PicoBlog

After the release of my recent book ‘Mind Games’, I have been very curious to see who would publicly come out first and try and solidify their story. It appears Gloria Chapman has been chosen to step up to the plate. Speaking predictably on a Christian podcast called, ‘women worth knowing’, Gloria gives away new details about her relationship with Mark Chapman across three episodes and 90 minutes. She gets a very easy ride via the Godly hosts who appear to be more concerned about Gloria finding “Beauty in the ashes” than asking any awkward questions or showing sympathy towards John Lennon or his family. These three podcasts are solely designed to portray Gloria as an innocent victim who simply married the wrong guy. Tellingly, there are certain contentious areas of Gloria’s life that she now deliberately wants to omit from her biography.

I first must lay my cards on the table regarding Gloria Chapman. I personally believe there is compelling evidence to suggest that Gloria was Mark Chapman’s handler and she should have been convicted as an accessory to attempted murder. The fact that she has remained a free woman for over 43 years can only mean, in my considered opinion, she must have friends in very high intelligence-linked places.

One of the co-hosts of the podcast, Robin Jones Gunn, reveals early on that she first met Gloria at a book writing seminar that Robin was conducting in Hawaii. Gloria was apparently in the audience as she plans to write a book. I don’t believe Gloria will ever be allowed to write a book, but if she does, I doubt it will give much truth away. But as this podcast series proved, sometimes truths can slip through the cracks when someone has a lot of conflicting information to keep juggling around in their ageing minds.

Let’s get down to the revelations.

Firstly, Gloria talked about the early childhood stuff we knew. Her parents ran a successful bakery business in Hawaii. She had polio as a child and wore a leg brace as an infant. Her family were non-practicing Buddhists but they apparently liked to sing Christmas carols.

At high school end, Gloria apparently became “spiritual” and this led her to “turn to the occult”. Gloria has mentioned her interest in the occult before, but this time she added some more spooky details, listing interests in Ouija boards, tarot cards, Edgar Cayce books, and “anything to do with the supernatural”. Gloria even apparently bought a book on witchcraft, but she wants to now stress that she never practiced witchcraft – “thank god!” exclaimed one of the hosts dramatically. No broomsticks and black cats for our Gloria then. Post high-school, Gloria took a course in astrology and began “doing charts” for people. Then came the first weird revelation. Apparently, a man Gloria did an astrology chart for, “died in a plane crash going down over Antarctica”. This tragic accident was not seen by Gloria in her astrology charts and her astrology course and books were then binned because of this oversight.

Gloria then talked about going to work at a travel agency in Hawaii which has now (conveniently) gone out of business. No records to be found there then. Gloria has said in the past that she was “immoral” on her travel agency foreign trips, but this aspect of her life, where Gloria may have been compromised to work for others, was not mentioned this time around. Then came the first major revelation. The legend of Gloria and Mark first meeting has always been painted as a chance encounter in a travel agency. This random romantic scenario subsequently made it hard for people to square away Gloria and Mark’s apparent meeting being viewed as Gloria pursuing an innocent Mark on the behest of hidden forces. The truth, as Gloria now reveals, was that Gloria did pursue Mark. She went after him like a stalker on a mission.

Gloria revealed that when Mark first came into her travel agency, he spoke to another colleague about his ambitions to travel to Asia. Gloria saw herself as the “international expert” that Mark should have spoken to, but the co-worker that initially talked to Chapman, was apparently “closer to the brochures” and therefore she got to get in front of Mark first. Gloria knew how to fix this problem. She got Mark’s name and address from the co-worker and she wrote Mark a letter explaining how “she could help him”. Gloria made sure she inserted herself into Mark’s life. Mark then ignored the co-worker ‘near the brochures’ when he next came back into the agency and he allowed Gloria to plan his global trip. An outlandish trip that Gloria revealed was funded by Castle Memorial Hospital’s credit union department via a loan. Castle Memorial was the facility that ‘treated’ Mark and gave him a job as a janitor. Gloria also said that Mark’s father partly funded his trip. 23-year-old Mark apparently became smitten with the worldly 27-year-old Gloria and he started to leave Gloria notes on the door of the travel agency. Gloria then went a bit Bridget Jones, revealing that Mark was her first boyfriend and she was lonely at the time.

Gloria has subtly tried to change a few things here. Mark’s around the world trip, which many rightly found highly suspicious, had initially now been downgraded to just a trip to Asia. Gloria later forgot about this downgrade and started calling it a world trip. Gloria’s ‘Immoral’ life abroad as a travel agent has now been scrubbed from the record. Gloria wants us to think she was a lonely and innocent character when she first met Mark.  

