At the height of his success with the Beatles and as a solo artist, John Lennon was one
of the most influential people in the world. However, no one could have expected that in
December 1980, Lennon would be the target of a murder. Here are the details.
After spending more than a decade with The Beatles and the first half of the 1970s as
a successful solo artist, John Lennon took a step back from music after the birth of
his second child, Sean. Eventually, Lennon returned to music with the album Double Fantasy,
released in November 1980. Double Fantasy was a commercial success when it was released,
but critics panned the album. An NME critic said that Lennon should have, quote, "kept
his big happy trap shut."
The inspiration for the album came from a boat trip Lennon and his family took that
summer of 1980. Lennon and 4-year-old Sean took a boat from Newport, Rhode Island to
Bermuda. While on holiday, Lennon's songwriting inspiration returned to him for the first
time in five years, and he wrote 30 songs. While in Bermuda, he met artist Nancy Gosnell,
who drew a portrait of Lennon and his son.
Lennon loved the painting. According to Gosnell, he also spoke openly about his past, his relationship
with Ono and the other Beatles, and asked for the name of Gosnell's teacher in New York
to assist his own artwork. Ultimate Classic Rock says that while the initial critical
reception for Double Fantasy was harsh, the negative reviews disappeared following his
murder, and the album went on to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.
While the birth of Sean Lennon in 1975 prompted the music icon to put down his guitar and
become a father, the birth of his first son, Julian Lennon, in 1963, had the opposite reaction.
John Lennon was on the road during Julian's birth, and it took three days for the father
to meet his son. This episode encapsulated the early relationship between father and
son. The Irish Times reports that at one point in Julian's young life, John said this to
Julian,
"Sean was the product of love, you were the product of a whiskey bottle."
Julian understandably grew angry at his father during his life, speaking to John only sporadically
for the better part of a decade. Only at the insistence of his mother and John's first
wife, Cynthia Powell, did Julian begin to open up more to his father. Paul McCartney
said of his old friend,
"[John] never really knew how to be a dad."
It was McCartney, not his father, that taught young Julian how to first play guitar and
McCartney wrote the song, "Hey Jude," to lift Julian's spirits during his parent's divorce.
Julian was living in North Wales when his father was murdered across the Atlantic. In
a Q&A session, Julian recalled waking up to paparazzi outside his house; he had instinctively
knew what had happened, but he had to wait for his mother to return from London to officially
get the news.
"I felt I had to go to New York to see it for myself. You know, I had to witness it."
Forever remembered as the man who killed John Lennon, Mark David Chapman's disturbing mental
state can only, in part, tell the story of how and why he killed Lennon. Chapman was
born on May 10, 1955, in Fort Worth, Texas. His father was a U.S. Air Force sergeant,
and his mother was a nurse.
At the age of 16, Chapman became a born-again Christian. However, this did not improve his
mental health, and in 1977, after moving to Hawaii, he attempted suicide. Two years later,
Chapman was working as a security guard and married a travel agent named Gloria Abe. Still,
Chapman's mental state was an issue. Following Lennon's murder, Chapman was diagnosed with
depression, suicidal tendencies, and schizophrenia.
Lennon was not Chapman's first target. According to the New York Post, Chapman had considered
assassinating presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Lennon was chosen by Chapman
as he felt the artist's wealth and success had made him a fraud. His justification came
in part through J.D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye, and the connection he
felt he had with its main character, Holden Caulfield.
John Lennon's final day began at 11 a.m. when Rolling Stone magazine photographer, Annie
Leibovitz, arrived for a photo-shoot with John and Yoko. The session produced the iconic
picture of a naked Lennon holding and kissing his fully clothed wife on the cheek.
After the shoot, the couple participated in an interview with radio personality Dave Sholin
around 12:40 p.m. Less than an hour prior, Mark David Chapman arrived outside of Lennon's
home, the Dakota Apartments, and spoke with a friend of Lennon, freelance photographer
Paul Goresh.
Speaking to "Behind the Music," Goresh remembered Chapman being "a jerk" and holding a copy
of Double Fantasy. Around 4:30 p.m., Lennon and Ono left to work on a new single, "Walking
on Thin Ice," and ran into Chapman and Goresh. Lennon signed Chapman's copy of the album,
and Goresh snapped a photo of the two individuals.
Finishing up their song hours later, Geffen Records founder David Geffen told the couple
that Double Fantasy had sold gold. The pair left the studio in high spirits around 10:30
p.m. and arrived at the Dakota a little before 11 p.m. Ono got out of the car first, and
Lennon followed right behind her, noticing Chapman but not paying any mind to him. Chapman
pulled out a .38 handgun and fired five shots, hitting Lennon four times in his back and
chest.
Officers arrived at the Dakota Apartments only minutes after the shooting. Once they
arrived, the doorman quickly pointed out Mark David Chapman, who was simply standing and
waiting for the officers to arrive. Chapman was then quickly arrested by officers Peter
Cullen and Steve Spiro.
"In the patrol car I turned to Chapman and said, 'Do you realize you just threw your
whole life away?'"
