Fact #53047

THE MAN WHO SHOT JOHN LENNON - by Keith Badman.
On Monday, September 29, 1980, the news of John's comeback was in full flow when the American newspaper, Newsweek, published his first major interview in five years. The interviewer, Barbara Graustark, began by asking, "Why did you go underground in 1975? Were you tired of making music, or of the business itself?"

"It was a bit of both," he replied. "I'd been under contract since I was 22 and I was always 'supposed to'. I was supposed to write a hundred songs by Friday. Supposed to have a single out by Saturday. Supposed to do this or that. I became an artist because I cherished freedom. I couldn't fit into a classroom or office. Freedom was the plus for all the minuses of being an oddball! But suddenly, I was obliged to a record company, obliged to the media, obliged to the public. I wasn't free at all!" He added that he had withdrawn many times. "Part of me is a monk," he said, "and part performing flea."

Naturally, his former writing partner manifested in the conversation when Graustark told Lennon about Paul McCartney's theory, "that you became a recluse because you'd done everything, but be yourself."

John, clearly not amused, blasted back, "What the hell does that mean?", the added, "Paul didn't know what I was doing, he was as curious as everybody else. It was 10 years since I really communicated with him. I know as much about him as he does about me, which is zilch! About two years ago (actually four years earlier, in April 1976), he turned up at the door. I said, 'Look, do you mind ringin' first? I've just had a hard day with the baby. I'm worn out and you're walking in with a damn guitar.'"

Newsweek's scoop caused immense media interest. Beatles' fans around the world began dissecting his first printed words since 1975. One such was Mark David Chapman, a long time fan, who read the interview at his home in Honolulu. By the conclusion of the piece, Chapman, a man at the mercy of deeply rooted psychological problems, had convinced himself that John was a phoney. This conviction quickly escalated into an obsession, forcing him to listen avidly to John's and The Beatles' music, and to read everything he could for further evidence to fully confirm his belief.

On Saturday, Oct 18, Chapman borrowed the Anthony Fawcett book, One Day At A Time, from a Honolulu public library. Its content further convinced him that John was now selling out on all his original ideas and principles. Ultimately, he decided that his only escape from his mental turmoil is to kill John Lennon. Chapman, whose documented history of psychological disturbance dated back more than a decade, immediately made a plan to travel 6,000 miles to New York, financing the trip with $5,000 borrowed from his father-in-law.

Mark David Chapman was born on May 10, 1955, in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. His father was David Curtis Chapman, originally from Connecticut, and his mother, the former Diane Elizabeth Pease, came from Massachusetts, USA. Chapman had one sister, Susan. In his early years, he was a very quiet and respectable boy, but the first real evidence that Chapman was turning into a problem child came when he began attending Columbia High School in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur. "His mother hollered at Mark a lot," claimed Tammy Morris, a high school friend. "His mother constantly accused him of taking drugs, and she would spend a lot of time searching his room and putting him on restriction." At the age of 14, and with matters getting out of hand, Chapman ran away from home.

The Reverend Walter Newton Hendrix Junior, now a Baptist minister, who went to Columbia High with Chapman recalls clearly a dramatic change in his personality between the eighth and tenth grades. "My first impression of Mark as an eighth grader was that he was a pretty straight fellow with short hair," he reveals. "But, by the time he had reached the tenth grade, he had started wearing his hair long, and wearing things like army jackets."

In March 1970, Mark vanished completely, only to return a few months later as a born-again Christian. "He had become deeply attached to Christianity... He carried a bible and a 'Jesus notebook'," said Reverend Hendrix. Another of Chapman's High School classmates used to call him, "a Jesus freak", saying that, "He used to wear a large cross around his neck and quoted scriptures constantly." He was now subject to fits of bleak depression severe enough to have driven him to attempt suicide on more than one occasion.

Probably one of the few things that made Mark Chapman's life worth living was his deepest fascination - music. He had an enormous record collection, largely dominated by The Beatles and John Lennon. By this time, Chapman was also playing guitar in a rock group and his appearance had been altered to resemble John, combing his hair Beatles 'mop-top' fashion and wearing thin metal-rimmed round glasses. In 1979, Chapman married Gloria H. Abe, a young woman of Japanese descent and a 1978 graduate of Kailua High School. Their wedding vows were taken on June 2 at the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Honolulu, where Chapman had moved in late 1976. But the marriage was fraught with troubles. He repeatedly bullied her, forced her to change jobs, made her withdraw from the active social life she once enjoyed, and ordered her not to watch television or read newspapers.