Despite these glossing over of past activities, the revelations kept on coming.

Before Mark set off on his trip, he sent a Gloria a dozen red roses and a teddy bear on a silver tray. After he set off on his fantastical trip, Mark dutifully sent postcards to Gloria from glamorous locations such as the Eiffel tower. Apparently one postcard that Mark sent stated, “wish you were here”. This postcard almost instigated Gloria to get on a plane and fly out to Mark. When Mark flew back to Hawaii on August 20th 1978, Gloria was at the airport waiting for him. The night before, she had sprained her ankle and she was now on crutches, but this was not going to stop Gloria being at the airport and waiting for her postcard loving ‘chum’ to return. Mark was not exepcting Gloria and was surprised to see her when she came up behind him on crutches at the baggage carousel and tugged at his elbow. Mark dropped his bags and apparently gave her a bear hug. “Like something from a movie” as Gloria gushingly described it. The next day they started dating. Six months later in January 1979 and after taking “great strides” Mark proposed to Gloria on a beach and they were married on June 2nd 1979. Gloria had snared her man in under a year.

Gloria then reeled out previously told tales of Mark’s downward spiral via alcoholism and “changes in behaviour”. Mark’s “sickness came back”. She mentioned that the ‘Catcher in the Rye’ book “had a hold over him for some time” and that he identified with it. Gloria then asked the hosts if they wanted her to talk about Mark’s weird obsession with the Salinger book. The hosts were not keen. It is interesting to note that Gloria checked in with the hosts regarding what she could and could not talk about. The word rehearsed suddenly came into my mind.

Gloria then rushed forward to October 1980 and continued to subtly change facts.

It is now established that on Tuesday 2nd December 1980, Mark flew out of Hawaii and went to stay in Chicago for three mysterious days. He then flew onwards to New York on Saturday 6th. Lennon was assassinated two days later on the 8th.The official narrative does not want to include the three Chicago days in Mark’s timeline, so the official narrative had Mark flying to New York on Saturday 6th December. In the eighties, the writer Fenton Bresler was told that Mark apparently took his grandma to Chicago on 2nd December, because that is where she apparently lived. Gloria now wants to change the grandma story, which frankly never made much sense to me or Bresler. Gloria wants us to now believe that Mark took his Grandma to Massachusetts (where she apparently now lived), when he first went out to New York in late October 1980. Grandma is now travelling with Mark on a different date and Grandma now lives in a different location.

When Mark was in New York in late October and early November, he apparently rang Gloria and told her he had gone to New York to kill John Lennon, but “your love saved me”. Gloria then revealed that Mark got obsessed with John Lennon and Catcher around that time. This was partly true. The two were deliberately fused together in the Summer of 1980. Mark has always said that he decided to abort his first October/November ‘compulsion’ to kill John Lennon and he alone decided to fly back to Gloria. Gloria now says that is was she who persuaded Mark to abort his compulsion to murder Lennon and fly home. When Mark got back, he showed Gloria his gun and Gloria said he asked her to hold it. He later apparently told her he had thrown his gun into the ocean.

Gloria then revealed that Mark seemed ok after this and “it was out of his system”. Then Mark apparently told Gloria that he needed to go back to New York to “think about my life and grow up and be a man. To sacrifice a short amount of time and everything will be alright after that”. There has been speculation in the past that Mark told Gloria that he was going to New York to write a children’s book at this time. This ridiculous assertion has now been erased. Gloria then said that she cried a lot and begged Mark not to go, stating:

“what could I do, tie him up on a chair and keep him at home?”

Gloria then had another bout of convenient amnesia, failing to tell the hosts that she bought Mark’s plane tickets to New York and drove him to the airport – previously noting that he was also happy on the drive. Perhaps she was crying and begging him not to go as she drove him to the airport? Perhaps not.

The amnesia continued.

On the night John Lennon was assassinated, Gloria said she came home from work. She then painted a clichéd scene of innocence comprising of putting leftovers in the microwave and sitting cross-legged on her sofa watching ‘Little House on the Prairie”. Along the bottom of the scene, exactly as a character in the show said they were blind (very biblical), a ticker news tape said ‘John Lennon was shot in Manhattan. Male Caucasian in custody’. In Gloria’s heart “she knew it was Mark”. I bet she did. She apparently walked aimlessly around her apartment calling out to God. God apparently let her know that he was definitely with her. I wonder if this reassuring ‘god’ was a man of the cloth? A couple of people then apparently came over, but none of them “were strong Christians”. Gloria has previously stated that Mark’s mother, and one of his mother’s friends called Greta dropped by as did Gloria’s sister Jean. We know this because Gloria rang the police station where Mark was being held that night at 2.50am and told him this information over a recorded phone call. This Gloria call came before Mark’s name was revealed to the press. This highly suspicious phone call led many, including me, to believe Gloria might be part of a conspiracy. Gloria now doesn’t want to mention this infamous phone call. It has been sent down the historical memory hole and was not mentioned by Gloria or brought up by the compliant podcast hosts.

