I actually have a book called LET ME TAKE YOU DOWN, which was written by MDC's therapist, and I guess I am still on a quest for understanding all these years.
Anyway, with all the psychiatric sessions/reports/MDC interviews, nothing makes sense. The closest thing we can arrive at is that MDC felt John Lennon had become a "phony" in his eyes. That Lennon sang "Imagine no posessions," yet he was rich and all of that stuff (maybe MDC should have realized the guy was saying "IMAGINE we didn't need these things"). He wanted to strike out at someone he felt had lied to him and let him down (yeah, sure - John Lennon - one of the most candid and honest figures we'd ever known).
MDC was depressed, confused, and felt he was a "nobody". In one of his interviews, he said "this nobody wanted to kill that somebody". Another time, I believe shortly after the murder he said in a taped recording, "The Beatles changed the world... and I changed them".
So it amounts to confusion, identity crisis, a need to strike down someone who he felt had let him down as a "phony," and somehow making sense in his own head by sorting it out by killing Lennon. This is as near as I can surmise. It's all insanity. I mean, at least if someone HATED John or his music, you could see what his motivation was. It's still wrong, it's still a crime, it's still insane -- but it makes a little more sense.
MDC has since cleared up, as he seems to be in new interviews. He looks back and realizes it was just a dumb mistake. But just the same, he should never be out of jail forever. Murderers should always pay their debt. No parole. Death Penalty. Whatever.
It's too late for him to realize his error.
