Video: 'Crimes of the Century - John Lennon Assassination - S01E02 | Full Documentary | True Crime'

(Monday, June 22, 1981, hearing held at approximately 10:00-10:45 a.m. EDT; during the Murder of John Lennon) — The man who murdered John Lennon last December outside the Manhattan apartment building in which the 40-year-old former Beatle lived, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder today in State Supreme Court in New York City.

The 26-year-old defendant said God had told him to change his plea from not guilty by reason of insanity to guilty as his trial was about to get under way.

Under the terms of his guilty plea, he would be sentenced Aug. 24, 1981, to 20-years-to-life and later automatically became eligible for parole in 2000. However, he would be denied parole eleven times and remains incarcerated in an Upstate New York prison.

Lennon was shot to death at 10:50 p.m EST on Dec. 8, 1980, as the musician and his wife, Yoko Ono, returned from a recording session.