Murder of John Lennon

The 72nd Street entrance to the Dakota, where Lennon was shot

The Lennons returned to the Dakota at approximately 10:50 p.m.[12] Lennon wanted to say goodnight to his son before going to the Stage Deli restaurant with Ono.[12] The Lennons exited their limousine on 72nd Street instead of driving into the more secure courtyard of the Dakota.[23] The Lennons passed Chapman and walked toward the archway entrance of the building. As Ono passed by, Chapman nodded at her. As Lennon passed by, he glanced briefly at Chapman, appearing to recognise him from earlier.[10] Seconds later, Chapman drew his gun, which was concealed in his coat pocket, aimed at the center of Lennon's back, and rapidly fired five hollow-point bullets from a distance of about nine to ten feet (2.7–3.0 m).[24]

Based on statements made that night by New York City Police Department Chief of Detectives James Sullivan, numerous reports at the time claimed that Chapman called out "Mr. Lennon" and dropped into a combat stance before firing.[25] Later court hearings and witness interviews did not include either of these details. Chapman said that he does not remember calling out to Lennon before he fired,[26][27] and that Lennon did not turn around.[28] He claimed to have taken a combat stance in a 1992 interview with Barbara Walters.[29]

Side view of the Dakota archway, showing the step Lennon climbed before he collapsed in the lobby

One bullet missed Lennon and struck a window of the Dakota. According to the autopsy report, two bullets entered the left side of Lennon's back, travelling through the left side of his chest and his left lung with one exiting from the body and one lodged in his neck. Two more bullets hit Lennon in his left shoulder.[30][31] Lennon, bleeding profusely from his external wounds and from his mouth, staggered up five steps to the security/reception area where he said, "I'm shot! I'm shot!" He then fell to the floor, scattering cassettes that he was carrying.[32]

Jose Perdomo, the doorman, shook the gun out of Chapman's hand and kicked it across the pavement.[32] Concierge worker Jay Hastings first started to make a tourniquet, but upon ripping open Lennon's blood-stained shirt and realising the severity of his injuries, he covered Lennon's chest with his uniform jacket, removed his blood-covered glasses, and summoned the police.[12] Chapman removed his coat and hat to show that he was not carrying any concealed weapons and remained standing on 72nd Street, waiting for police to arrive.[30] Underneath his coat, he wore a promotional T-shirt for Todd Rundgren's album Hermit of Mink Hollow.[33] Perdomo shouted at Chapman, "Do you know what you just did?" to which Chapman calmly replied, "I just shot John Lennon."[30]

Officers Steven Spiro and Peter Cullen were the first policemen to arrive at the scene; they were at 72nd Street and Broadway when they heard a report of shots fired at the Dakota. The officers arrived around two minutes later and found Chapman standing very calmly on 72nd Street reading a paperback copy of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.[34] They immediately put Chapman in handcuffs and placed him in the back seat of their squad car. Chapman made no attempt to flee or resist arrest.[34] Cullen said of Chapman: "He apologized to us for ruining our night. I turned around and said to him, 'You've got to be fucking kidding me. You're worried about our night? Do you know what you just did to your life?' We read him his rights more than once."[35]

Officer Herb Frauenberger and his partner Tony Palma were the second team arriving on the crime scene. They found Lennon lying face down on the floor of the reception area, blood pouring from his mouth and his clothing already soaked with it, with Hastings attending to him. Officers James Moran and Bill Gamble then arrived on the scene and Frauenberger put Lennon in their car, concluding his condition was too serious to wait for an ambulance to arrive. Moran and Gamble then drove Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital on West 59th Street, followed by Frauenberger and Palma, who drove Ono to the hospital.[36][37][38] According to Gamble, in the car, Moran asked, "Are you John Lennon?" or "Do you know who you are?" Lennon nodded, but could only manage to make a moaning and gurgling sound when he tried to speak, and lost consciousness shortly thereafter.[39]