Lennon struggled up five steps before collapsing. He was covered in his own blood, and unrecognizable
to arriving officers. Officers Herb Frauenberger and Tony Palma were the first to see Lennon,
and when Frauenberger turned his head to check his pulse, he noticed who it was. The officers
put Lennon into the car of another arriving officer, James Moran, who took him to Roosevelt
Hospital while Frauenberger followed with Yoko in his car.
At the Roosevelt, Dr. Stephan Lynn headed the emergency surgery that desperately attempted
to save Lennon's life. According to Lynn, Lennon arrived with no pulse and three gunshot
wounds in the left upper chest. Lynn also went on to say,
"[I]f Mr. Lennon was shot in the midst of a cardiac operating room with a cardiac operating
room team standing by all ready to fix his wounds, I don't think they would have been
able to save him."
John Lennon, 40-years-old, was pronounced dead at 11:07 p.m.
"This evening John Lennon arrived at the emergency room at the Roosevelt Hospital. He was dead
on… at the time of his arrival."
In the age of social media and 24-hour news coverage, any information of John Lennon's
murder would normally not have come out until the following morning. However, because of
an individual who so happened to be at the right place at the right time, Lennon's murder
was announced that night on a national broadcast football game to millions around the country.
On Dec. 9, 1974, six years and a day earlier, Lennon had been a celebrity guest on Monday
Night Football and was interviewed by broadcaster Howard Cosell. On Dec. 8, 1980, Cosell was
broadcasting the game between the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins on ABC. That night,
Alan Weiss, a local WABC news producer, was involved in a motorcycle accident and was
getting treatment at the Roosevelt.
He overheard the officers mentioning Lennon. In a moment that has been dramatized in film,
he immediately got up and told his assignment editor what he heard. After confirming the
news with his doctor, the information moved up the chain of commands to the broadcast
team. During a commercial break, Cosell and his co-broadcaster Frank Gifford discussed
what to do. Cosell, who was friends with Lennon, questioned whether or not to say anything,
but Gifford believed it was important to get the information out to the unknowing public.
With three seconds left in the game, tied 13-13, Cosell announced to the audience that
Lennon had been shot and killed. Miami would win the game in overtime, but the result was
far from people's minds that night or the next morning.
"Rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead. On. Arrival."
The Beatles reached unprecedented levels of global popularity and are still seen as the
greatest musical act of all-time. After a publicized break-up in 1970, there were lingering
questions about the band members' relationships. The three surviving members all had different
reactions to the death of their friend and leader.
Ringo Starr spoke to Barbara Walters in 1981 about John Lennon's murder. Starr saw Lennon
less than a month before his death and learned about it from his stepdaughter, who told him,
quote, "John's been shot." Originally believing the shot only injured him, Starr was shocked
to learn that the attack killed him. Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine in 2019, Starr said
upon arriving in New York, he played games with Sean Lennon at the request of Yoko Ono.
Paul McCartney, despite being the closest to Lennon growing up, was initially criticized
for his response. After being cornered by media for his reaction McCartney ended the
interview by saying,
"Drag, isn't it?"
McCartney's response to Lennon's death prompted many to feel that his words were callous.
McCartney said that he had trouble dealing with the reality of his friend's murder and
told NME that he still cries about it four decades later.
In a 1990 interview, George Harrison recalled the last time he saw his old bandmate. He
came over to Lennon's home for dinner in 1978, and the pair listened to Indian music. However,
in August 1980, Harrison released an autobiography that barely mentioned Lennon, which hurt him.
The pair never reconciled before Lennon's murder.
The end of a Beatles reunion
John Lennon's murder ended any chances of the Fab Four getting back together for any
future shows or albums. That being said, the 1970s saw plenty of opportunities for reunions,
as members still worked together on each other's music. However, the most famous quasi-reunion
almost occurred on Saturday Night Live. In 1976, the show's producer Lorne Michaels looked
directly into the camera and made an offer of $3,000 for The Beatles to reunite on their
show and perform three songs.
Little did Michaels and the SNL cast know that less than two miles away, Lennon and
Paul McCartney were watching the show at Lennon's Dakota apartment and talked briefly about
heading down to the studio to perform as a joke. However, the pair agreed they were tired
and did not want to work on a relaxing night off.
The former members of The Beatles would, throughout the 1970s, work on each other's albums but
never reunite together as a foursome. The band's initial reaction to the break-up, at
least for Lennon and McCartney, was to attack each other on songs. According to Rolling
Stone, McCartney's song, "Too Many People," took shots at Lennon, who responded with the
song, "How Do You Sleep?" featuring George Harrison on guitar. It was not until The Beatles'
Anthology in 1995 that the three surviving members reunited to make new music.
Charged with murder in the second degree, Mark David Chapman underwent psychiatric testing,
where he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic by a doctor. The diagnosis, coupled with his
obsession with J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, his previous attempt to kill himself,
and not fleeing the scene led many to believe he would use an insanity defense.
Chapman once again surprised the world by pleading guilty, saying it was what God would
want from him. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He has been eligible for
parole since 2000 but has been denied every time, to Yoko Ono's appreciation. In a 2015
interview with People, Ono revealed that she does not really think about Chapman. Chapman
and his wife, Gloria, had written to Ono for forgiveness, but she has always opposed his
parole - and so far, Chapman has been denied parole 11 times.
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