Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon

by Jack Jones

“You know the song, ‘Starry, Starry Night’ [‘Vincent’]? It reminds me of Mark. The way he just, like, took everything in so much and maybe felt it all too much. If you don’t have a good way to let that out, that sensitivity, if you can’t deal with it yourself, it’s going to blow you up. “Mark was extremely sensitive.… He would get depressed and very moody and when he’d start talking that way, I’d say, ‘Go see your counselor. You know, I’m not your counselor. I’m your friend.’ ” Observing that he seemed always to prefer the companionship of older men and women like herself, Harvey, almost twenty years older than the young ex-patient, speculated that “maybe he was looking for his parents.”