Meanwhile, in New York, the first seeds of John Lennon's comeback were planted on Thursday, July 31, 1980, when an excited Yoko phoned record producer Jack Douglas, saying, "John's coming back. He wants to talk to you about making this record." She requested that Douglas go to 34th Street, board a seaplane and fly out to the Lennons' Glen Cove, Long Island mansion. Upon his arrival, Yoko handed Douglas an envelope, addressed, "For Jack's eyes only". Inside was an audio cassette of song demos plus a letter from John, reading, "I think I want to go back into the studio. Would you be interested in producing my album? Here's a bunch of songs. I think they're the same old shit! Tell me what you think. John." The demos had been recorded, on a Panasonic boombox, during the preceding two months when Lennon had visited Bermuda with his assistant, Fred Seaman.

Jack Douglas recalls, "I listened to these songs and they were just incredible. Fred Seaman was playing pots and pans, and John was either playing piano or acoustic guitar. The whole thing was charming."

Douglas immediately agreed to the production duty and, on John's behalf, began putting a band together for the sessions. Amazingly, rehearsals were able to start the following day, on Friday, August 1 at the Hit Factory in New York. The first session did not include John or Yoko, because John had remained back at the Dakota working on some of Yoko's songs, which he felt were still not ready.

Thus, rehearsals went ahead with just a team of hand-picked musicians. Hugh McCracken, who played with John on his 1971 Imagine album; Earl Slick, George Small, Tony Devileo and Andy Newmark, who had just finished recording with George Harrison at his Friar Park mansion in Henley-on-Thames. Not yet knowing whose album they were working on, the session players learned the songs by listening to John's Bermuda demos, played back for them by Douglas in the studio.

On Saturday, August 2, acting on instructions from Douglas, the musicians met up again on the corner of 72nd and Central Park West, en route to meet the 'top secret' musician with whom they would be recording. But, with the first glimpse of the famous Dakota apartment block, the mystery was quickly dispelled. Taken inside, to apartment 71, they were greeted by John and Yoko, then almost immediately set about rehearsing the songs to be recorded in the Hit Factory, beginning on Monday, August 4.

Among the songs jammed that day were, Beautiful Boy, (Living On) Borrowed Time and Yoko's Yes, I'm Your Angel. At the end of what proved to be highly productive session, John called Jack to one side and played him another new song. It is called (Just Like) Starting Over. Douglas loved it, telling John, "It will be the new single."

On the Sunday, John and Yoko took a brief break at their friend Sam Green's house on Fire Island before heading back to New York, suitably refreshed, to begin the sessions for what was to become Double Fantasy.

Wearing a large floppy hat and carrying a briefcase, John Lennon was photographed entering the Hit Factory studios on Monday, August 4. It can't have amused Lennon that the snapper was freelance photographer Paul Goresh. Having haunted the Lennons for the last 18 months, Goresh had previously been ejected from the Dakota after dressing up as a repair man and successfully gaining entrance to John's bedroom.

Jack Douglas recalls how the sessions proceeded. "I would meet John at the Dakota at 9am, and walk the short distance to the La Fortuna cafe on 71st street for some breakfast. At around 11am, while I would return to the Hit Factory to resume work with Yoko, John would return to his Dakota apartment for a short sleep until the early afternoon when he would rejoin Yoko and I at the Hit Factory. At the end of every session, John would sit quietly, his feet up on the console, smoking from a 500 year-old opium pipe and would ask me, 'Is it all over?' I would reply, 'It's over, John.'"

Douglas repeatedly told the musicians, in no uncertain terms, that these were "top secret" sessions and that if the news leaked out, the recordings would end immediately. But, within days, the news of John's studio comeback began to feature prominently in news feeds around the world, a fact quite probably released to the media by Paul Goresh.

Nevetheless, the sessions continued intermittently until Wednesday, 10 September, during which period John recorded (Just Like) Starting Over, Cleanup Time, I'm Losing You, Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy), Watching The Wheels, Woman, Dear Yoko, Grow Old With Me, Borrowed Time, (Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess, I'm Stepping Out, Everybody's Talking (later to become Nobody Told Me) and I Don't Wanna Face It. The latter two were originally intended for Ringo to record.

In addition, on Monday, September 22, John laid down a vocal for Yoko's track Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him.

On Tuesday, August 12, John and Yoko bow to the rumours by issuing a statement announcing that their comeback is true and that the theme for their next album is the "exploration of sexual fantasies between men and women". Almost immediately, Jack Douglas is inundated with phone calls from record company executives, one of which is Bruce Lundvall, of Columbia Records, who tells him, "Whatever John wants for this record, we'll give it to him."

