FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE
John Lennon, on his way inside with wife Yoko Ono after a five hour recording session, began to turn. "Another fan. Another autograph," he might have thought.
He probably didn't see the man drop down on one knee in combat position. He probably didn't see the .38 Charter Arms revolver the man pulled from his coat pocket.
But he would have felt the five hollow pointed bullets piercing his back and arms.
The man, security guard Mark David Chapman, 25, could have escaped quickly across the road into Central Park - or even down the subway.
Strangely, he didn't.
Instead, Chapman pulled out a copy of J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye, waited on the pavement outside Lennon's gothic apartment building and watched the 40-year-old Beatle bleed to death.
Now prisoner number 81A3860 at New York State's Attica State Prison, Chapman, 45, is unlikely to walk free.
On 3 October, six days before what would have been Lennon's 60th birthday, Chapman was denied release at his first parole board hearing.
"You had planned this crime for a protracted period of time and it is apparent that you were obsessed in causing fatal harm to John Lennon," the New York State Parole Board's decision read.
The parole board said Chapman's "vicious and violent act" had been fuelled by a need to be acknowledged and that he still had an interest in notoriety.
The board's decision did not shed any light on why Chapman murdered Lennon, apart from appearing to give credence to the theory that Chapman was just a crazed fan wanting fame. This theory does not wash with British barrister and journalist Fenton Bresler, author of Who Killed John Lennon?.
"Chapman was not such a great fan of Lennon and, as his wife's middleaged attorney told me in Honolulu, he (the attorney) had more Lennon records in his collection than Chapman had," Bresler told the Herald Sun from London.
Bresler's belief is that Chapman, who had no criminal history, was a brainwashed hit-man made to look like the archetypal "lone nut" by authorities keen to rid the US of a dangerous Left-wing subversive.
This so-called "Manchurian Candidate" theory of Lennon's slaying takes its name from the Frank Sinatra film based on the Richard Condon novel.
In The Manchurian Candidate, a US soldier is brainwashed when held as a Korean POW and returns to the US as a programmed remote control killer.
"I am aware my theory contradicts the popular delusional fan theory. But that does not affect me one way or the other," Bresler said.
"I only saw him in court where he looked no more whacko then any other of the premeditated murders I have seen during the course of my years as a barrister."
"I had one letter from him, where, again, he seemed perfectly normal to me. I think his case goes way beyond the limits of ordinary concepts of sane or insane."
While there always will be lingering doubts over Chapman's capacity to have pleaded guilty to Lennon's murder, there is little doubt his release is unlikely.
"Lennon was loved by many people around the world and the danger would be that someone would try to kill the killer of their idol," Bresler said.
"John Lennon's celebrity, in this sense, is neutral. If anyone killed Mugabe or Milosevic, would their lives be at risk from a popular assassin? I doubt it."
New York State prisoners advocate Robert Gangi said Chapman had no chance of parole.
"Anyone in New York State who is convicted of a high profile, violent crime will never be granted parole at first eligibility, if ever," Mr Gangi said.
"If you have commited a notorious crime, such as the assassination of John Lennon, there is absolutely no chance."
"This demonstrates how politics can affect the decisions of the parole board. That is not to say that he should be released, it's just that he is not going to get any consideration."
No one wants to be the person who freed the man who shot John Lennon.