December 6, 2025 • 23 mins
Reid Carter examines the 45th anniversary of John Lennon's assassination. December 8, 1980: Mark David Chapman waited outside the Dakota building all day, got Lennon's autograph at 5pm, then shot him four times in the back at 10:50pm. The 25-year-old security guard from Hawaii traveled to New York twice—first in October, losing his nerve, then returning December 6th with hollow-point bullets. Hours before the murder, photographer Paul Goresh captured the iconic image: Lennon signing Chapman's Double Fantasy album while his killer watched. Chapman never fled. Police found him reading The Catcher in the Rye over Lennon's blood.
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Join our new FB groups page here. Take the poll!
Join the Celebrity Trials community on social media! We're building a passionate group of true crime enthusiasts who love diving deep into the most shocking cases in America.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching "Celebrity Trials Podcast" on either platform.
You'll get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, breaking news updates on cases we're covering, and early alerts when new episodes drop. Our social media is where Reid Carter's hottest takes live, including reactions that don't make it into the show.
But more importantly, it's where YOU come in. Share your theories, debate the verdicts, and connect with fellow listeners who are just as obsessed with justice as you are. Did the jury get it right? What questions do you still have? Your comments and insights often shape future episodes.
We cover the trials that matter, but our community makes the conversation unforgettable. Come for Reid's signature cynical commentary, stay for the incredible discussions with thousands of true crime fans who get it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm reed Carter. Saturday, December sixth,
twenty twenty five, forty five years ago, Monday, The World
Lost John Lennon. December eighth, nineteen eighty, New York City,
(00:23):
ten fifty pm. John Lennon and Yoko Ono step out
of their limousine on West seventy second Street. They've just
returned from the Record Plant studio, where they'd been mixing
Yoko's song Walking on Thin Ice. John played lead guitar
on the track, his last recording. They walked toward the Dakota,
their gothic apartment building overlooking Central Park. A young man
(00:46):
steps out of the shadows, twenty five years old, pudgy glasses.
He'd been waiting there all day. Mark David Chapman drops
into a combat stance, raises a point three to eight
caliber Charter Arms revolver loaded with hollow points. Bullets fires
five times. Four bullets tear through Lenin's back and shoulder.
One misses, shattering a window of the Dakota. Lenin staggers
(01:10):
up five steps into the security vestibule. I'm shot, I'm shot.
Then he collapses, scattering the cassette tapes he'd been carrying.
Chapman doesn't run, doesn't hide. The doorman, Jose Perdomo, shakes
the gun from his hand and kicks it across the pavement.
Do you know what you just did? Perdomo screams. Chapman
(01:30):
is calm, almost serene. Yes, I just shot John Lennon.
He removes his coat and hat, stands under a street lamp,
pulls out a paperback book, and starts reading. When police
officers Steven Spiro and Peter Cullen arrive two minutes later,
they find Chapman standing peacefully on West seventy second Street
(01:51):
reading The Catcher in the Rye. Inside the book he'd written,
this is my statement, Holden Callfield. John Lennon was rushed
to Roosevelt Hospital. Doctors worked frantically for twenty minutes, but
he'd lost over eighty percent of his blood. At eleven
fifteen pm, the former Beatle was pronounced dead. He was
forty years old. I'm reed, Carter, this is celebrity trials today.
(02:16):
The man who killed John Lennon mark David Chapman's twisted
path from YMCA councilor to cold blooded assassin. How the
Catcher in the Rye became his Bible and December eighth,
nineteen eighty The Knight That Stole one of the greatest
musicians who ever lived, Part one of two Chapman's troubled origins.
(02:38):
Mark David Chapman was born May tenth, nineteen fifty five,
in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, David Curtis Chapman, was
a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force. His mother, Diane,
was a nurse. When Mark was young, the family moved
to Decatur, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. From the outside,
the Chapmans looked like a normal American family. David was
(03:02):
a boy Scout leader taught guitar at the local YMCA.
Neighbors said they seemed happy, well adjusted, but inside the
house things were different. Mark later claimed he lived in
constant fear of his father. Said David was physically abusive
toward his mother, emotionally distant from his son, unloving. Mark
(03:22):
felt like an outsider in his own home, so he
created his own world, imaginary friends he called the little people,
thousands of them living in the walls of his bedroom.
They worshiped him, followed his commands made him feel powerful, important, special,
I used to fantasize that I was a king over
(03:42):
these little people. Chapman would later say it was the
first sign of something deeply wrong. By fourteen, Mark was
using drugs marijuana, LSD, heroine, skipping classes, defying his parents,
running with the wrong crowd. He once ran away from
home and lived on the streets of Atlanta for two weeks.
(04:02):
He was also bullied relentlessly at Columbia High School in Decatur.
Wasn't athletic, didn't fit in. The other kids called him names,
made him feel worthless. Then at sixteen, everything changed. Mark
Chapman became a born again Christian. He started distributing biblical tracks,
found his first girlfriend, a fellow believer named Jessica Blankenship.
