"Imagine no possessions."
Yeah, right.
You've told us how the world would be a better place
if there was no money, Mr. Lennon,
and here I am, waiting for your limo.
(giggles) Of course,
a normal car is not good enough for you.
Not good enough to bring you back
to your million-dollar home from a fancy dinner night,
or wherever you are, John.
You're a phony.
And someone's gonna stop your lies.
Holden Caulfield will.
I will.
Oh, there you are.
Okay.
Holden Caulfield is ready.
I'm ready.
Do it, do it, do it, do it!
(gun shots)
(wind blowing)
(soft piano music) - December 8th, 1980,
the day when a former Beatle, John Lennon,
was shot and killed right outside
of his New York City apartment.
In this episode, we're going to explain why,
and show you how it happened.
(electricity buzzing) (bright music)
(gentle guitar music)
After his ten-year tenure
in arguably the world's most famous band, The Beatles,
John Lennon moved to the U.S. to continue the music career
as an independent artist.
But his agenda quickly extended far beyond music.
A radical political activist,
and avid critic of President Nixon
for starting a war in Vietnam.
At some point,
Lennon had been a serious concern for many U.S. politicians.
Until 1980, when Mark David Chapman
became forever infamous as the man who shot John Lennon.
So, why did Mark Chapman kill Lennon?
Like in many of the cases we review,
we start collecting pieces of the puzzle
from early childhood.
Mark Chapman was growing up in a family
where physical abuse was common.
His father, a U.S. Air Force staff sergeant,
would beat up his mom.
Young Mark was trying to defend her,
but at the time, he wasn't strong enough.
The destructive feelings of helplessness,
fear and self-doubt stayed with Mark
through his childhood and adolescence.
Meanwhile, the U.S. was going through the sexual revolution.
While the provocative covers of the Playboy magazine
were becoming the new norm,
a 16-year-old Chapman was looking for answers
to why he felt so pathetic, alienated,
and disconnected from the world around him.
And he finally found his answers
in the book called "The Catcher in the Rye,"
written by J. D. Salinger.
Chapman identified himself
with the fictional novel protagonist, Holden Caulfield.
Like Holden, he believed that the root cause of his problems
was in the hostile world created by the adults around him.
Those disingenuous and dishonest people
thinking about nothing but their benefits,
joys of life, putting up smiles.
Ugh, those fools.
I hate all of them.
As Chapman was growing older,
there was just a handful of people who he admired.
One of them was John Lennon.
Oddly enough, the man who shot Lennon
had always been a Beatles fan.
He even once told his friends that he was dreaming
about becoming Lennon.
An idea suddenly crossed his mind.
He needed to get famous.
Yeah, why not?
Just like John.
"Why is he so famous and I'm a nobody?"
Chapman was asking himself.
He struggled with that puzzle for a while
until the solution was found.
To become famous,
he thought he might just kill someone famous.
Paul McCartney, Jackie Kennedy,
Elizabeth Taylor, Ronald Reagan.
All of these people were considered by Chapman
as potential targets.
Wait a minute.
If Mark Chapman admired John Lennon,
why would he shoot him, then?
Oh, well, Chapman's a very controversial character.
His opinion about Lennon completely changed
over a few years.
The first thing that got him angry about Lennon
was John's uncareful claim about the Beatles
being more popular than Jesus.
A very religious young man,
Mark Chapman was shocked when he heard that.
But the thing that really got Chapman furious
was the book "John Lennon, One Day at a Time,"
by Anthony Fawcett,
which had portrayed Lennon as a wealthy person
owning multi-million dollar apartments in New York City,
luxury yachts, farms, and country estates.
Chapman cannot comprehend
how Lennon would preach peace and love,
condemn excessive wealth,
but yet have his pockets filled with millions of dollars.
In his mind, Lennon became one of those liars,
one of those adults who poisoned the world around Chapman.
Finally, Mark identified his perfect target.
The one who he hated more than anybody else in the world,
and the one whose murder will immediately give Chapman
the fame he had been craving for so long.
Here's how he actually did it.
Chapman knew that the former Beatle
lived with his wife, Yoko Ono,
in the Dakota apartment complex
near Central Park in New York City.
Six weeks before the shooting,
Chapman bought his gun legally in Hawaii, where he resided.
He flew to New York from Hawaii,
and got the gun past airport security
simply by placing it in the luggage.
At the time, baggage checked with an airline
was not searched or X-rayed.
On a cold December night, Mark David Chapman was sitting
in the arch of Dakota building, waiting for John Lennon.
The gun was already in his pocket.
John's limousine pulled over next to Dakota.
Yoko got out first, Lennon second.
As Lennon entered the arch,
he saw Chapman and recognized the fellow
who had asked him for an autograph a few hours earlier.
Yeah, that sounds crazy,
but just a few hours before shooting Lennon,
Chapman had managed to get his autograph.
So, both Yoko and Lennon went right past Chapman.
They didn't suspect anything.
They were used to seeing fans near their home.
A few seconds later, Chapman withdrew the gun
and fired five steady shots.
(gun shots)
Four bullets hit Lennon in the back.
He never even saw them coming.
Chapman's mission was finally accomplished.
Stunned with what he'd done,
he took a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" out of his pocket
and started reading it, waiting for the police to arrive.
John Lennon was quickly taken to a nearby hospital,
where he was pronounced dead a few minutes after arrival.
He was just 40 years old.
In 1981, Mark Chapman was charged with second-degree murder
and taken to Attica Correction Facility,
the maximum security prison in the state of New York.
This is the story of John Lennon's assassination.
This is how it was.
(soft piano music)
(electricity buzzing) (bright music)
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(bell tolling)