Lennon's killer beginning 20-year-to-life sentence

Mark David Chapman, the self-proclaimed "Catcher in the Rye," was in a heavily guarded solitary cell Tuesday, awaiting transfer to the state prison system, where he will serve a minimum 20-year sentence for killing ex-Beatle John Lennon.

Chapman was given a 20-year-to-life sentence by state Supreme Court Justice Dennis Edwards, who, after hearing psychiatric testimony from the defense, said, "He [Chapman] knew what he was doing." The defendant, who said God has told him to confess to the killing, clutched a copy of J. D. Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" throughout his sentencing and told the judge the key to the shooting was in the novel, an account of a young man's troubled adolescence.