(04:25):
His grades improved, he stopped using drugs, and he devoted
himself to the South DeKalb County YMCA. Mark became a
summer camp counselor. And here's what's strange. He was exceptional
at it. The children adored him. They nicknamed him Nemo,
after Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.
He'd get down on one knee to help a struggling
(04:47):
kid play games with them for hours make them feel seen,
valued important. When Mark won the award for Outstanding Counselor,
the children were on their feet chanting his name, Neamo
name Oh. The YMCA director called him a pied piper
with the kids. Everyone who worked with him in caretaking
(05:08):
professions said he was outstanding, compassionate patient, exactly the kind
of person you'd want working with children. So how does
that person become an assassin? It was around this time
that a friend recommended a book, J. D. Salinger's The
Catcher in the Rye, published in nineteen fifty one, the
story of Holden Callfield, a disaffected teenager railing against the
(05:32):
phoniness of the adult world. Mark felt an immediate connection
Holden's alienation, his disgust with hypocrisy, his fantasy of being
the Catcher in the Rye, standing at the edge of
a cliff, saving innocent children from falling into the corrupt
adult world. The book became Mark's new Bible, and Holden
Callfield became his new identity. Something else happened during Mark's
(05:56):
religious phase. He turned against one of his childhood heroes,
John Lennon. In nineteen sixty six, Lenin had made his
infamous comment about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus
in the American South. That statement sparked outrage, album burnings, boycotts,
death threats. Mark's Christian friends made a joke they'd sing
(06:19):
Lenin's song Imagine with altered lyrics, Imagine Imagine if John
Lennon was dead. Mark called the original song communist. Was
furious about the line imagine there's no Heaven? Who did
Lenin think? He was telling people not to believe in God?
The seeds were planted, the contradiction was forming. Mark Chapman
(06:41):
loved John Lennon's music, and Mark Chapman despised everything John
Lennon stood for. After high school, Mark moved to Chicago
briefly to play guitar in churches and Christian night spots,
then came back to Georgia, worked odd jobs for the YMCA,
attended community college. In nineteen seventy five, he went to
(07:01):
work with Vietnamese refugees at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Again, he excelled,
was promoted to assistant director. People trusted him with their
most vulnerable populations, but the demons never went away. The
little people still talked to him, and the darkness was
always there. Waiting. In nineteen seventy seven, Mark's parents began
(07:24):
divorce proceedings. His world was crumbling. He bought a one
way ticket to Hawaii Paradise escape. Instead, he tried to
kill himself carbon monoxide poisoning. Failed attempt, woke up in
a hospital, and here's the twist. He recovered so well
that the hospital hired him, first in maintenance, then in
(07:44):
the print shop. For a while, things seemed better. Mark
fell in love with his travel agent, a Japanese American
woman named Gloria Abe. In nineteen seventy eight. He took
a trip around the world Tokyo, Soul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok,
New Delhi, Beirut, Geneva, London, Paris, Dublin, came back and
(08:05):
proposed to Gloria. They married on June second, nineteen seventy nine.
But happiness never lasted long for Mark David Chapman. He
got fired from the hospital, rehired, then quit after an
argument with a nurse. Took a job as a night
security guard at a high end apartment complex, started drinking heavily,
and the obsessions returned. The Little People The Catcher in
(08:28):
the Rye artwork, music and John Lennon, the lavish lifestyle,
the millions of dollars, the Dakota apartment overlooking Central Park.
Reading Anthony Fawcett's book about Lenin's life in New York,
the yachts, the farms, the country estates, while the man
preached love and peace. In Mark's mind, twisted by the
(08:49):
Catcher in the Rye, John Lennon was the ultimate phony,
a hypocrite, someone who needed to be stopped. September nineteen eighty,
Mark wrote a letter to a free I'm going nuts.
He signed it the Catcher in the Rye. The countdown
had begun. The first trip to New York. Eight minutes
(09:11):
October nineteen eighty, Mark David Chapman resigned from his job
as a security guard. He told his wife he was
going to New York, didn't tell her why. On October
twenty seventh, he walked into a gun shop in Honolulu
and purchased a Charter Arms point three to eight special revolver,
five shot snub nosed, perfect for concealment. Two days later,
(09:33):
he flew to New York City. Called the Federal Aviation
Administration beforehand to learn how to transport a firearm. They
told him. Bullets could be damaged during air travel, so
he left the ammunition behind. Mark checked into a hotel
on the Upper West Side, walked to the Dakota Building
on Central Park West, just to look, just to see
where John Lennon lived. He stood outside for hours, watching, waiting,
(09:56):
but he didn't have bullets, and part of him, maybe
the part that was once Nemo, the beloved camp counselor,
didn't really want to go through with it, so he left,
flew back to Hawaii, tried to put the murder out
of his mind, but he couldn't stop thinking about it,
couldn't stop reading The Catcher and the Rye, couldn't stop
(10:16):
listening to John Lennon's music and getting angrier. I would
listen to this music and I would get angry at him.