On the same day, recordings at the Hit Factory run into trouble when recently drafted in Cheap Trick drummer, Bun E. Carlos, and guitarist, Rick Nielsen, are fired from the sessions. Their time with the Lennons is quickly aborted when Yoko tells Douglas to "get rid of them," feeling that they were "getting a free ride on John's coat-tails."

On the following day, Wednesday, August 13, a phone call for John reached the Hit Factory, but Yoko refused to let it go through. The call had come from Paul McCartney, who was then on holiday with Linda and his family. He had rung to suggest a collaboration with John. Jack Douglas ironically recalls, "From what I heard from John, he was looking to get hooked up with Paul to do some writing."

At the conclusion of the Double Fantasy recordings on Wednesday, 10 September, John agreed to a series of interviews with David Sheff of Playboy magazine. During a string of sessions that last until Sunday, 28 September, Sheff asked John, "Why is it so unthinkable that the fab four can get back together again?"

John replied, "Talking about The Beatles getting back together again is an illusion. That was 10 years ago. The Beatles only exist on film and on record and in people's minds. You cannot get back together what no longer exists. We are not those four people any more. Anyway, why should I go back 10 years to provide an illusion I know doesn't exist?"

But Sheff persisted. "Forget the illusion. What about just to make some music?"

John remained adamant. "Why should The Beatles give more? Didn't they give everything on God's earth for 10 years? Didn't they give themselves? Didn't they give all?"

On another day with Sheff, John reminisced on how, "When I was a Beatle, I thought we were the best fucking group in the goddamn world, and believing that is what made us what we were, whether you call it the best rock'n'roll group or whatever. As far as we were concerned, we were the best..."

When Sheff asked if he would follow the new record with a tour, John replied, "Well, we probably will, you know. I wouldn't have believed it a month ago. But, then I thought, 'What the hell. Why not?'"

Producer Jack Douglas recalls, "John revealed plans for a tour in 1981. He planned a tremendous production, including his new arrangements of songs he never got right, like She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand."

The day after the Double Fantasy records had been concluded, Yoko met up with David Geffen of Geffen Records, who recalls, "In September, when I was just starting my record company, everybody was talking about John and Yoko. I thought, 'Wouldn't it be great to sign them?' I sent them a telegram and proceeded to forget about it... An impossible dream."

Before the meeting with Geffen, John and Yoko had briefly toyed with the idea of selling the completed Double Fantasy master tapes in an auction, thus freeing John from any record company contract. But, partly because the first meeting went well, and partly because her horoscope reading was favourable, a second one between Yoko and David Geffen took place at 9pm on Friday, September 19. The Geffen recording contract was signed the following Monday, with the mogul so enthusiastic about releasing John's first new recordings in five years that he agreed to issue them without even hearing them.

By Thursday, September 25, the front of the Dakota block was thronged with an ever-increasing number of fans, all hoping to catch sight of John on his way to the recording studio. Sean's bodyguard, Doug MacDougall, favoured stepping up security, but Yoko rejected the suggestion. MacDougall immediately went on a leave of absence.

During the evening of Monday, Oct 20, the final mixes of Double Fantasy were completed by Jack Douglas at the Hit Factory. Excited by the results, John aborted a planned return trip to Bermuda and asked Douglas to rejoin him and Yoko in the studio, telling Douglas he was keen to continue with more recordings, including some tracks for Ringo's new album, Can't Fight Lightning, which was then being recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, California, USA. Hit Factory session time was immediately booked for Monday, November 17, the day set for simultaneous release in America and the UK of Double Fantasy.

Meanwhile, half a world away, events were taking a serious turn. Mark Chapman left his job as a guard at Freeman Guards, on Thursday, Oct 23. His colleagues in the Honolulu-based company must have been relieved, because they'd never believed he was right for the job. "He was an extremely nervous type," one colleague recalls. "I don't know why he was ever hired. On a job like we have, you need your cool all the time. But that guy didn't have any cool!" Although it would have been dismissed at the time as no more than mildly amusing, Chapman signed off from his employment ominously using the pseudonym John Lennon.

The following day, Friday, Oct 24, the first recordings from the Double Fantasy sessions, John's (Just Like) Starting Over backed by Yoko's Kiss Kiss Kiss, were released in the UK, billed as John's comeback single.

At J And S Enterprises in Honolulu, just three days later, the now unemployed Chapman purchased a .38 calibre 'charter arms undercover' short-barrelled revolver for the sum of $169. His application, in which he claimed his apartment had been burgled the previous August, had been filled out in the Honolulu police station. It appears that the authorities made no efforts to determine the state of Chapman's mental health. His fits of depression and attempted suicides were not uncovered. Apparently, all that mattered to the authorities was that Chapman did not have a police record.