A few minutes before 11:00 p.m., Moran arrived at Roosevelt Hospital with Lennon in his squad car. Moran was carrying Lennon on his back and onto a gurney, demanding a doctor for a multiple gunshot wound victim. When Lennon was brought in, he was not breathing, and had no pulse. Three doctors, a nurse, and two or three other medical attendants worked on Lennon for 10 to 20 minutes in an attempt to resuscitate him. As a last resort, the doctors cut open Lennon's chest and attempted manual heart massage to restore circulation, but they quickly discovered that the damage to the blood vessels above and around Lennon's heart from the multiple bullet wounds was too great.[41]

Three of the four bullets that struck Lennon's back passed completely through his body and out of his chest, while the fourth lodged itself in his aorta beside his heart. One of the exiting bullets from his chest hit and became lodged in his upper left arm. Several of the wounds could have been fatal by themselves, because each bullet had ruptured vital arteries around the heart. Lennon was shot four times at close range with hollow-point bullets and his affected organs—particularly his left lung and major blood vessels above his heart—were virtually destroyed upon impact.[40]

Reports regarding who operated on and attempted to resuscitate Lennon have been inconsistent. Stephan Lynn, the head of the Emergency Department at Roosevelt Hospital, is usually credited with performing Lennon's surgery. In 2005, Lynn said he massaged Lennon's heart and attempted to resuscitate him for 20 minutes, that two other doctors were present, and that the three of them declared Lennon's death.[41] Richard Marks, an emergency room surgeon at Roosevelt Hospital, stated in 1990 that he operated on Lennon, administered a "massive" blood transfusion, and provided heart massage to no avail. "When I realized he wasn't going to make it," said Marks, "I just sewed him back up. I felt helpless."[42] David Halleran, who had been a third-year general surgery resident at Roosevelt Hospital, disputed the accounts of both Marks and Lynn. In 2015, Halleran stated that the two doctors "didn't do anything", and that he did not initially realise the identity of the victim. He added that Lynn only came to assist him when he heard that it was Lennon.[43][44]

According to his death certificate, Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 p.m.,[45] but the time of 11:07 p.m. has also been reported.[46] Witnesses noted that the Beatles song "All My Loving" came over the hospital's sound system at the moment Lennon was pronounced dead.[47] Lennon's body was then taken to the city morgue at 520 First Avenue for an autopsy. The cause of death was reported on his death certificate as "hypovolemic shock, caused by the loss of more than 80% of blood volume due to multiple through-and-through gunshot wounds to the left shoulder and left chest resulting in damage to the left lung, the left subclavian artery, and both the aorta and aortic arch".[48] According to the report, even with prompt medical treatment, no person could have lived for more than a few minutes with multiple bullet wounds affecting all of the major arteries and veins around the heart.[48]

Howard Cosell, seen here in an earlier photograph, broke the news of Lennon's death on ABC's Monday Night Football

Ono asked the hospital not to report to the media that her husband was dead until she informed their five-year-old son Sean, who was at home. Ono said he was probably watching television and that she did not want him to learn of his father's death from a TV announcement. However, news producer Alan J. Weiss of WABC-TV happened to be waiting for treatment in the Roosevelt Hospital emergency room after being injured in a motorcycle crash earlier in the evening. Police officers wheeled Lennon into the same room as Weiss and mentioned what happened. Weiss called his station and relayed the information.[49]

ABC News president Roone Arledge received word of the death during the last few moments of a national telecast of a Monday Night Football game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins, with the game tied and the Patriots about to attempt a field goal to win the game. Arledge informed Frank Gifford and Howard Cosell of the shooting and suggested that they report the murder. Cosell, who had interviewed Lennon during a Monday Night Football broadcast in 1974, was chosen to do so but balked at being the one to deliver the news. Gifford convinced Cosell otherwise, saying, "You've got to. If you know it, we've got to do it. Don't hang on it. It's a tragic moment, and this is going to shake up the whole world".[50]

The news was broken as follows:[51][52]

Cosell: ... but [the game]'s suddenly been placed in total perspective for us. I'll finish this; they're in the hurry-up offense.

Gifford: Third down, four. [Chuck] Foreman ... it'll be fourth down. [Matt] Cavanaugh will let it run down for one final attempt; he'll let the seconds tick off to give Miami no opportunity whatsoever. (Whistle blows.) Timeout is called with three seconds remaining; John Smith is on the line. And I don't care what's on the line, Howard, you have got to say what we know in the booth.

