Mid-late November, 1980--Chapman confesses to his wife, Gloria, his intention to kill John Lennon.

Elaboration: Chapman also told her that he pitched the gun, the bullets and his copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

Commentary: We can see that Chapman had no problem lying to his wife. After all, the gun confiscated by New York police is the same make and model as the one Mark registered with Honolulu police on October 27. Moreover, everyone stipulates that he used the bullets given to him by Dana Reeves. We don’t even have proof that he threw away his copy of Catcher in the Rye.

The thing is that there seems to be a lot of confusion, here. Chapman really didn’t have to tell his wife his true reason for going to New York, especially since he intended on going back soon (after all, he kept the gun and the bullets). This will become important because Gloria herself most likely financed his deadly final trip to Manhattan.


November 20 (or 21), 1980--Chapman calls the Makiki Clinic because of suicidal thoughts. They refer him to Catholic Social Services (CSS).

Elabortion: The CSS offered an appointment the same day, but Mark put it off, and made the appointment for November 26 instead. When he didn’t show up on the 26th, CSS got worried and began looking for him.

Commentary: It’s interesting to note here that just as he went into a funk after blowing a lot of money living large at the Moana Hotel, he got blue after blowing a lot of money in New York. While this might seem to be a consistent pattern, it wasn’t. After all, he didn’t seem suicidal to anyone after spending a lot of money on a world tour.

CSS seemed to think something was seriously wrong. As Janice Wolf told Brelser:

I remember the CSS people telling me that they didn’t think it was urgent but the curious thing is, if they thought it wasn’t urgent and only offered their caller an appointment several days later, why did they get so worried when he did not turn up and phone him practically every day thereafter?

Speculation: In response to Wolf’s question, we might posit that the CSS had learned something between November 21 and November 26. For starters, what if they found out, as Wolf did later, that Chapman had visited a psychiatrist who told him to “act out your fantasies”? What if CSS knew of a connection to said shrink and military intelligence? What if they found that he had secretly visited this shrink during those five days?

What Chapman discussed with CSS is confidential, so we’ll never know what transpired during this call unless Chapman authorizes the release of his CSS records--if any are extant. It seems reasonable to assume, however, that in setting up the appointment Chapman told them at least something as to why he needed help. He might have mentioned fantasies about killing someone in conjunction with his feelings of depression. He would most likely have talked about his own suicidal past and history.


Late-November, 1980--Gloria Chapman takes out a $2500 loan from her credit union.

Commentary: As it turns out, Gloria would need this money to fly to New York after the murder. Although he seemed to think that Chapman used these funds to finance his second New York trip, Bresler did not mention any large purchases (other than a second ticket) that would explain why he needed additional money. After all, according to Jones, he still had over three grand at this point. Moreover, Gloria had a decent job and could support them both, at least over these few weeks.

Speculation: If Gloria intended to use the money for her own reasons (i.e., if Mark didn’t get any piece of this), we have to wonder what for. I guess there’s a chance she did it to pay back her father and mother-in-law, in full or part, for the Rockwell print her husband recently sold. But it would seem more practical for Mark to simply pay it back with the money he had left, rather than for the household to extend its credit even further. If she did it to support her husband’s trip to (ostensibly) Chicago, didn’t she worry what he might do--especially since she knows that he has just contemplated killing himself and someone else within the past few weeks?


November 26, 1980--Chapman blows off his appointment with CSS.


November 28, 1980--Mark Chapman purchases a discounted round-trip ticket to Chicago directly from United Airlines.

Elaboration: Captain Louis Souza, the detective who headed the Honolulu investigation of Lennon’s murder, confirmed that Chapman paid UA agent Steve Maruyama $459.86 for a round-trip flight to Chicago O’Hare departing on December 2, 1980. That was the date on the ticket he issued, as per his computer records.

Commentary: Chapman’s grandmother had come to Honolulu sometime that fall in order to visit relatives. Apparently, Mark planned to accompany her on the flight back to Chicago. Bresler posited that the grandmother must have lived in Chicago, and that he must have stayed with her for a couple of days. Jack Jones countered that grandma actually lived in New England, and that they only traveled together to O’Hare. From there, they each took separate connecting flights to their final destination. In an online interview with classic bands.com, Jones pretty much trashed Bresler’s assertion that Mark stayed two days with grandma in Chicago:

Q - Bresler makes this assertion that Chapman did not fly directly from Honolulu to New York, but instead made a stopover in Chicago for those two days. He states that his whereabouts and who he spoke with for two days are unknown, and his airline ticket is not included in his file. It's missing. What do you know about all of that ?

A - He didn't stop for two days. There's a six hour time difference. Chapman left late in the day, like around 5 or 6 o'clock. His wife took copious notes on this and her staff corroborates the actual events. Also, the plane tickets for his grandmother, who was there at the time with some friends of hers. They went to another island. Chapman escorted his grandmother back. She paid for his ticket as far as Chicago. In Bresler's book, he says he searched all over the Chicago area trying to find his (Chapman's) grandmother and couldn't find her. Chapman has no relatives living in the Chicago area. They changed planes. That particular grandmother lives in Massachusetts. The other one lives in Connecticut. Bresler tried to spin this stuff as a simple layover for a plane. The connecting flight was late and when he arrived there he found he could get an earlier flight to New York City. So after putting his grandmother on a plane, so she could fly on to Massachusetts to get back home, he took another earlier flight to New York City. He also had Chapman leaving a day or two earlier, which is totally inaccurate.