Chapman later said, for saying that he didn't believe in God,
that he just believed in him and Yoko, and that
he didn't believe in the Beatles, I just wanted to
scream out loud, who does he think he is saying
these things about God and Heaven and the Beatles? In
(10:37):
Mark's warped mind, killing Lenin wasn't murder. It was justice.
Holden Caulfield's justice, punishing the phony, saving the world from hypocrisy.
He needed bullets. Mark flew to Atlanta, visited an old
friend from the shooting range, picked up hollow point ammunition,
the kind that explodes on impact, designed to cause maximum damage.
(10:59):
Then he practiced, went into the woods near Atlanta, fired
round after round, getting comfortable with the gun, preparing for
what came next. December sixth, nineteen eighty, two days before
(11:21):
the murder, Mark David Chapman flew back to New York City.
He checked into the YMCA on the Upper West Side
for one night, fitting given his history with the organization,
then moved to the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown, Manhattan. He
had everything he needed, the gun, the bullets, the book,
the target. December eighth, nineteen eighty, Monday morning, Mark left
(11:45):
his hotel room, left behind personal items police would later find,
including a copy of the album he planned to have signed,
walked to a bookstore bought a fresh copy of The
Catcher in the Rye. Inside the front cover, he wrote
this is my statement and signed it Holden Callfield. Then
he walked to the Dakota and waited. The day was
(12:07):
cold but clear, Mark positioned himself outside the building's entrance
on West seventy second Street. He wasn't alone. There were
always fans waiting for a glimpse of Lenin. He blended
in perfectly. Around mid morning, he missed seeing Lenin step
out of a taxi and enter the building, but later
he spotted Lenin's five year old son, Sean, returning from
(12:30):
a walk with the family nanny, Helen Seaman. Mark approached them,
reached out and shook Shawn's hand. He was a beautiful boy.
Chapman later said he even quoted Lenin's song beautiful Boy
to the child. Something should have stopped him then, holding
the hand of an innocent child, knowing what he was
about to do to that child's father, But the Holden
(12:52):
Callfield delusion was too strong. The phonies had to be punished.
Around five pm, John Lennon and Yoko Ono urged from
the Dakota. They were heading to the record Plant studio
to work on Yoko's song Walking on Thin Ice. A
team from RKO Radio was there to interview them. Fans
crowded around. Mark stepped forward with his copy of Double Fantasy,
(13:15):
Lenin's recently released album with Yoko silently handed it to
Lenin asked for an autograph. Lenin obliged. He was always
gracious with fans, believed they'd earned it by waiting. Standing
nearby was Paul Gorish, an amateur photographer and Lenin superfan.
He'd been taking pictures of Lenin for years had developed
(13:37):
a casual relationship with the musician. Gorrish raised his camera
snapped a photograph. The image would become one of the
most haunting in rock history. John Lennon head bowed, signing
an album. Mark David Chapman beside him, watching intently. The
assassin and his victim caught together in the same frame
(13:57):
hours before the murder. After signing, Lenin looked at Chapman,
Is this all you want? Chapman smiled, nodded. He was
very kind to me, Chapman would later say, ironically, very
kind and was very patient with me. He asked me
if I needed anything else. I said no, no, sir,
and he walked away, very cordial and decent. Man. Lennon
(14:21):
and Ono got into the waiting limousine, drove to the
recording studio, spent the evening mixing, walking on thin ice
and Mark David Chapman stayed right where he was, waiting,
the signed album in his hand, the gun in his pocket,
the book ready to be read. Paul Gooresh talked to
him briefly, asked where he was from Hawaii. Where are
(14:44):
you staying? Chapman snapped at him, why do you want
to know? Gor Esh backed off. As the hours passed,
Gorsh decided to leave. It was getting late cold. He
had the autograph he wanted, he told Chapman, and he
was heading home. Chapman tried to stop him. I'd wait.
You never know if you'll see him again. Gorsh left anyway,
(15:08):
missed the murder by minutes. Mark David Chapman stood alone
outside the Dakota reading The Catcher in the Rye, waiting
for John Lennin to come home. Make it make sense.
He had the autograph, Lenin had been kind to him,
very cordial and decent. Chapman could have walked away, could
have gone back to Hawaii, could have gotten help. Instead,
(15:31):
he waited because in his twisted mind, kindness didn't matter.
Fame was the crime, and the punishment was death. We'll
be right back with December eighth, nineteen eighty The Night
Mark David Chapman murdered John Lennon outside the Dakota. The
Hollow Point Bullets, the five Shots, the Last Words, and
(15:54):
the book that explained nothing. Welcome Back to Celebrity Trials.
I'm reed Carter. December eighth, nineteen eighty ten fifty pm.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono returned to the Dakota after
spending the evening at the Record Plant studio. Their driver,
(16:17):
Doug McDougall, later said Lennon was in high spirits. The
album was doing well. Double Fantasy had just gone gold,
the new song was coming together. John wanted to get
home quickly to say good night to Sean before going
out for a late dinner at the Stage Deli. The
limousine pulled up to the curb on West seventy second Street.
