The Death of John Lennon

It was common for fans to wait outside the Dakota to meet John Lennon and get his autograph and around 5:00 pm on December 8, 1980, John Lennon and Yoko Ono left their apartment. As Lennon and Ono walked to their limousine, several people seeking autographs, among them, Mark David Chapman, approached them. Chapman silently handed Lennon a copy of Double Fantasy, and Lennon obliged with an autograph. After signing the album, Lennon politely asked him, "Is this all you want?" Chapman smiled and nodded in agreement. Photographer and Lennon fan Paul Goresh snapped a photo of the encounter.

John and Yoko spent several hours at the Record Plant, a recording studio, before returning to the Dakota at approximately 10:50 pm. John had decided against dining out that night so he could be home in time to say goodnight to five-year-old son Sean before he went to sleep. John and Yoko exited their limousine on 72nd Street instead of driving into the more secure courtyard of the Dakota, where they would have avoided Chapman.

Yoko walked ahead of John and into the reception area, as Lennon passed by, he looked at Chapman briefly and continued on his way. After he had passed, Chapman fired five hollow-point bullets at John from a Charter Arms .38 Special revolver. The first bullet missed, passing over Lennon's head and hitting a window of the Dakota building. Of the remaining bullets, two struck Lennon in the left side of his back and two penetrated his left shoulder. Three of the four bullets passed completely through and exited the front of Lennon's body, resulting in a total of seven gunshot wounds.

The two fatal wounds were to his left lung and the left subclavian artery, near where it branches off of the aorta. Lennon, bleeding profusely from his external wounds and also from the mouth, staggered up five steps to the security/reception area and fell to the floor, scattering the arm-full of cassettes he had been carrying. Concierge Jay Hastings first started to attempt to make a tourniquet, but upon realizing the severity of his injuries, simply covered Lennon with his uniform’s jacket, removed his blood-covered glasses; and summoned the police.

Outside, doorman Jose Perdomo shook the gun out of Chapman's hand then kicked it across the sidewalk. Chapman then removed his coat and hat in preparation for the police arrival to show he was not carrying any concealed weapons and sat down on the sidewalk. Doorman Perdomo shouted at Chapman, "Do you know what you've done?" to which Chapman calmly replied, "Yes, I just shot John Lennon."

The first policemen to arrive were Steve Spiro and Peter Cullen, who were at 72nd Street and Broadway when they heard a report of shots fired at the Dakota. The officers found Chapman sitting calmly on the sidewalk. They reported that Chapman was holding a paperback book, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Chapman had scribbled a message on the book's inside front cover: "To Holden Caulfield. From Holden Caulfield. This is my statement." He would later claim that his life mirrored that of Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the book.

Police officers Bill Gamble and James Moran, arrived a few minutes later. They immediately carried Lennon into their squad car and rushed him to Roosevelt Hospital. Officer Moran said they placed Lennon on the back seat. Moran asked, "Do you know who you are?" Lennon nodded slightly and tried to speak, but could only manage to make a gurgling sound, and lost consciousness shortly thereafter.

Dr. Stephan Lynn received Lennon in the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital. When Lennon arrived, he had no pulse and was not breathing. Dr Lynn and two other doctors worked for 20 minutes, but the damage to the blood vessels around the heart was too great. Dr Lynn pronounced Lennon dead on arrival in the emergency room at the Roosevelt Hospital at 11:15 pm. The cause of death was reported as shock, caused by the loss of more than 80% of blood volume. Dr Elliott M. Gross, the Chief Medical Examiner, said that no one could have lived more than a few minutes with such multiple bullet injuries.

Yoko begged the hospital not to report that Lennon was dead until she had informed their son, Sean, who was at home at the time. Not knowing of this request, it so happened that a reporter from ABC's New York affiliate was in Roosevelt Hospital following a motorcycle accident, and confirmed that Lennon was dead. He called ABC News, who relayed the news to Roone Arledge, the executive producer of ABC's nationally televised Monday Night Football. Howard Cosell, Fran Tarkenton, and Frank Gifford, who were calling a game between the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots, overheard the confirmation. Cosell expressed apprehension over reporting Lennon's death on-air, but Gifford convinced him it was the right thing to do. Coming out of the commercial, after a brief set-up by Gifford, Cosell made the announcement:

“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 news flash, which in duty bound, we have to take. ”



Chapman was sentenced to a 20-years-to-life term after rejecting an insanity defense and pleading guilty to the murder. At the time, psychiatrists who examined Chapman considered him delusional but not necessarily psychotic or unfit for trial. He's given sometimes conflicting interviews over the years, sometimes talking of hearing voices and arguing with imaginary figures, other times offering prosaic explanations having to do with envy or fame. At his 2000 parole hearing, he said he had "felt like nothing, and I felt if I shot him, I would become something." Chapman is still married to his longtime wife, Gloria, and gets conjugal visits at Attica.