Gloria then talked about her “international press conference”, instigated and arranged by her lawyer Brook Hart, two days after Lennon’s assassination. Gloria mentioned that at the press conference, she said she forgave Mark and loved him. She failed to mention that she also said at the press conference that she was sorry that:

“John Lennon had to die”

A callous line delivered in a cold and robotic fashion. This declaration horrified her lawyer Brook Hart back in 1980, as it suggested premeditated knowledge of Lennon’s murder.

Back in 2023, Gloria continued to try and rewrite history.

Gloria insinuated that she was angry and never forgave Mark after December 1980 and she stopped seeing him for 13 years. She only apparently started seeing Mark again in 1993, after Mark sent her numerous begging letters and calls asking her to “please forgive me”. The truth is very different. Gloria was desperate to see her husband after he was arrested. So desperate in fact, she called the police station Mark was being held in just four hours after Lennon was assassinated. For a couple of years after his imprisonment, Mark would not see his wife. Mark was rightly angry that Gloria didn’t report him to the police when he first showed her his gun in early November 1980. Gloria didn’t take Mark’s rejection passively. She actively got involved in the demon gas-lighting that was performed on Mark in the early 1980’s. Through this carefully orchestrated campaign, Mark was eventually persuaded that he was possessed by demons and those demons made him murder John Lennon. Gloria eventually got back into Mark’s life in the mid 1980’s through their Jesus worshiping bond to fight his demons. She has handled everything for Mark ever since.

In the final episode of the podcast series, Gloria mostly talked about her prison ministry work with Mark. The ‘Pamphlets for Jesus’ newsletter is sent out to prisons across America and apparently even Africa gets to receive Mark and Gloria’s spiritual wisdom. The newsletter is aimed at inspiring incarcerated people all around the world with a short story from Mark called ‘the Prisoner’s Letter’ and a mini biography called ‘the Man Who Shot John Lennon’. Another pamphlet is called ‘John Lennon’s killer’. The word killer is in a font that can only be described as frenzied. This pamphlet is bizarrely based on Mark’s 2012 parole hearing transcript. A dubious marketing tool for Jesus. Looking at these pamphlets, crass is the only word that comes to my mind. Apparently by 2006, Gloria stated that over a million pamphlets were produced and sent out. Quite the printing bill for special agent/pastor Charles McGowan who has been funding the whole operation from the start.

The podcast hosts ended the series with a clear message that in their opinion, Mark is not going to get out of prison. They declared that a wonderful life with a house and a picket fence is not going to happen for Gloria and Mark. But not to worry, as ‘Jesus is coming back very soon’ and he will give us ‘new hearts, new bodies and new minds’ in heaven.

Gloria having selective amnesia about her past “immoral” travel agency life; buying plane tickets and driving Mark to airports; phoning Mark at the police station that he was being held in hours after his arrest; or desperately trying to get into his cell (and mind) after his incarceration, is understandable. These actions clearly paint her in a deeply suspicious light. The best new information from these carefully orchestrated podcast interviews as far as I am concerned, is the fact that Gloria actively pursued Mark via letters and a surprise meeting at an airport. She stalked him. She made sure she got into his life and when she did get into his life, she helped facilitate his trips to New York. She was his accomplice.

I do not believe that Gloria Chapman is the devoted loving Christian wife she would like the world to believe. She was not interested in hearing the anomalies I found in her husband’s case. She has confided to friends that she does not want Chapman to live with her if he is ever set free. In cahoots with Special Agent Pastor, Charles McGowan, she controls all access to Mark Chapman and in turn, his access to the outside world. Gloria and Charles exclusively handle all of Mark Chapman’s needs. He relies on them 100% and he believes everything they tell him. They are in effect his managers.

Gloria infamously once said that she was “happy Mark finally achieved something” when he allegedly killed John Lennon. I am happy Gloria is now talking publicly again and revealing new facts about her relationship with Mark Chapman. I don’t think she will be allowed to write a book, but If she does, I will be looking forward to carefully analysing it. In the end, the truth always reveals itself when you know where to look for it.

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