Standard practice would have been to drive into the Dakota's
(16:39):
secure interior courtyard, but Lennon liked to walk in from
the street. Made him feel like a regular New Yorker,
normal accessible. Yoko exited first, John followed, carrying a stack
of cassette tapes. They walked toward the entrance. A figure
stepped out of the shadows. Mark David Chapman still there
(17:00):
still waiting five hours since the autograph. Freezing cold but patient, resolute,
Lenin walked past him. Didn't recognize him, Why would he
just another fan. Chapman was wearing a scarf and a
winter coat underneath a promotional T shirt for Todd Rundgren's
album Hermit of Mink Hollow, another of his obsessions. Mister Lenin,
(17:25):
that's what some witnesses heard. Others heard nothing. Chapman himself
claimed he didn't remember calling out. What happened next took seconds.
Chapman dropped into what he called a combat stance, legs apart,
arms extended, both hands gripping the thirty eight revolver. He
fired five times, rapid succession, hollow point bullets designed to
(17:47):
mushroom on impact to cause maximum internal damage. The first
bullet missed shattered a window of the Dakota Building. Four
bullets found their target. Two entered the left side of
Lenin's back, one exiting through his chest, puncturing his lung,
the other lodging in his neck. Two more hit his
left shoulder. Lenin staggered forward, made it up five steps
(18:10):
into the security vestibule, blood pouring from his wounds from
his mouth, I'm shot, I'm shot. He collapsed on the floor.
The cassette tapes scattered around him. His glasses, the famous
round spectacles, smashed against his face. As he fell. Dorman
Jose Perdomo grabbed Chapman's arm, shook the gun loose, kicked
(18:31):
it across the pavement. The revolver came to rest in
some bushes near Chapman signed copy of Double Fantasy. Do
you know what you just did? Chapman was calm, almost peaceful. Yes,
I just shot John Lennon. He removed his coat and hat,
showed Perdomo he had no other weapons. Then he walked
(18:54):
to the curb, sat down, pulled out the catcher in
the rye, and started reading inside. Jay Hastings, the night concierge,
rushed to Lenin's side started to make a tourniquet, but
when he ripped open Lenin's shirt and saw the wounds,
the blood, the destroyed tissue, he knew a tourniquet wouldn't help.
(19:14):
He covered Lenin's chest with his uniform jacket, removed the
blood covered glasses, called the police. Yoko was screaming, John's
been shot, John's been shot. The responding officers Stephen Spiro
and Peter Cullen arrived within two minutes. They found Chapman
exactly where Perdomo had left him, on the street, reading
(19:35):
his book, completely at peace with what he'd done. He
was very docile. Spiro later recalled. He offered no resistance
at all. They cuffed him put him in the back
of the squad car. Chapman looked up and said, I
acted alone. Inside the Dakota Lenin was dying. Too much
(19:56):
blood loss, too much damage. The hallow point bullets had
done exactly what they were designed to do. Another pair
of officers, Bill Gamble and James Moran, lifted Lenin into
their patrol car. No time to wait for an ambulance,
they raced toward Roosevelt Hospital on West fifty ninth Street,
sirens blaring. Moran looked back at Lenin, Are you John Lennon?
(20:20):
Some accounts claim Lenin nodded, Others say he moaned. Others
say he was already unconscious. The truth is unclear. What's
certain is that John Lennon never spoke again. At Roosevelt Hospital,
doctor Stephen Lynn and a team of emergency room physicians
worked frantically. Lenin had no pulse when he arrived, no
blood pressure. They opened his chest, tried to massage his heart,
(20:44):
pumped unit after unit of blood, but he'd already lost
over eighty percent of his blood supply. The damage was catastrophic.
After nearly twenty minutes of effort, they stopped. At eleven
fifteen pm, Doctor Lynn walked out to speak with Yoko Ono.
We have very bad news. Unfortunately, in spite of massive efforts,
(21:06):
your husband is dead. Yoko collapsed. No, tell me it's
not true. Tell me he's okay. It wasn't okay. John Lennon,
founding member of the Beatles, husband, father, artist, activist, was
dead at forty years old. Outside the Dakota crowds were
(21:27):
already gathering. Word had spread. Radio stations interrupted their broadcasts.
Television networks broke into programming across the city, across the country,
across the world. People stopped what they were doing. Howard
Cosell delivered the news during Monday night football. An unspeakable tragedy.
(21:47):
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. This morning, thousands of
people gathered outside the Dakota crying, singing Lenin's songs, leaving flowers, candles, photographs,
(22:07):
a spontaneous memorial that would last for days. And Mark
David Chapman, he was in a holding cell at the
twentieth Precinct Calm Cooperative, reciting passages from the Catcher in
the Rye. When asked why he did it, he had
one answer to be somebody, John Lennon was dead and
Mark David Chapman finally had what he wanted fame. That's
(22:32):
part one of our John Lennon Assassination Special tomorrow. The
Trial that Never was Why Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty
against his lawyer's advice, claiming God told him to the
twenty years to life sentence, forty five years behind bars,
fourteen parole denials, and the question that haunts us still,
(22:53):
could anything have stopped him? John Winston Lennon was born
October ninth, nineteen forty in liver England. Formed The Beatles
with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Changed music forever,
changed culture forever. After the Beatles broke up. He moved
to New York with Yoko, raised their son Sean, made
(23:15):
music that still resonates today. Imagine all the people living
life in peace. He should be eighty five years old,
should be watching his grandchildren grow up, should be making music,
should be alive. Instead, he's frozen at forty, shot in
the back by a man who thought fame was worth
more than human life. Someone has to say his name.