On the following Wednesday, Chapman boarded a plane flying from Honolulu to New York. In his possession is the gun, but it has no ammunition. Chapman wasted no time on arrival in New York. On Thursday, 29 Oct, he made his first visit to the Dakota building but did not cross paths with John. His failure to meet the former Beatle forced him to return for the next five days. An attempt to buy some bullets for his handgun also resulted in failure.

Following a brief trip to Georgia to spend time with friends, Chapman flew back into New York on Sunday, November 9. On the flight, he read an Esquire article by Laurence Shames, criticising John's radical beliefs and exclusive lifestyle.

Back in the Big Apple, Chapman checked in at the YMCA, then returned to the Dakota, only to be told repeatedly by the building's doorman, Jay Hastings, that, "John and Yoko are out of town for the week."

Chapman's escalating insanity was revealed in its full horror two days later, when he phoned his wife, back home in Honolulu, and chillingly told her, "I am planning to murder John Lennon!" Distraught, she pleaded with him to return home.

Double Fantasy, John Lennon's first new studio album since1975, was released as planned on Monday, November 17. In an interview for RKO Radio in the States, John announced that Double Fantasy was "just the start and this is our first album. I know we (John and Yoko) have worked together before, and we've even made albums before, but we feel like this is the first album. I feel like nothing has happened before today." But, unfortunately, the critics didn't share his unbridled enthusiasm. Melody Maker, for instance, called it "A God awful yawn! The whole thing positively reeks of an indulgent sterility..."

On Wednesday, November 26, Paul McCartney And Wings' Rockshow, a filmed record of a 1976 Seattle concert, was premiered at the Ziegfield Theater in New York. John, along with Yoko, was meeting Ringo and his James Bond actress girlfriend, Barbara Bach, at the nearby Plaza Hotel. Although planned for a brief one-hour meet, the evening went so well that the couples ended up spending five hours together. At its conclusion, John took up Ringo's invitation to appear on his new album, Can't Fight Lightning, and a recording date was provisionally scheduled for Wednesday, January 14, 1981.

One week later, on Wednesday, December 3, a local New York newspaper published a front-page story on Yoko, entitled Yoko Only. John loved the headline so much that he decided it should be the title for Yoko's next album, which had now gone into production at the Hit Factory.

During that afternoon, Rolling Stone photographer, Anne Liebovitz, visited John and Yoko at their Dakota apartment to take photographs for the magazine's forthcoming article on the couple. Liebovitz spent the evening with John and Yoko, working alongside Jack Douglas, recording at the Hit Factory, where Yoko was recording the master vocal for Walking On Thin Ice.

On Friday, December 5, John began planning his return to England. As his Aunt Mimi Smith later recalled. "He rang and said he was looking out of a window in New York, looking at the docks and ships and wondering whether any of them were going to Liverpool. It made him homesick. He was coming home. He was coming here to Poole, Dorset, and going to Liverpool." In a previous nostalgic moment, John had requested that Mimi send him his old school tie. Following the conversation, Mimi immediately began preparing a bedroom for John and Yoko to stay in during their visit. Also on December 5, Mark Chapman arrived back in New York, after spending time at home in Honolulu. His return ticket home was dated Thursday, 18 December.

On Saturday, December 6, John's Playboy interview reached the news stands and, at the Hit Factory, John and Yoko gave another lengthy interview, this time with BBC Radio One disc-jockey, Andy Peebles, who asked John if he is "going to be extremely prolific in the months and years to come?"

John replied, "We're talking and talking and talking (about) all sorts of plans and ideas we have in our heads. It's just a matter of getting it done, you know? We've already got half the next album and we'll probably go in just after Christmas and do that... We're already talking about what the ideas for the third album is... (It's) already laid out and I can't wait, you know?"

In light of a rash of BBC Television shows then appearing on cable stations in the States, John told Peebles, "I love Fawlty Towers. I'd like to be in that, you know. Part of me would sooner have been a comedian. I just don't have the guts to stand up and do it, but I'd love to be in Monty Python rather than The Beatles. Fawlty Towers is the greatest show I've seen in years..." Ironically, he then went on to say, "I can go right out of this door now and go in a restaurant. You know how great that is? Or go to the movies? I mean, people come and ask for autographs or say, 'Hi,' but they don't bug you..."

During the evening, Mark Chapman headed again for the Dakota building. On his way, he dropped by a record store where he purchased a copy of Double Fantasy to add to the 14 hours of Beatles' audio cassettes in the rucksack on his back. Chapman checked out of the Y.M.C.A. the following day and booked into the $65a-night Sheraton Hotel on 7th Avenue. From there he took another stroll to the Dakota building. During the walk, he bought the Lennon interview issue of Playboy. Again, he failed to encounter John, so returned to his hotel in disappointment.

