Friday, February 22, 2013

Mark David Chapman Letters Go to Auction


John Lennon's killer wrote letters from prison to police officer detailing obsession with J.D. Saligner's The Catcher in the Rye.
From a piece in the Guardian...

The letters are typed and signed by Chapman. They were written over several months in 1983, after he had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

In the first letter, from 15 January 1983, Chapman says his reason for writing, besides wanting to be Spiro's friend, is to ask for help in locating his copy of The Catcher in The Rye, which he was reading at the time of his arrest.

"Have you read The Catcher in the Rye yet?" Chapman asks. "I would like you to read it and tell me what you think of it. As you remember, in the copy that was taken from me I had written 'This is my statement.'"

Spiro said he received the first letter at the Manhattan precinct where he worked and wrote Chapman back because he was hoping to get evidence on a possible hit list of other victims and people acting with Chapman.

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