(23:38):
John Lennon, husband, father, artist, Dreamer. Rest in peace, John,
I'm read Carter. See you tomorrow for part two. This
is Celebrity Trials
Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm reed Carter. Saturday, December sixth,
twenty twenty five, forty five years ago, Monday, The World
Lost John Lennon. December eighth, nineteen eighty, New York City,
(00:23):
ten fifty pm. John Lennon and Yoko Ono step out
of their limousine on West seventy second Street. They've just
returned from the Record Plant studio, where they'd been mixing
Yoko's song Walking on Thin Ice. John played lead guitar
on the track, his last recording. They walked toward the Dakota,
their gothic apartment building overlooking Central Park. A young man
(00:46):
steps out of the shadows, twenty five years old, pudgy glasses.
He'd been waiting there all day. Mark David Chapman drops
into a combat stance, raises a point three to eight
caliber Charter Arms revolver loaded with hollow points. Bullets fires
five times. Four bullets tear through Lenin's back and shoulder.
One misses, shattering a window of the Dakota. Lenin staggers
(01:10):
up five steps into the security vestibule. I'm shot, I'm shot.
Then he collapses, scattering the cassette tapes he'd been carrying.
Chapman doesn't run, doesn't hide. The doorman, Jose Perdomo, shakes
the gun from his hand and kicks it across the pavement.
Do you know what you just did? Perdomo screams. Chapman
(01:30):
is calm, almost serene. Yes, I just shot John Lennon.
He removes his coat and hat, stands under a street lamp,
pulls out a paperback book, and starts reading. When police
officers Steven Spiro and Peter Cullen arrive two minutes later,
they find Chapman standing peacefully on West seventy second Street
(01:51):
reading The Catcher in the Rye. Inside the book he'd written,
this is my statement, Holden Callfield. John Lennon was rushed
to Roosevelt Hospital. Doctors worked frantically for twenty minutes, but
he'd lost over eighty percent of his blood. At eleven
fifteen pm, the former Beatle was pronounced dead. He was
forty years old. I'm reed, Carter, this is celebrity trials today.
(02:16):
The man who killed John Lennon mark David Chapman's twisted
path from YMCA councilor to cold blooded assassin. How the
Catcher in the Rye became his Bible and December eighth,
nineteen eighty The Knight That Stole one of the greatest
musicians who ever lived, Part one of two Chapman's troubled origins.
(02:38):
Mark David Chapman was born May tenth, nineteen fifty five,
in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, David Curtis Chapman, was
a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force. His mother, Diane,
was a nurse. When Mark was young, the family moved
to Decatur, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. From the outside,
the Chapmans looked like a normal American family. David was
(03:02):
a boy Scout leader taught guitar at the local YMCA.
Neighbors said they seemed happy, well adjusted, but inside the
house things were different. Mark later claimed he lived in
constant fear of his father. Said David was physically abusive
toward his mother, emotionally distant from his son, unloving. Mark
(03:22):
felt like an outsider in his own home, so he
created his own world, imaginary friends he called the little people,
thousands of them living in the walls of his bedroom.
They worshiped him, followed his commands made him feel powerful, important, special,
I used to fantasize that I was a king over
(03:42):
these little people. Chapman would later say it was the
first sign of something deeply wrong. By fourteen, Mark was
using drugs marijuana, LSD, heroine, skipping classes, defying his parents,
running with the wrong crowd. He once ran away from
home and lived on the streets of Atlanta for two weeks.
(04:02):
He was also bullied relentlessly at Columbia High School in Decatur.
Wasn't athletic, didn't fit in. The other kids called him names,
made him feel worthless. Then at sixteen, everything changed. Mark
Chapman became a born again Christian. He started distributing biblical tracks,
found his first girlfriend, a fellow believer named Jessica Blankenship.
(04:25):
His grades improved, he stopped using drugs, and he devoted
himself to the South DeKalb County YMCA. Mark became a
summer camp counselor. And here's what's strange. He was exceptional
at it. The children adored him. They nicknamed him Nemo,
after Captain Nemo from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.
