The Killing of John Lennon Page #7

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to determine if he was competent enough

to make such a decision.

The judge refused.

[Mark] I was never mad.

I was blessed.

But there was one more task

I had to endure.

I had to be purified.

Exorcised.

- I know you, Satan.

- I'm a Christian. I can't be possessed.

I command you, Satan,

to come out.

I summon them up.

They're not inside.

[shouts]

It is Christ

who commands you...

[man] Do you believe in God?

The devil?

[Mark] Have you ever woken up

with the sensation

that something evil is in the room?

You're not really awake,

but you're not really dreaming either.

Your eyes won't open

more than about halfway.

You just feel paralysed with a fear that's

so powerful, you don't know who you are.

You're so frightened, you've virtually lost

your identity. Fear can do that, you know.

It can strip you of your identity.

There's nothing

more frightening than that.

I know.

[man] Holy Lord,

almighty Father,

everlasting God

and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who once and for all consigned

that fallen tyrant to the flames of hell,

who sent your only-begotten Son

into the world to crush that roaring lion...

[Mark] I was in a very surreal world.

I was in an utter panic of sheer terror

and wanted things to go back to the way

they were before I had pulled the trigger.

[ "Come Rain or Come Shine "

by Bobby Caldwell]

[Mark] My whole life

was like that at that time -

a half-waking nightmare.

I couldn't wake up

and I couldn't sleep it away.

I was scared to death,

but I couldn't scream.

I would try to scream,

and it would remain echoing in my chest

without even being vocalised.

That was what came out

that night in December

when John Lennon

stepped out of his limousine.

What came out

of the barrel of that gun that night

was a giant scream

after all those years.

[gunshots]

[Mark] Listen to some

of the Lennon records,

Iisten to the background

of some of the Beatles' songs.

That screaming in the background,

that's John.

Listen to him scream when he's singing

about not having his mother,

about being abandoned

by his mother and his father.

Poor guy.

His father left the family,

then his mother left him

to be raised by his aunt and uncle.

Then his mother got killed

after she came back to him

after all those years.

To think, after a person had been through

all he had been through as a child,

then to get murdered

by somebody like me.

Thank you all very much.

God bless you.

[newsreader] Chapman

was brought from prison

to the state supreme court in Manhattan

to hear the judge's sentence.

Chapman showed

no emotion whatsoever

when the sentence

of 20 years to life was handed out,

but before that moment, there was to be

detailed evidence about his state of mind.

Chapman sat in a blue T -shirt,

holding a copy of Catcher in the Rye.

When the judge asked if he had

anything to say before the sentence,

Chapman rose

and read a short passage from the book.

[Mark] "I'm standing

at the edge of this crazy cliff."

"What I have to do,

I have to catch everybody

if they start to go over the cliff - I mean

if they don't Iook where they're going

I have to come out from somewhere

and catch them."

"That's all I'II do all day."

"I'd just stand there

and be the catcher in the rye and all."

"I know it's crazy, but that's

the only thing I'd really Iike to be."

"I know it's crazy."

[ "Shelf Life" by Carey Ott]

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