The truth is, Mark David Chapman didn’t want to kill John Lennon.
He really wanted to kill Yoko Ono.
However, when he finally got his chance, outside of the Dakota, Yoko grabbed her husband and used him as a human shield.
Lennon lay dying on the ground.
Chapman, out of bullets, pulled out his copy of Catcher In The Rye and began to smack Yoko with it.
Yoko paid off the witnesses to get them to say he wanted to kill John, not her.
She was terrified that a sympathetic jury would let him go to finish the grisly task.