He'd get down on one knee to help a struggling
(04:47):
kid play games with them for hours make them feel seen,
valued important. When Mark won the award for Outstanding Counselor,
the children were on their feet chanting his name, Neamo
name Oh. The YMCA director called him a pied piper
with the kids. Everyone who worked with him in caretaking
(05:08):
professions said he was outstanding, compassionate patient, exactly the kind
of person you'd want working with children. So how does
that person become an assassin? It was around this time
that a friend recommended a book, J. D. Salinger's The
Catcher in the Rye, published in nineteen fifty one, the
story of Holden Callfield, a disaffected teenager railing against the
(05:32):
phoniness of the adult world. Mark felt an immediate connection
Holden's alienation, his disgust with hypocrisy, his fantasy of being
the Catcher in the Rye, standing at the edge of
a cliff, saving innocent children from falling into the corrupt
adult world. The book became Mark's new Bible, and Holden
Callfield became his new identity. Something else happened during Mark's
(05:56):
religious phase. He turned against one of his childhood heroes,
John Lennon. In nineteen sixty six, Lenin had made his
infamous comment about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus
in the American South. That statement sparked outrage, album burnings, boycotts,
death threats. Mark's Christian friends made a joke they'd sing
(06:19):
Lenin's song Imagine with altered lyrics, Imagine Imagine if John
Lennon was dead. Mark called the original song communist. Was
furious about the line imagine there's no Heaven? Who did
Lenin think? He was telling people not to believe in God?
The seeds were planted, the contradiction was forming. Mark Chapman
(06:41):
loved John Lennon's music, and Mark Chapman despised everything John
Lennon stood for. After high school, Mark moved to Chicago
briefly to play guitar in churches and Christian night spots,
then came back to Georgia, worked odd jobs for the YMCA,
attended community college. In nineteen seventy five, he went to
(07:01):
work with Vietnamese refugees at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Again, he excelled,
was promoted to assistant director. People trusted him with their
most vulnerable populations, but the demons never went away. The
little people still talked to him, and the darkness was
always there. Waiting. In nineteen seventy seven, Mark's parents began
(07:24):
divorce proceedings. His world was crumbling. He bought a one
way ticket to Hawaii Paradise escape. Instead, he tried to
kill himself carbon monoxide poisoning. Failed attempt, woke up in
a hospital, and here's the twist. He recovered so well
that the hospital hired him, first in maintenance, then in
(07:44):
the print shop. For a while, things seemed better. Mark
fell in love with his travel agent, a Japanese American
woman named Gloria Abe. In nineteen seventy eight. He took
a trip around the world Tokyo, Soul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok,
New Delhi, Beirut, Geneva, London, Paris, Dublin, came back and
(08:05):
proposed to Gloria. They married on June second, nineteen seventy nine.
But happiness never lasted long for Mark David Chapman. He
got fired from the hospital, rehired, then quit after an
argument with a nurse. Took a job as a night
security guard at a high end apartment complex, started drinking heavily,
and the obsessions returned. The Little People The Catcher in
(08:28):
the Rye artwork, music and John Lennon, the lavish lifestyle,
the millions of dollars, the Dakota apartment overlooking Central Park.
Reading Anthony Fawcett's book about Lenin's life in New York,
the yachts, the farms, the country estates, while the man
preached love and peace. In Mark's mind, twisted by the
(08:49):
Catcher in the Rye, John Lennon was the ultimate phony,
a hypocrite, someone who needed to be stopped. September nineteen eighty,
Mark wrote a letter to a free I'm going nuts.
He signed it the Catcher in the Rye. The countdown
had begun. The first trip to New York. Eight minutes
(09:11):
October nineteen eighty, Mark David Chapman resigned from his job
as a security guard. He told his wife he was
going to New York, didn't tell her why. On October
twenty seventh, he walked into a gun shop in Honolulu
and purchased a Charter Arms point three to eight special revolver,
five shot snub nosed, perfect for concealment. Two days later,
(09:33):
he flew to New York City. Called the Federal Aviation
Administration beforehand to learn how to transport a firearm. They
told him. Bullets could be damaged during air travel, so
he left the ammunition behind. Mark checked into a hotel
on the Upper West Side, walked to the Dakota Building
on Central Park West, just to look, just to see
where John Lennon lived. He stood outside for hours, watching, waiting,
(09:56):
but he didn't have bullets, and part of him, maybe
the part that was once Nemo, the beloved camp counselor,
didn't really want to go through with it, so he left,
flew back to Hawaii, tried to put the murder out
of his mind, but he couldn't stop thinking about it,
couldn't stop reading The Catcher and the Rye, couldn't stop
(10:16):
listening to John Lennon's music and getting angrier. I would
listen to this music and I would get angry at him.
Chapman later said, for saying that he didn't believe in God,
that he just believed in him and Yoko, and that
he didn't believe in the Beatles, I just wanted to
scream out loud, who does he think he is saying
these things about God and Heaven and the Beatles? In
(10:37):
Mark's warped mind, killing Lenin wasn't murder. It was justice.
Holden Caulfield's justice, punishing the phony, saving the world from hypocrisy.
He needed bullets. Mark flew to Atlanta, visited an old
friend from the shooting range, picked up hollow point ammunition,
the kind that explodes on impact, designed to cause maximum damage.
(10:59):
Then he practiced, went into the woods near Atlanta, fired
round after round, getting comfortable with the gun, preparing for
what came next. December sixth, nineteen eighty, two days before
(11:21):
the murder, Mark David Chapman flew back to New York City.
