| Real Name: | Gloria Hiroko Chapman Abe |
| Birthday: | April 3, 1951 |
| Net Worth: | N/A |
| Height: | N/A |
| Occupation: | American Travel and Tourism Management Assistant, Wife of Mark David Chapman |
Gloria Abe is a travel and tourism management assistant in the United States. But most of the public knows her as the wife of Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered musician John Lennon. She was born in April 1951 in Hawaii, United States of America.
Despite her husband being imprisoned for so many years, she has stayed loyal and married to him. Gloria hopes for one day the two can visit the places they went to before Mark was sent to prison. This is her story.
Story Stages
Who Is Her Husband?
Gloria has been married to Mark David Chapman for many years. Mark is an American citizen who murdered the former Beatle John Lennon in New York City. The murder happened as Lennon walked into the archway of his apartment building at The Dakota. He shot the Beatles singer from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver.
Mark Chapman was born in May 1955 in Fort Worth, Texas. His father was a staff sergeant in the US Air Force, while his mother Diane was a nurse. As a boy, he lived in fear of his father who was physically abusive toward his mother and unloving towards him.
As a young boy, Mark fantasized about having God-like power over imaginary little people who lived in the walls of his bedroom. Chapman attended Columbia High School in Decatur, Georgia.
By the time he was 14 years old, he was using drugs and skipping classes. He even ran away from home to live on the streets of Atlanta for two weeks. Because of his mediocre athleticism, Mark was bullied at school.
In 1971, he became a born-again Presbyterian and distributed Biblical tracts. He read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, a book that had great personal significance to him. Chapman wanted to model his life after the protagonist of the book, Holden Caulfield.
He joined Blankenship as a student at Covenant College. The evangelical Presbyterian liberal arts college is located in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Yet, he dropped out of college, had suicidal thoughts, and felt guilty because of previous affairs.
That was his state of mind when he met Gloria Abe during a six-week trip around the world. That happened in 1978, and the two got married one year later.
Things changed dramatically in 1980 when Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon. As a young child, Chapman was a fan of The Beatles but was incensed by Lennon’s lifestyle and public statements.
According to some reports, the main reason for the murder was Chapman was angry about the statement Lennon made that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. In the years leading up to the murder, Chapman developed obsessions like modeling his life after Holden Caulfield. He contemplated killing other public figures like Ronald Reagan, Elizabeth Taylor, and another Beatle, Paul McCartney.
Following the murder, his legal team tried to mount an insanity defense based on the testimony of mental health experts. But as the trial approached, he decided to plead guilty based on what he had decided was the will of God.
During his first years in prison, he refused every interview request. But he later said he regretted the murder and did not want to give the impression he killed Lennon for fame and notoriety.
Who Is Gloria Abe?
Now let’s talk about his wife, Gloria Abe, or as some people call her, Gloria Chapman. Born in April 1951, she is 71 years of age as of February 2023. Born in Hawaii, The United States of America, she worked as a travel and tourism management assistant.
Gloria became famous when her husband killed former Beatle John Lennon. Gloria and Mark met during his trip around the world in 1978.
Following his imprisonment, she is alone, but not single. Gloria continued to keep in contact with Mark, hoping that the two will be together again.
As a young woman, she was very attractive. Mark fell in love with her because of her beauty, but it is her character that keeps them together for so many years.
Born in Hawaii, she has American nationality. But she also has Japanese ethnicity. She moved to the United Kingdom after marrying her husband.
Relationship With Chapman
How Gloria Abe and Mark Chapman met? As we said before, Mark was in a bad state in the 1970s. He had suicidal thoughts and embarked on a six-week trip around the world in 1978. Mark hoped to refresh his thoughts.
The vacation was partly inspired by the film and novel Around the World in 80 days. During his trip, he visited Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, New Delhi, Geneva, London, Beirut, Paris, and Dublin.
His travel agent was a Japanese American woman, Gloria. The two began a relationship during his trip. She was his travel agent and the two got married in June 1979.
After that, he got a job at Castle Memorial Hospital as a printer. But after an argument with a nurse, he was fired, and then found a job as a night security guard at a high-end apartment complex. He began drinking heavily to cope with his depression and developed a series of obsessions.
In September 1980, he wrote a letter to his friend, Lynda Irish. In that letter, he stated, “I am going nuts”, and signed it with The Catcher in the Rye.
Mark and Gloria met when he went to a travel agency to plan his whirlwind trip to Asia. She was assigned the accountant and the two grew close. He came in regularly to make changes to his trip.
Before he left, she met him to give him a lei, and he sent her roses and a teddy bear. The two exchanged letters and postcards when he was gone.
Gloria was there to meet him when he landed back at Honolulu’s airport. And the following night, they started dating.
Before meeting him, she grew up in a Buddhist tradition but converted to Christianity. Everything seemed to be perfect, but things changed after they got married. There is not much personal information about her before their marriage.
Due to his drinking problem, he got physically abusive several times. He struggled with depression by the fall of 1980. He considered Lennon to be a phony who valued money and fame over his music.
The Murder of John Lennon
In October 1980, Chapman flew off to New York. And the night he returned, he confessed his plan to kill Lennon to his wife. He flew to New York to kill The Beatles star but hadn’t carried through.
In her column, later on, Gloria wrote, “He said my love had saved him. He even had me hold the gun, which was still cold from being in the plane’s cargo hold”.
But then, in December, Chapman traveled to New York again. This time, he told his wife that he wanted to clear his head and grow up as an adult during the trip. He said he wanted to be a better person and a better husband.
Gloria wrote, “He said he threw the gun into the ocean, and I believed him. But he had lied to me”.
When Gloria learned of musician John Lennon’s death, she knew instantly what her husband had done. In the months that followed, she decided to stay in the marriage. Gloria Chapman traveled to New York for her husband’s sentencing but stayed out of the courtroom.
There were plenty of doubts about “what ifs”. For example, she asked what if her husband hadn’t taken a better-paying job at the hospital with more stress.
Why She Stayed With Mark David Chapman?
Nowadays, Gloria Abe says that December 8, 1980, was the darkest day of her life. That day, she became Mrs. Mark David Chapman. It was the day her husband killed John Lennon.
That day, Gloria came home from work and learned that the star singer was dead. She was watching Little House on the Prairie when the news hit her.
She knew what had happened. Years later, in a lengthy essay for the Christian magazine Alliance, she explained her decision to remain married to Mark.
For more than 25 years, they shared conjugal visits at the New York prisons where he served his sentence. They run a prison ministry together.
Gloria says she knows her story doesn’t sit well with everyone. But she explained her decision by saying, “In the Book of Malachi, I read, I hate divorce. For me, that settled it, and I closed my Bible. From that point on, I decided it didn’t matter how long Mark was in prison. I would wait for him”.
In 1982, she moved to New York City to be closer to her husband. But one year later, she moved back to Hawaii.
She wants a quiet life for herself. Gloria wrote, “With+ Mark more than 5,000 miles away, my husband was the Lord. I drew near to him”.
In 2000, he became eligible for parole, but it was denied every time since then. Yet, Gloria remains optimistic that her husband will be out of prison and back to her.
The celebrity wife says she wants to walk with him on the Kailua beach where he proposed.
Net Worth
Gloria worked most of her life as a travel and tourism management assistant in the United States. Following the imprisonment of her husband, she lived a simple life alone, devoted to God and her husband. Her net worth is unknown at this time.