For John, Monday, December 8 began shortly before 7.30am with breakfast at La Fortuna. Then, at 9am, he had his hair cut into a '50s style with a 'quiff', reminiscent of his Beatle days in Hamburg. John returned to his Dakota apartment at 9.45am where, shortly before 10am, Dave Sholin, Ron Hummel, Bert Keane and Laurie Kaye of RKO Radio interviewed him, along with Yoko.

During the lengthy session, John proudly remarked, "I was saying to someone the other day, there's only been two artists I've ever worked with for more than a one night stand... That's Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. I think that's a pretty damn good choice. As a talent scout, I've done pretty damn well." On his relationship with Yoko, "We've been together now longer than The Beatles, do you know that? People always think in terms that John and Yoko just got together and then The Beatles split. We've been together longer than The Beatles!"

He then dedicated the album Double Fantasy to, "The people who grew up with me. I'm saying, 'Here I am now, how are you? How's your relationship going? Did you get through it all? Weren't the '70s a drag, you know? Here we are, well, let's try to make '80s good, because it's still up to us to make what we can of it. It's not out of our control.' I still believe in love. I still believe in peace. I still believe in positive thinking."

Following the 90-minute interview, at just past midday, John and Yoko had another photo session with Anne Liebovitz of Rolling Stone. In the most memorable shot, John was seen lying naked across a fully clothed Yoko. An idea by John, this was the very last picture of John and Yoko together and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, dated January 22, 1981.

At approximately 4pm, John and Yoko left the Dakota, heading for the Hit Factory. However, the limousine arranged by the Lennons to take them to the studio did not arrive, so instead they hitched a ride to the studio in the car belonging to the RKO team which was shadowing them.

Before doing so, John was photographed by the omnipresent Paul Goresh, signing a copy of the Double Fantasy album for Mark Chapman. "He was an album cover to me... He didn't exist," Chapman would later recall. "When I met him and when he signed the album cover for me, which he did graciously, he was very patient and he was very cordial. I had a black Bik pen and said, 'John, would you sign my album?' And he said, 'Sure.' Yoko went and got into the car and he pushed the button on the pen. It was hard to get it to write at first. He wrote his name, 'John Lennon 1980', and he looked at me and said, 'Is that all? Do you want anything else?' I felt he knew something, subconsciously, that he was looking into the eyes of someone who was going to kill him. His wife was in the car and the doors were open. He's a busy man and he's talking to a nobody, he's signed a record album to a nobody and he's asking me, 'Is that all you want?' I didn't even have a camera on me, so what could I give him?"

Later that evening at the Hit Factory, during a break from recordings, John again phoned his Aunt Mimi at her home in Poole, Dorset. She recalls, "He was so happy, laughing and joking and looking forward to coming over to England." As the sessions drew to a close, David Geffen excitedly dropped by to inform John, Yoko and Jack Douglas that Double Fantasy had just gone Gold after its first two-weeks of release. At approximately10.30pm, following several hours of work on Yoko's Walking On Thin Ice, John turned to his producer, Douglas, and said, "Hey, shall we call it a night? I'm bushed. We'll be back in the morning. Yoko and I want to stop and have a bite to eat on the way home." Yoko later recalled, "Although we had planned to stop and eat at Stage Deli, we decided not to. We went straight home instead. We were going to check on Sean and then go out for a bite to eat." Sean, the Lennons' five-year-old son, had been left at the Dakota with Fred Seaman's wife, Helen.

On that unusually warm December evening, the streets outside the Dakota residence were almost deserted. John emerged from their limousine and, a couple of spaces ahead of Yoko, strolled towards the archway entrance leading into the Dakota's large courtyard. They were surprised to see a man standing in The Shadows.

Mark Chapman recalls, "I was sitting inside the arch of the Dakota building and it was dark... I was at an angle where I could see Central Park West and 72nd and I see this limousine pull up and there's probably hundreds of limousines that pull up Central Park West in the evening, but it was his... The door opened... John got out and I think he looked at me and thought, 'Here's the fellow I signed for earlier.' He walked past me. I took five steps towards the street, turned, withdrew my gun and fired five shots into his back. He never saw it coming. Yoko, naturally, dashed around the stair area. She ran for cover."

Yoko remembers, "I didn't realise at first that John had been shot. He kept walking and then he fell and then I saw blood." The time is 10.52pm.

Aside from Yoko, there were four witness to this terrible event. Jay Hastings, the Dakota doorman; Joseph Many, the elevator operator; Richard Peterson, a New York taxi driver; and Franklyn Welsh, a passenger that Peterson has just dropped off.