He checked into the YMCA on the Upper West Side
for one night, fitting given his history with the organization,
then moved to the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown, Manhattan. He
had everything he needed, the gun, the bullets, the book,
the target. December eighth, nineteen eighty, Monday morning, Mark left
(11:45):
his hotel room, left behind personal items police would later find,
including a copy of the album he planned to have signed,
walked to a bookstore bought a fresh copy of The
Catcher in the Rye. Inside the front cover, he wrote
this is my statement and signed it Holden Callfield. Then
he walked to the Dakota and waited. The day was
(12:07):
cold but clear, Mark positioned himself outside the building's entrance
on West seventy second Street. He wasn't alone. There were
always fans waiting for a glimpse of Lenin. He blended
in perfectly. Around mid morning, he missed seeing Lenin step
out of a taxi and enter the building, but later
he spotted Lenin's five year old son, Sean, returning from
(12:30):
a walk with the family nanny, Helen Seaman. Mark approached them,
reached out and shook Shawn's hand. He was a beautiful boy.
Chapman later said he even quoted Lenin's song beautiful Boy
to the child. Something should have stopped him then, holding
the hand of an innocent child, knowing what he was
about to do to that child's father, But the Holden
(12:52):
Callfield delusion was too strong. The phonies had to be punished.
Around five pm, John Lennon and Yoko Ono urged from
the Dakota. They were heading to the record Plant studio
to work on Yoko's song Walking on Thin Ice. A
team from RKO Radio was there to interview them. Fans
crowded around. Mark stepped forward with his copy of Double Fantasy,
(13:15):
Lenin's recently released album with Yoko silently handed it to
Lenin asked for an autograph. Lenin obliged. He was always
gracious with fans, believed they'd earned it by waiting. Standing
nearby was Paul Gorish, an amateur photographer and Lenin superfan.
He'd been taking pictures of Lenin for years had developed
(13:37):
a casual relationship with the musician. Gorrish raised his camera
snapped a photograph. The image would become one of the
most haunting in rock history. John Lennon head bowed, signing
an album. Mark David Chapman beside him, watching intently. The
assassin and his victim caught together in the same frame
(13:57):
hours before the murder. After signing, Lenin looked at Chapman,
Is this all you want? Chapman smiled, nodded. He was
very kind to me, Chapman would later say, ironically, very
kind and was very patient with me. He asked me
if I needed anything else. I said no, no, sir,
and he walked away, very cordial and decent. Man. Lennon
(14:21):
and Ono got into the waiting limousine, drove to the
recording studio, spent the evening mixing, walking on thin ice
and Mark David Chapman stayed right where he was, waiting,
the signed album in his hand, the gun in his pocket,
the book ready to be read. Paul Gooresh talked to
him briefly, asked where he was from Hawaii. Where are
(14:44):
you staying? Chapman snapped at him, why do you want
to know? Gor Esh backed off. As the hours passed,
Gorsh decided to leave. It was getting late cold. He
had the autograph he wanted, he told Chapman, and he
was heading home. Chapman tried to stop him. I'd wait.
You never know if you'll see him again. Gorsh left anyway,
(15:08):
missed the murder by minutes. Mark David Chapman stood alone
outside the Dakota reading The Catcher in the Rye, waiting
for John Lennin to come home. Make it make sense.
He had the autograph, Lenin had been kind to him,
very cordial and decent. Chapman could have walked away, could
have gone back to Hawaii, could have gotten help. Instead,
(15:31):
he waited because in his twisted mind, kindness didn't matter.
Fame was the crime, and the punishment was death. We'll
be right back with December eighth, nineteen eighty The Night
Mark David Chapman murdered John Lennon outside the Dakota. The
Hollow Point Bullets, the five Shots, the Last Words, and
(15:54):
the book that explained nothing. Welcome Back to Celebrity Trials.
I'm reed Carter. December eighth, nineteen eighty ten fifty pm.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono returned to the Dakota after
spending the evening at the Record Plant studio. Their driver,
(16:17):
Doug McDougall, later said Lennon was in high spirits. The
album was doing well. Double Fantasy had just gone gold,
the new song was coming together. John wanted to get
home quickly to say good night to Sean before going
out for a late dinner at the Stage Deli. The
limousine pulled up to the curb on West seventy second Street.
Standard practice would have been to drive into the Dakota's
(16:39):
secure interior courtyard, but Lennon liked to walk in from
the street. Made him feel like a regular New Yorker,
normal accessible. Yoko exited first, John followed, carrying a stack
of cassette tapes. They walked toward the entrance. A figure
stepped out of the shadows. Mark David Chapman still there
(17:00):
still waiting five hours since the autograph. Freezing cold but patient, resolute,
Lenin walked past him. Didn't recognize him, Why would he
just another fan. Chapman was wearing a scarf and a
winter coat underneath a promotional T shirt for Todd Rundgren's
album Hermit of Mink Hollow, another of his obsessions. Mister Lenin,
(17:25):
that's what some witnesses heard. Others heard nothing. Chapman himself
claimed he didn't remember calling out. What happened next took seconds.
Chapman dropped into what he called a combat stance, legs apart,
arms extended, both hands gripping the thirty eight revolver. He
fired five times, rapid succession, hollow point bullets designed to
(17:47):
mushroom on impact to cause maximum internal damage. The first
bullet missed shattered a window of the Dakota Building. Four
bullets found their target. Two entered the left side of
Lenin's back, one exiting through his chest, puncturing his lung,
the other lodging in his neck. Two more hit his
left shoulder. Lenin staggered forward, made it up five steps
(18:10):
into the security vestibule, blood pouring from his wounds from
his mouth, I'm shot, I'm shot. He collapsed on the floor.
The cassette tapes scattered around him. His glasses, the famous
round spectacles, smashed against his face. As he fell. Dorman
Jose Perdomo grabbed Chapman's arm, shook the gun loose, kicked
(18:31):
it across the pavement. The revolver came to rest in
some bushes near Chapman signed copy of Double Fantasy. Do
you know what you just did? Chapman was calm, almost peaceful. Yes,
I just shot John Lennon. He removed his coat and hat,
showed Perdomo he had no other weapons. Then he walked
(18:54):
to the curb, sat down, pulled out the catcher in
the rye, and started reading inside. Jay Hastings, the night concierge,
rushed to Lenin's side started to make a tourniquet, but
when he ripped open Lenin's shirt and saw the wounds,
the blood, the destroyed tissue, he knew a tourniquet wouldn't help.
(19:14):
He covered Lenin's chest with his uniform jacket, removed the
blood covered glasses, called the police. Yoko was screaming, John's
been shot, John's been shot. The responding officers Stephen Spiro
and Peter Cullen arrived within two minutes. They found Chapman
exactly where Perdomo had left him, on the street, reading
(19:35):
his book, completely at peace with what he'd done. He
was very docile. Spiro later recalled. He offered no resistance
at all. They cuffed him put him in the back
of the squad car. Chapman looked up and said, I
acted alone. Inside the Dakota Lenin was dying. Too much
(19:56):
blood loss, too much damage. The hallow point bullets had
done exactly what they were designed to do. Another pair
of officers, Bill Gamble and James Moran, lifted Lenin into
their patrol car. No time to wait for an ambulance,
they raced toward Roosevelt Hospital on West fifty ninth Street,
sirens blaring. Moran looked back at Lenin, Are you John Lennon?
(20:20):
Some accounts claim Lenin nodded, Others say he moaned. Others
say he was already unconscious. The truth is unclear. What's
certain is that John Lennon never spoke again. At Roosevelt Hospital,
doctor Stephen Lynn and a team of emergency room physicians
worked frantically. Lenin had no pulse when he arrived, no
blood pressure. They opened his chest, tried to massage his heart,
(20:44):
pumped unit after unit of blood, but he'd already lost
over eighty percent of his blood supply. The damage was catastrophic.
After nearly twenty minutes of effort, they stopped. At eleven
fifteen pm, Doctor Lynn walked out to speak with Yoko Ono.
We have very bad news. Unfortunately, in spite of massive efforts,
(21:06):
your husband is dead. Yoko collapsed. No, tell me it's
not true. Tell me he's okay. It wasn't okay. John Lennon,
founding member of the Beatles, husband, father, artist, activist, was
dead at forty years old. Outside the Dakota crowds were
(21:27):
already gathering. Word had spread. Radio stations interrupted their broadcasts.
Television networks broke into programming across the city, across the country,
across the world. People stopped what they were doing. Howard
Cosell delivered the news during Monday night football. An unspeakable tragedy.
(21:47):
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. This morning, thousands of
people gathered outside the Dakota crying, singing Lenin's songs, leaving flowers, candles, photographs,
(22:07):
a spontaneous memorial that would last for days. And Mark
David Chapman, he was in a holding cell at the
twentieth Precinct Calm Cooperative, reciting passages from the Catcher in
the Rye. When asked why he did it, he had
one answer to be somebody, John Lennon was dead and
Mark David Chapman finally had what he wanted fame. That's
(22:32):
part one of our John Lennon Assassination Special tomorrow. The
Trial that Never was Why Mark David Chapman pleaded guilty
against his lawyer's advice, claiming God told him to the
twenty years to life sentence, forty five years behind bars,
fourteen parole denials, and the question that haunts us still,
(22:53):
could anything have stopped him? John Winston Lennon was born
October ninth, nineteen forty in liver England. Formed The Beatles
with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Changed music forever,
changed culture forever. After the Beatles broke up. He moved
to New York with Yoko, raised their son Sean, made
(23:15):
music that still resonates today. Imagine all the people living
life in peace. He should be eighty five years old,
should be watching his grandchildren grow up, should be making music,
should be alive. Instead, he's frozen at forty, shot in
the back by a man who thought fame was worth
more than human life. Someone has to say his name.
(23:38):
John Lennon, husband, father, artist, Dreamer. Rest in peace, John,
I'm read Carter. See you tomorrow for part two. This
is Celebrity Trials
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