Letters From John Lennon's Killer To NYPD Officer On Sale For $75K

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Four letters that John Lennon's killer wrote to the New York City police officer who arrested him are on sale through a Los Angeles auction house.

Gary Zimet, owner Moments in Time, says the letters from Mark David Chapman to Stephen Spiro are for sale starting Monday for a fixed price of $75,000.

Zimet says he's selling the letters on behalf of Spiro, who arrested Chapman on Dec. 8, 1980, shortly after Lennon was shot outside his Manhattan building. He was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

In the letters from 1983, Chapman asks for help locating his copy of "The Catcher in the Rye," the novel he was reading when he was arrested.

In August, the 57-year-old Chapman, who is serving a sentence of 20 years to life, was denied parole for the seventh time.

"Despite your positive efforts while incarcerated, your release at this time would greatly undermine respect for the law and tend to trivialize the tragic loss of life which you caused as a result of this heinous, unprovoked, violent, cold and calculated crime," parole board member Sally Thompson wrote.

The former security guard from Hawaii said that his motivation was instant notoriety but that he later realized he made a horrible decision for selfish reasons.

"I felt that by killing John Lennon I would become somebody and instead of that I became a murderer and murderers are not somebodies," Chapman told the board in 2010.

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