You’ll note that Jones based his assumption at least partly on Gloria Chapman’s “notes” and her "staff." He didn’t mention the photocopy of the ticket obtained as evidence by New York police, but I would guess that he was aware of it, even though he didn’t mention it here.

I don’t know about you, but I would generally have more faith in the reliability of computerized records than in the “notes” of the suspect’s spouse. As for the ticket stub, at odds with United Airlines’ records, a photocopy isn’t the same as a computer entry, or even an original. One could far more easily doctor a photocopy than an original or a computer record, in 1980.

One has to note too that the ticket is a round-trip to Chicago, not New York. Records indicate that the round-trip to New York was purchased at O’Hare on the day of Chapman’s flight to New York. The problem here, as Bresler points out, is that it’s far more expensive to book a flight that way instead of just booking it straight from Honolulu to New York. He could have just as easily purchased the ticket in Hawaii. Since he purchased it from United directly, and didn’t go through, say, Gloria’s old travel agency where news of his booking might have gotten back to her, there wouldn’t have been any way of her finding out, unless he told her. And up to this time and beyond, Mrs. Chapman doesn’t seem the kind who will challenge her husband once he’s made up his mind he’s going to do something.

Okay, what if to allay his wife’s fears that he would fly back to New York and kill Lennon he presented her with the round-trip ticket to Chicago, so that she wouldn’t worry and possibly object? He still could have purchased both tickets in Hawaii. He had plenty of cash with which to buy it. If he used his credit card, she wouldn’t know about it until she got her statement. And as it turns out, Chapman used his credit card in New York, anyway.

Most important, Chapman bought a round-trip ticket. That’s pretty interesting, considering what he has planned to do. As far as the official story goes, he’s not planning on coming back. But purchasing a round trip ticket indicates that he indeed planned on returning to Hawaii.


December 2, 1980 or December 5, 1980--Chapman accompanies his grandmother to Chicago, and then flies on to New York.

Elaboration: The first date stems from the computer records search done by Honolulu police. The second date comes from the photocopy of Chapman’s ticket taken into evidence by New York police.

Commentary: This becomes a critical point for two reasons. First of all, if Chapman left on December 2, and purchased the ticket to New York from O’Hare on December 6, we would have to wonder what he did during those two missing days. Secondly, we have to wonder why the two pieces of documentation, in this case, starkly disagree.

The computer records are no longer extant. According to former United customer relations employee Robert Morgan, the airline destroyed them after two years. So all we are left with to verify the November 2 date is Captain Souza’s report, which he literally triple-checked at Bresler’s insistence. On the other hand, doctoring a photocopy is easier to do than doctoring an original.

Perhaps lending more clarity to the contradiction is a comment Gloria made to the New York Post, and published in the paper’s December 10, 1980 edition. According to her, Mark left “eight or ten days ago,” which would indicate a departure date of December 2.

His grandmother lived in New England somewhere, so it’s unlikely she would have just hung around Chicago for a couple of days. Most likely she would have taken her connecting flight. I can’t find, however, any information about her trip. So we can’t be sure when she made the connecting flight any more than we can nail down when she actually went to O’Hare. If they presumably flew together, this information would have been invaluable in proving when Chapman actually left Hawaii.

Speculation: If forced to make a determination as to which source is correct, I would lean towards the computer records, which affix Chapman’s date of departure as December 2. That means, we have to wonder what he did in Chicago for two days.

The long layover would have given a programmer ample opportunity to prepare him psychologically for the real killing. It could also given someone enough time to convince him to go through with it if he had cold feet. After all, if Chapman arrived in Chicago on the second, he could have purchased the ticket to New York as soon as he landed, instead of gambling that he could get a seat on December 6 (this is the holiday season, of course, when airspace becomes increasingly limited).

One could imagine that if Chapman had made up his mind not to kill Lennon, and a handler knew he couldn’t exhort Mark to go to New York, maybe he could convince him to go to Chicago to “talk things over.” Said handler could have also convinced him to bring the gun and bullets so that Chapman could hand them over to him. So, Mark could have gone thinking that this would end all the drama over Lennon. But instead of closing the mission, someone talked him into it again.

Also, the possibility that someone within NYPD forged a photocopied document raises the possibility of a cover up in the investigation itself.


Early December, 1980--Lennon purchases three round-trip tickets to San Francisco to take part in a pro-union rally.

Commentary: Lennon obviously felt comfortable enough to do something he hadn’t in eight years: engage in direct political activity. This is in stark contrast to how he felt in 1975 when he told Rolling Stone that talking about politics made him “jumpy” and “nervous.”


December 6, 1980--Chapman buys a ticket to and arrives in New York.