Welsh recalls, "I pulled up in a taxi cab to visit my friend in the Dakota... I saw a green Limo double-parked in front. I recognised John Lennon and Yoko getting out of the limo, and they went into the building. I was paying the cab fare when I heard four gunshots coming from the courtyard... I then ran across the street to the Majestic (hotel) to have someone call the police."

John struggled towards the Dakota entrance and managed to climb six short steps to a room used by the concierge. Yoko rushed to his side and cradled his head in her arms. He whispered to her, "Help me." She began to scream, "He's been shot! He's been shot! Please come quickly."

Jay Hastings, the Dakota doorman recalls, "I had been reading a magazine shortly before 11pm when I heard several shots outside the office and then the sound of shattering glass. I heard someone coming up the office stairs and John stumbled in with a horrible confused look on his face. Yoko followed, screaming 'John's been shot, John's been shot.' At first I thought it was a crazy joke, but when I saw him collapse to the floor, scattering the cassette tapes of his final sessions that he had been holding in his arms, I knew it wasn't."

Hastings immediately triggered a police alarm and rushed to help John, gently removing his glasses. Next, Hastings removed his blue Dakota jacket and placed it over John's motionless body, whispering, "It's okay, you'll be all right.'"

The first policemen to react to Hastings and the wave of 911 emergency calls were officers Steve Spiro and Peter Cullen from the New York Police Department, who had been cruising in their squad car at nearby Broadway and 72nd Street. Upon arriving at the Dakota, they immediately attempted to arrest the man they assume to have been the killer. "Put your hands up," Spiro told Hastings, who was kneeling next to John covered in blood.

"Not him! He works here," called out Joseph Many. Chapman was now standing to the left of the archway on West 72nd Street, reading a copy of J.D. Salinger's book Catcher In The Rye. Many pointed directly at him. "He's the one."

The gun Chapman had used for the slaying had been thrown away, coming to rest in the nearby bushes, alongside his signed copy of Double Fantasy. Spiro and Cullen rushed to perform the "spread eagle and patting down" ritual on Chapman, against the Dakota's elegant stone facade. Chapman prepared for his arrest, pleading, "Don't hurt me. Stay with me."

"No-one's going to hurt you," Cullen replied. "Just turn around and place your hands against that wall, your feet apart." The gun was retrieved from the bushes by the elevator operator and handed over to Spiro.

The subsequent search of Chapman's person yielded only keys, the copy of Catcher In The Rye and a wallet, which contained $2,000 in cash. Chapman was heard to say, "I've got a big man inside me and I've got a little man inside me. The little man is the man who pulled the trigger."

By now, more policemen from the 20th Precinct station house on West 82nd Street had appeared on the scene. Arriving on the heels of Spiro and Cullen were Police officers James Moran and Bill Gamble who, seeing that Spiro and Cullen had the suspect under control, raced to John's side. Acting against Yoko's wishes, Gamble turned over John's body to determine the severity of his injuries and asked, "What is your name?" John hesitantly replied, "Lennon."

Due to the obvious seriousness of John's condition, Gamble informed Moran that they could not afford to wait for an ambulance and decided instead to take John to hospital in their police car. Moran gripped John's legs and Gamble grasped Lennon by his underarms and the pair transported him in the crooks of their elbows to their parked car, placing his motionless body on the back seat.

Gamble took up a position kneeling at his side while Moran leapt behind the wheel to start the vehicle, setting off the roof emergency light panel and siren. "I remember the look of one of the officers as he dragged John's body to the back of his patrol car," a pathetic remorseless Chapman recalls, "the officer looked at me and cursed me. I never heard the curse words, but I could see them on his lips. He was very, very angry and upset."

At 50mph, the black and white raced through the streets to St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital on West 59th Street, a distance of 14 blocks, more than half a mile. Desperate to keep him conscious, Gamble spoke to John. "Are you sure you're John Lennon?" he asked. "I am," John replied, becoming weaker by the minute. "How do you feel?" Gamble continued. "I'm in pain," John responded.

Following immediately behind was another police car, driven by Officer Anthony Palmer, containing a hysterical Yoko, continually screaming, "Tell me it's not true... please tell me it's not true." When the first police car arrived at the hospital, in less than three minutes, John's body was moved into emergency surgery. Among the first physicians to administer treatment on him was Dr. Stephan Lynn, the medical director of the hospital's emergency room.