Cosell: Yes, we have to say it. Remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City: John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City – the most famous, perhaps, of all of the Beatles – shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that newsflash, which, in duty-bound, we have to take. Frank?

Gifford: (after a pause) Indeed, it is.[53]

The first official confirmation of Lennon's death apparently came from WLIR's news director Steve North, according to North and DJ Bob Waugh. North was doing a special comment on the murder of gun control advocate Dr. Michael J. Halberstam, when an intern ran in with the news about Lennon. North then read the AP wire bulletin and spoke several times with a police contact, who was finally able to confirm Lennon had died.[54] Waugh has since released an aircheck from that night.[55]

New York rock station WNEW-FM 102.7 immediately suspended all programming and opened its lines to calls from listeners. Stations throughout the country switched to special programming devoted to Lennon and/or Beatles music.[56]

The day after Lennon's murder, his remains were cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York, and his ashes were scattered in Central Park, in sight of their apartment.[76] Chapman was taken to the 20th Precinct on West 82nd Street, where he was questioned for eight hours before being brought to New York County Criminal Court on Centre Street in Lower Manhattan. A judge remanded Chapman to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation.[35]

Meanwhile, Chapman was charged with second-degree murder of Lennon, as premeditation in New York state was not sufficient to warrant charge of first-degree murder. Despite advice by his lawyers to plead insanity, Chapman pleaded guilty to murdering Lennon, saying that his guilty plea was the will of God.[77][34] Under the terms of his guilty plea, he was sentenced to 20-years-to-life with eligibility for parole in 2000. Before his sentencing, he was given the opportunity to address the court, at which point he read a passage from The Catcher in the Rye.[8] As of September 2022, he has been denied parole 12 times and remains incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility.[78]

• The Killing of John Lennon (2006), by Andrew Piddington, focuses on Chapman's life up to the murder.[105]
• Chapter 27 (2007), a drama by Jarrett Schaefer based on Jack Jones's book "Let Me Take You Down", attempts a nonjudgmental portrayal of Chapman.[106]
• The Lennon Report (2016) focuses on attempts by doctors and nurses to save Lennon's life.[107]

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) surveillance of Lennon due to his left-wing activism[108][109] and the actions of Chapman during the murder or subsequent legal proceedings have led to conspiracy theories postulating CIA involvement:

• Fenton Bresler, a barrister and journalist, raised the idea of CIA involvement in the murder in his book Who Killed John Lennon?, published in 1990. Chapman allegedly may have been brainwashed by the CIA as an assassin, such as in "The Manchurian Candidate".[110][111][112]
• Liverpool playwright Ian Carroll staged a drama, "One Bad Thing", conveying the theory Chapman was manipulated by a rogue wing of the CIA "who wanted Lennon off the scene".[113]
• In a 2004 book, Salvador Astrucia argued that forensic evidence proves Chapman did not commit the murder.[114]
• The 2010 documentary The Day John Lennon Died suggests that Jose Perdomo, the doorman at the Dakota, was a Cuban exile with links to the CIA and the Bay of Pigs invasion.[47][115]

• "Lennon's death lingers for those who were there". Today. The Associated Press. 8 December 2005.
• Brook, Tom (8 December 2000). "The night Lennon died". BBC News.
• The Cardinals (16 May 2015). The Dakota Apartments: A Pictorial History of New York's Legendary Landmark. Campfire Publishing. ISBN 978-0692420591.
• Christgau, Robert (22 December 1980). "John Lennon, 1940-1980". The Village Voice. Retrieved 18 May 2022 – via robertchristgau.com.
• Seaman, Frederick (1991). The Last Days of John Lennon. Birch Lane Press. ISBN 978-1-55972-084-7.
• "John Lennon's Death Lingers for Witnesses". Fox News. Associated Press. 7 December 2005. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012.

• "CRIME FILE – Famous crime: Mark Chapman: The Assassination of John Lennon". Crime Investigation Network.

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