Elaboration: Upon arrival, Chapman checked into the West Side YMCA. Later, at approximately 7:00pm, he took a taxi all over Manhattan, making stops here and there, all the while toting a large black bag. The driver, a law student named Mark Snyder, described his mood as “very agitated” in a New York Post article about the case. As Fenton Bresler explained:

He [Chapman] would seem to have been delivering or collecting something, which is strange for someone who allegedly knew no one in town. For he started on a half-hour journey that took him first of all back almost to his hostel, where he disappeared into a building on West 62nd Street for about five minutes, then across Central Park to the corner of East 65th Street and 2nd Avenue, where he disappeared for another few minutes, and then to the other side of town down in Greenwich Village where he got himself dropped off at the junction of Bleecker Street and 6th Avenue.

Commentary: Contradictory reports of Snyder’s interview add more confusion to the events that transpired on that cab ride. The Post quoted him as saying that Chapman offered him a “snort” of cocaine on the trip. If so, that’s interesting in and of itself, since Chapman had been drug free since early adolescence. Moreover, how would he know where to get cocaine in Manhattan, or why he would have wanted it?

Others contend that The Post simply made up the cocaine story. These other sources quote Snyder claiming that Chapman was somehow in the joint employ of Mick Jagger and John Lennon as a courier.

Speculation: I guess it’s possible that Chapman picked up some coke on one of his stops, but then that raises the question of how did he know what he could get at specific places. Perhaps he found such a place in his November trip, but that would have meant he spent considerable time looking for it (unless tipped off).

My feeling is that the cocaine story is probably not true. If it is, however, it would seem that someone other than Chapman had mapped out this territory--perhaps in Chicago.



December 7--Chapman abandons the room he already paid for at the YMCA, and checks into the Sheraton Hilton using his Visa card.

Elaboration: At the Hilton, Chapman set up a display consisting of (1) a Bible inscribed with the name ‘Holden Caulfield,’ and opened to the Gospel according to Mark (this same bible had Lennon’s named scribbled in it after the title of Gospel according to John, so that it read, “The Gospel according to John Lennon;” (2) his expired passport; (3) a letter of introduction written by David Moore, his old YMCA boss; (4) an eight-track tape of Todd Rundgren; (5) a photo of himself working with Vietnamese children at Ft. Chaffee; (6) a picture of his first car; (7) a photo still of the movie Wizard of Oz (Dorothy wiping a tear from the Cowardly Lion); and (8) the Honolulu-Chicago roundtrip air ticket in its original sleeve. Missing is the ticket for the Chicago to New York flight.

That night, reenacting a scene from Catcher in the Rye, Chapman hired a prostitute, who came over to the room at the Hilton.

Commentary: Chapman had to have known that police would search this hotel room if he shot Lennon. Thus this display is a statement. Maybe it’s a personal statement. Maybe it’s an explanation of his motives, as confused as they were at the time. That he inscribed his personal bible with the name Holden Caulfield, and that he deliberately reenacted a passage of Catcher in the Rye (coincidentally, the prostitute who serviced Chapman had on a dress similar to that worn by the prostitute in the novel) might indicate that his identity had been subsumed under that of the fictional character. That would bolster the claims made by Chapman’s defense psychiatrists. On the other hand, it could have simply represented the gratification of Chapman’s profound fantasy life. After all, he might not ever be able to live out a fantasy as a king of little people, for he knew they weren’t real. But he could live out this particular one. Once again, this would seem like Chapman understood the difference between fantasy and reality.

Also, it would seem that New York police had the original ticket in their possession.

Speculation: Many of these items establish Chapman’s identity. Authorities usually accept passports as identification, for example. The letter from Moore and the Ft. Chaffee photo depict Chapman at his best. The Rundgren tapes and old car express his aesthetic tastes.

Of course, one probably feels compelled to scratch his or her head wondering why Chapman used The Wizard of Oz to express who he was. Bresler felt that Chapman might have been a deeply closeted (because of his piety) homosexual. The gay scene in New York (at least--I can’t speak as to other parts of the nation or world) latched onto the semiotics of The Wizard of Oz and those associated with it, most notably actress Judy Garland. If, for example, someone in Manhattan told you they were “a friend of Dorothy,” it would mean that they have a same-sex preference. Thus, the picture of Dorothy and the Lion might indicate this aspect of Chapman’s existence.

Bresler noted that despite having money, Chapman stayed at the YMCA, where he could literally hear men having sex with each other through the walls. He also got out of Snyder’s cab at Bleecker and 6th. That’s about a three-minute walk to Christopher Street, an openly gay-friendly neighborhood of Manhattan.

Actually, I don’t see anything to indicate that Chapman is other than heterosexual. After all, he’s stayed at Y’s all his life. Maybe he just found them comfortable. And one might note that Yoko Ono once lived at 87 Christopher Street. Maybe Chapman went there for ritualistic reasons.

Yet, consider this: people who claimed to have undergone operational psychological programming (the process of creating a Manchurian Candidate) under the rumored MK-ULTRA subproject codenamed MONARCH have said that their handlers used certain triggers based on popular culture. One of the most prevalent icons used was The Wizard of Oz. Other prominent triggers included Disney characters, Pink Floyd songs, and the music of The Beatles.

To read earlier posts in this series, click here.