for clues to a motive for the slaying but appeared a baffled as Chapman’s friends and acquantances.
“We don’t know why (he did it) “Deputy Inspector Peter Prezioso said.
A spokesman for the Sheraton Centre Hotel, where Chapman stayed in $82-a-day room before the killing said detectives who searched Chapman’s room found a number items the suspect left behind.
Among them were a miniature bible, a place mat printed with Wizard of Oz characters, several photographs, a suitcase with dirty clothes, a tape deck and a tape of rock musician Todd Rundgren
When Chapman was arrested Monday night police said , he was carrying a cassette recorder with about 14 hours of Beatles tapes and paperback copy of J.D. Salinger’s novel about adolescence “Catcher in the Rve”
It was believed that Chapman, who borrowed $2.500 from a Honolulu hospital credit union to finance his latest trip to New York, returned to Hawaii between visits.
Paul Schwed
