CBC Radio50%
Murder, he wrote: How an inmate found his voice through journalism 66%
By Philip Drost0%
9/21/2025, 8:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Hasty Generalization, and Optimism Bias, with Self-Serving Bias as the most egregious example at 12.9% saturation with 144 hits. Analysis detected 851 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,115 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60.2% and a BS Rank of 66% (5,811 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 65.40% of the article peer group.
When John J.
Lennon was 21 years old, he shot and murdered a friend.
He was convicted, and sentenced, but it wasn't until he was nearly killed in a prison yard that he started on a path that led to a passion for writing.
And it's a passion he says changed his life.
"I'd like to think I'm a better man today … because of writing," Lennon told The Sunday Magazine host Piya Chattopadhyay from Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.
Since being convicted, Lennon has made a name for himself as a journalist, having been published in major publications such as the New York Times, The New Yorker and The Atlantic, providing an inside look at life for inmates.
Now, in his book, The Tragedy of True Crime, he profiles four different killers — including himself — and how society's obsession with true crime impacts those involved in the cases.
And as he approaches his opportunity for parole, he wonders what life might look like for him on the outside.
'A gutted young man'
As a young man, Lennon dealt drugs, while also being addicted himself.
He had already spent time in and out of prison when he heard his friend, Alex Lawson, had been shaking down one of his dealers.
So he decided to take action.
"I was a gutted young man.
I was looking to complete an image that in retrospect was pretty dopey and disgusting, but unfortunately quite prevalent," said Lennon.
He shot Lawson multiple times with a semi-automatic rifle and dropped the body in a laundry bag, with a cinder block attached, off a pier.
When the body washed up on shore years later, Lennon was charged with murder .
He pleaded not guilty, and the first trial ended in a hung jury, but he was later convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 28 years to life in prison.
It was at Attica Correctional Facility where John J.
Lennon discovered his passion for writing.
(David Duprey/The Associated Press)
Even after that, though, Lennon says he wasn't ready to confront his actions.
It wasn't until he was stabbed in a prison yard in 2008, and sent to the hospital with a punctured lung.
"That was the turning point," said Lennon.
"I was just like, 'I would've died in that prison yard and my life would've just amounted to nothing,' and I was just disgusted with myself."
From there, he got involved with a volunteer program: a creative writing workshop at Attica Correctional Facility, also in New York.
Doran Larson, a writing professor, led the program from 2006 to 2016.
He worked with incarcerated, aspiring writers who went on to have writing successes of their own, such as one inmate who wrote reform legislation while locked up.
Those kinds of programs, Larson says, play an important role in rehabilitating inmates.
"Programs run by volunteers — typically unpaid — do the work that prisons have claimed to do for over 200 years," he told CBC in an email.
He said he was impressed with how quickly Lennon picked up writing, and then from there, journalism.
'Not traditional journalism'
Lennon's first piece was an op-ed in The Atlantic titled A Convicted Murderer's Case for Gun Control in August 2013, in response to the previous year's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Since then he's written about topics such as mental illness in American prisons, COVID-19 for inmates and people's obsession with true crime.
"It's not traditional journalism … and it's not a traditional situation," Lennon said of his work.
When I get out, I'll figure out how to be a journalist, hopefully among journalists, and hopefully get some grace.
- John J.
Lennon
He says that in his writing, he tries to level with the reader, being honest about his own biases.
In his book, where he profiles a handful of killers, he's open about the fact that he wants freedom for the people he's writing about.
"I know that that's not something that most journalists say.
But I'm saying it because I believe it, and I want it, and I want it for myself … and I'd be lying if I said anything different," Lennon said.
It's something Larson says plays a very important role in broadening the public's understanding of what goes on in prisons.
"Writers inside can document from the receiving end [of] the utter injustice and destructive dysfunction of incarceration," said Larson.
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'What were my fears?'
Lennon says writing has helped him reflect on his actions.
He says if you'd asked him as a young man why he shot his friend, he would've said something like he had an image he wanted to project, or that it was retaliation for Lawson shaking down a dealer.
"That's the external sort of reasons, but I think what writing has sort of helped me understand is the sort of internal desire of, what was that all about inside?
You know, what was I doing?
Why did I do that?
What were my fears?"
said Lennon, who believes the younger him would be proud of who he is today.
Lennon is now serving time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
He will be eligible for parole in four years.
(Mary Altaffer/The Associated Press)
Lennon has served 24 years for his crime.
He filed a clemency application in 2023 and is four years away from being eligible for parole.
But his victim's sister has spoken out against Lennon being given his freedom.
She's also asked Lennon to stop using her brother's name in articles, which Lennon says he's agreed to.
He hopes that if he makes it out, he can continue his journalism career.
But he's afraid that as a convicted felon, he won't be accepted by people on the outside as more than a murderer.
He remembers a recent conversation he had in the yard with a fellow inmate who had been part of the mob.
"He told me, 'Those people out there, those people that talk to you and interview you, the editor friends, all those fancy people that like you and that know you and are rooting for you, they'll never truly look at you as one of them.
You'll always more be one of us.'
And I was like, 'Damn bro,'" said Lennon.
"I think that's where the fear comes from.
… When I get out, I'll figure out how to be a journalist, hopefully among journalists, and hopefully get some grace."
Analysis
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