Apple TV+ has announced a new three-part docuseries, John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial, about the murder of John Lennon. The series will be narrated by Kiefer Sutherland and directed by Nick Holt and Rob Coldstream.
The docuseries will look at Lennon’s cultural influence and his music, before offering a comprehensive deep dive into the former Beatle’s 1980 murder. It will examine the subsequent murder investigation and the eventual conviction of his confessed killer Mark David Chapman. According to Apple, filmmakers were granted extensive Freedom of Information Act requests from the New York City Police Department, the Board of Parole, and the district attorney’s office.
It will include exclusive interviews with eyewitnesses who are speaking for the first time, along with some of Lennon’s closest friends, with the aim of shedding new light on the details of Lennon’s life and death. Additional interviewees will include Chapman’s defense lawyers, psychiatrists, detectives, and prosecutors.
John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial is being produced for Apple TV+ by 72 Films, the production company behind 9/11: One Day in America. The series is executive produced by David Glover, Mark Raphael and Coldstream, and produced by Simon Bunney and Louis Lee Ray.
Lennon was shot in the back four times by Chapman on Dec. 8, 1980 outside the Dakota apartment building in New York City. The musician was with his wife, Yoko Ono, at the time. Chapman pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 20-years-to-life in prison. He began serving his sentence on Aug. 25, 1981 at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Last year, Chapman was denied parole for the 12th time since first becoming eligible in 2000. In unsealed transcripts from the parole hearing, Chapman admitted there is “evil in my heart.” He will next appear in front of the board in February 2024.
“I am not going to blame anything else or anybody else for bringing me there,” Chapman told the board during a hearing last August. “I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was evil, I knew it was wrong, but I wanted the fame so much that I was willing to give everything and take a human life.”
Apple TV+ has yet to announce a premiere date for John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial.