The man who shot John Lennon told a probation commission that he knew it was wrong to kill the Beatle, but he was looking for fame and had “evil” in his heart.
Mark Chapman said he had “a selfish disregard for human life of global consequences”.
The council denied him parole for the twelfth time.
Chapman, in a transcript released Monday by New York officials under a freedom of information request, said his decision to kill Lennon was “my big answer to everything. I would no longer be a nobody.”
He told the council: “I won’t blame anyone or anyone else for taking me there.
“I knew what I was doing and I knew it was evil. I knew it was wrong, but I wanted fame so much that I was willing to give it all and take a human life.”
Chapman killed Lennon on the night of December 8, 1980 while he and Yoko Ono were returning to their Upper West Side apartment.
Earlier that day, Lennon had signed an autograph for Chapman on a copy of his recently released Double Fantasy album.
Chapman, 67, told the board, “This was the evil in my heart. I wanted to be someone and nothing would stop it.”
Chapman is serving a life sentence at 20 to life in prison at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Hudson Valley in upstate New York.
He has repeatedly expressed remorse during his probation hearings over the years.
“I’ve hurt a lot of people all over the place and if anyone wants to hate me, that’s okay, I get it,” he said in an August hearing.
Denying him release, the council said Chapman’s action left “the world recovering from the void you created.”
The next appearance of Chapman’s probation commission is scheduled for February 2024.