Once inside the building, Yoko put a phone call through to their Dakota apartment to check that Sean was okay. After coming off the phone, she was told that, despite all their efforts to save John, including massive blood transfusions and surgical procedures by Lynn and a team of highly trained staff, John had been pronounced dead. "He never stood a chance," Lynn sympathetically told Yoko. "Nothing we were able to do could revive your husband. We believe the first bullet killed him. It ripped through John's chest, causing irreparable damage to a major artery."

In complete shock, Yoko replied by asking hysterically, "Do you mean that he is sleeping?" John was officially pronounced dead at 11.07pm. Yoko was told at 11.15pm.

The news spread fast. America first heard about John's murder on WABC TV's Monday Night Football, ironically, a programme on which John had appeared live one day short of six years earlier, when he had been seen talking with Howard Cosell. Now, Cosell himself was faced with the task of revealing the news of John's tragic death. Cosell recalls, "Near the end of the Monday Night Football broadcast, my producer, Bob Goodrich, said, 'John Lennon has been shot and rushed to the hospital. We're waiting for details from ABC News.' I couldn't believe it! I was devastated! We were in the midst of a tied football game that was about to go into extra time and I was wrestling with the problem of breaking the news on TV, thinking that, even in this sick, sports-obsessed country, this is far more important than any goddamn football game will ever be. I went on the air and said that it was just a game, and I felt compelled to tell this story."

Back at the Hit Factory, Jack Douglas, still at work on Yoko's track Walking On Thin Ice, was informed of the tragedy by his wife at 11.35pm. He immediately went into a state of shock, which, by his own estimation, lasted six months.

At the Roosevelt Hospital, at 12.10am, Dr. Stephan Lynn, the man responsible for trying to save John, faced the press in a room adjacent to the emergency room, where John had died. Still wearing his spotless white lab coat and faced with a non-stop flashing of photographers whirring flash bulbs, an emotionally charged Lynn began, "John Lennon..." then immediately paused for 20 seconds in order to regain his composure before trying again. "John Lennon was brought to the emergency room of the St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital this evening, shortly before 11pm. He was dead on arrival. Extensive resuscitative efforts were made, but in spite of transfusions and many procedures, he could not be resuscitated. He had multiple gunshot wounds in his chest, in his left arm, and in his back. There were seven wounds in his body. I don't know exactly how many bullets there were. I'm certain that he was dead at the moment that the first shots hit his body."

One reporter asked, "Did you tell Yoko that Mr. Lennon was dead? What did she say?" Lynn replied, "I did tell his wife that he was dead. She was... most distraught at the time and found it quite hard to accept." He adds, "She is no longer in the hospital."

In fact, as the press conference continued, Yoko was quietly leaving the hospital to be escorted back to the Dakota by David Geffen, Jack Douglas and the police. By now, a crowd of approximately 200 had gathered outside the building, all standing behind police-erected wooden barriers.

Within an hour, that figure had increased to almost 600, all of them chanting Beatles and John Lennon songs and many weeping uncontrollably. At 2.00am, at the Twentieth Precinct on West 82nd Street, the Chief of Detectives, James T. Sullivan, held another press conference. "We asked you to come here," Sullivan began, "so that we could give you a briefing on what we know at this point in the homicide of John Lennon. We have arrested Mark David Chapman, of 55 South Kukui Street, Hawaii, for the homicide of John Lennon... he has apparently been in New York for about a week, staying briefly at the YMCA. I'm not sure which one." Sullivan concludes by saying, "Mark Chapman behaved very calmly when he was arrested." The final question from the press was answered at 2.24am.

Elliott Mintz, the Lennons' close friend, arrived at the Dakota around 3.00am, to find Yoko still in a complete state of shock, continuously watching television reports on the tragedy. Soon after, though, she dictated to David Geffen a personal statement to be read out later that morning. At approximately 3.30am, Yoko put a phone call through to Paul McCartney at his home in Sussex, England, to tell him the distressing news.

McCartney's brother, Mike, remembers the call he had from Paul, telling him of John's death, "He was too distressed to talk properly. He just said, 'Keep sending the good vibes down from Liverpool to help me through the day.'"

Just under three hours later, shortly after 6.00am, a caller from California phoned the main office at the Dakota, chillingly informing them that, "I am flying to New York to finish the job Chapman started.... I'm going to get Yoko Ono." The police at Los Angeles Airport intercepted the call. At approximately 7.00am, John and Yoko's son, Sean, woke from his sleep but was not told about the tragedy for a further 24 hours.

Later that morning, Geffen Records released Yoko's first statement. "There is no funeral for John. Later in the week we will set the time for a silent vigil to pray for his soul. We invite you to participate from wherever you are at the time. We thank you for the many flowers sent to John. But in the future, instead of flowers, please consider sending donations in his name to the Spirit Foundation Inc., which is John's personal charitable foundation. He would have appreciated it very much. John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him."

