Mark David Chapman lives alone in a six-by-ten-foot cell at Attica Correctional Institution near Buffalo, N.Y. He is a model prisoner, apparently freed of the demons that in 1980 told him to kill his onetime hero -- John Lennon, the legendary founder of the Beatles.
Lower-profile criminals might have been released by now, but Chapman has little chance of ever winning parole: He was turned down for the third time on Oct. 5, 2004, despite what the Parole Board called his "exemplary discipline record." The decision was partly because of multiple threats to kill him if he were released. At Attica, he is in solitary confinement for his own protection;Lennon may have been a hero to some of his fellow inmates.
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