At 10.30am, an autopsy was carried out on John's body.

In England, at Friar Park, George Harrison learned of John's death when, at 5am (UK time), he received a phone call from his sister Louise in America. Hearing the news and believing it to be nothing more than a flesh wound, he went back to sleep. When he woke a few hours later to be informed that John was, in fact, dead, he issued a statement to the press from his Friar Park office. In full, it read, "After all we went through together, I had and still have great love and respect for him. I am shocked and stunned. To rob life is the ultimate robbery in life. This perpetual encroachment on other people's space is taken to the limit with the use of a gun. It is an outrage that people can take other people's lives when they obviously haven't got their own lives in order."

In Poole, Dorset, John's Aunt Mimi woke up after hearing the words "John Lennon" on the BBC World Service radio broadcast. Almost immediately, the phone rang. It was Neil Aspinall, the head of Apple, who asked her, "Mimi, have you heard?" She naturally replied, "What are you talking about?" Before Neil could answer, he hung up. Mimi had heard him crying. Her attention was then drawn towards the radio broadcast, from which she heard the shocking news.

Paul attempted to leave his Sussex farmhouse at 11.29am, only to find himself thwarted by the army of reporters who had been standing guard outside his home since the news of John's death broke. Still in a state of shock, Paul had only this to offer, "I can't take it at the moment. John was a great man who'll be remembered for his unique contributions to art, music and peace. He is going to be missed by the whole world." Paul was then driven to London where he joined his Wings colleague Denny Laine in a session at George Martin's AIR Studios.

Ringo Starr heard the news while on holiday in the Bahamas with his girlfriend, Barbara Bach, whose daughter in England passed on the news of John's death. The couple immediately made plans to head to New York to comfort Yoko and Sean.

On Wednesday, December 10, from the seclusion of her Dakota apartment, Yoko arranged for John's body to be cremated at 2pm at the Ferncliff crematorium in suburban Hartsdale, north of the city in Westchester County. The cremation was captured on film and the offensive photos of John lying dead on a mortuary slab were sold to a New York newspaper. At 9pm, the Ferncliff Mortuary delivered John's ashes in an urn to Yoko.

Four days later, on Sunday, 14 December, crowds ranging in size from a few dozen to tens of thousands gathered in cities throughout the world to observe a day of mourning for John. At 2pm EST (7.00pm UK time), at Yoko's request, 10 minutes of silence were observed. Many radio stations around the world ceased broadcasting. Two of the largest gatherings occurred in New York, at Central Park, and in Liverpool, where Sam Leach, one of The Beatles' first promoters, lead 25,000 mourners in a seven-hour tribute to John outside St. George's Hall. Played at the emotional gathering were pre-recorded messages of sympathy by Yoko, the boxer Muhammad Ali and the former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

At the conclusion of the worldwide vigil, Yoko released the following statement. "Bless you for your tears and prayers. I saw John smiling in the sky. I saw sorrow changing into clarity. I saw all of us becoming one mind. Thank you. Love, Yoko."

Chapman, meanwhile was committed to the care of psychiatrists for 30 days of examinations, to determine whether he had the capacity to comprehend the charges against him, and to mount his defence at a trial for John's assassination.

Ten days later, on Christmas Eve, Sean received his final present from John, an Akita puppy which he named Merry. But a gold watch inscribed to Sean from John and Yoko, as well as various other Christmas presents, mysteriously vanished from their Dakota apartment.

By Saturday, December 27, John's single (Just Like) Starting Over and album Double Fantasy had both reached Number 1 on the American charts. They then reached the same positions in the UK on Thursday, January 3, 1981. In West Germany, immediately after John's death, orders for Double Fantasy rose from 10,000 to 50,000 a day and in East Berlin, the radio station DDR-1 broke from its usual ban against the playing of Western rock music by airing a 90-minute programme featuring nothing but Beatles music.

Twenty years on, Mark David Chapman remains behind bars and his recent application for parole has been rejected, thus saving us from the sickening sight of Lennon's assassin becoming an infamous celebrity in many eyes.

John Lennon was a musical genius, an inspiration, an icon, who was taken from us at a time when he still had much more to give. We shall never know what he could have given us in the forthcoming years. Instead, we are confronted with the possibility, according to newspaper reports, of "Mark Chapman going on a concert tour, singing and talking about John Lennon's murder." Where the bloody hell is the justice in that?

Sources : Newsweek, Playboy, Rolling Stone, RKO Radio, CNN, Let Me Take You Down (Jack Jones) and BBC Radio One.