Summer 1977--First manifestation of Chapman’s suicidal ideation.

Elaboration: Feeling suicidal, Chapman went to the Waikiki Mental Health Clinic, where he spoke with psychiatric social worker “Anne Jones.” Approximately one week later, Chapman made his only known suicide attempt (carbon monoxide poisoning). He attached a hose to the tailpipe of a rental car, and fed it through a window. But the heat of the exhaust melted the cheap hose he used to the point where it became unusable for that purpose.

The suicide attempt prompted “Jones” to get him into Castle Memorial Hospital in nearby Kailua, where doctors diagnosed him with “severe depressive neurosis.”

Commentary: “Jones” told Bresler that Chapman was dejected over the breakup with Blankenship and blue because of his lack of both money and a job. Nevertheless, she noted that the subject of Beirut made him light up. Quoting “Jones”:

Yes he told me about that [his trip to Lebanon] too. He was proud of that, very proud. That was a period when he had done well. People thought well of him. That was very important to him....

I never detected one whiff of psychosis in him.

“Jones’” insights add further weight to the argument that something untoward happened to Chapman in Beirut. After all, by everyone’s official account (including his), he didn’t do anything in Beirut because of the civil war. While his superiors might not have held his inactivity against him--hell, they would have ordered it--bosses don’t usually pat you on the back for sitting on your can.

While Chapman might have colored his experience in Lebanon, we have to think it possible that he did something really impressive there. After all, the YMCA "rewarded" (?) him with the gig at Ft. Chaffee, and continued to support him on his world travels a couple of years later.

Speculation: Dr. Alistair and Charles Gramlich’s hypothesis that Chapman might have suffered from undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome prompted me to do some research on whether or not this might explain Chapman’s actions the night he killed John Lennon. Scholarly literature indicates that Asperger’s (sometimes described as a ‘high-functioning Autsim Spectral Disorder,’ or hfASD*) sufferers are slightly more amenable to commit violent crimes than the population at large, but this could be because most hfASD‘s are male, and most violent crimes are committed by males. At the same time, Asperger’s often shapes the nature of the crime. For example, many of these are of the obsessive, stalking kind (very often rape) similar to the crime that Chapman committed.

Researchers have also found that when there are criminal tendencies, there are usually underlying mental/emotional illnesses which bear more directly on the transgression. In Chapman’s case, doctors pegged him as a depressive neurotic, which could conceivably explain a lot of what happened on that night. While the psychosis/schizophrenia diagnoses of his defense team were shaky at best, his psychiatrists might have missed what would have been his strongest defense. Perhaps this could surface as the best explanation of Chapman’s actions. It is certainly the most tenable non-conspiracy explanation I have found.


c. August 1977--Chapman ostensibly moves to 112 Puwa Place (Aikahi Gardens Estate).

Elaboration: This was the address on Chapman‘s driver‘s license at the time of his arrest.

Commentary: If Chapman actually lived here, he didn’t stay long. He had long moved out by the night of the crime. The complex manager had no record of him living there. Moreover, the actual tenant supposedly living in his apartment (under the name Mark Chapman) didn’t seem to fit Chapman’s description. As reported in the The Honolulu Star-Bulletin:

The owner of the apartment said Chapman lived there with a woman and three young children, possibly her sisters. The apartment had been rented by the woman’s mother, the owner said.

The landlord said Chapman, the women and children ’skipped out in April [1980]’ with the rent unpaid, leaving the place a mess.

Speculation: This kinda reminds me of all the guys running around Dallas and New Orleans in 1963 using Lee Oswald’s identity. Each of them took on the responsibility of depicting Oswald as some type of freak, thus causing the public to view him unsympathetically.

More important, if Chapman didn’t stay here, one has to ask where he actually lived. One thing the 112 Puwa Place address could do is obscure his actual movements and location. If someone wanted him to sequester him for programming, this would be one way to do it.


August 1977 - November 1979--Chapman employed at Castle Memorial Hospital.

Commentary: Given what Bresler and Brussell have hypothesized, this is an interesting place for someone like Chapman to have spent his working hours. This would have given hospital personnel (connected to the Navy or not) extreme and constant access to him.

Speculation: While there, Chapman courted two women on staff, a psychiatric nurse and a woman who worked for the food service. It would seem that his entire life evolved around that hospital. Because of the unlikelihood that he stayed for two years at Puwa Place, one has to wonder if he might have actually lived at or near Castle for a good deal of that time.


April 1978--Chapman books a world tour through Waters World Travel Agency. There, he meets his future bride, Gloria Abe.


July 6, 1978--Chapman embarks on a world tour.

Elaboration: The itinerary went as follows: Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Delhi, Israel, Geneva, London, Paris, Dublin, Atlanta, and then back to Hawaii. Chapman primarily stayed at YMCA hostels. His former boss, David Moore, gave him a glowing letter of introduction.

Commentary: No one knows for sure who paid for this trip. Bresler’s best guess is that Chapman got a loan from the hospital’s credit union. The credit union itself would neither confirm nor deny the speculation.

I find it interesting that despite being employed for less than a year, the hospital would have given extended leave, especially if they knew he had a history of suicide. After all, picking up stakes and coming to Hawaii precipitated one suicide attempt. If his credit union in fact loaned him the money to travel, then it had a lot of confidence he would come back whenever. If it didn’t give him the money, then we have a bigger question as to where he got the finances.


May 1979--Chapman moves into the home of his Hawaiian pastor, Rev. Peter Anderson.

Elaboration: We know Chapman lived there because he received mail there as early as May of 1979. He might have actually moved in earlier, but this is the earliest that Bresler and others could establish.

Commentary: This would seem to put in doubt the notion that Chapman ever lived at the apartment complex on Puwa Place. After all, the lone male living there, and assumed to be Chapman, will not move out until April the following year, some eleven months later. This again brings up the question of where Chapman really stayed between 1977 and 1979.


June 2, 1979--Chapman and Abe wed.

Elaboration: She moved in with Chapman at Rev. Anderson’s place.


September 1979 - January 1980--Chapman, obsessed about art collecting, purchases three pieces from a gallery run by Pat Carlson.

Elaboration: Chapman purchased a Yamagata lithograph for $300. He then, supposedly, borrowed $5,000 from his father-in-law, George Abe to buy a print of Salvador Dali’s Lincoln in Dalivision. He subsequently borrowed $2,500 from Diane Chapman, and traded in the Dali for a print of Norman Rockwell’s Triple Self-Portrait Left). But an article in the Honolulu Advertiser after the murder quoted Carlson as saying that Diane Chapman and George Abe together only put up $2,500 for the Dali, and that the remaining $2,500 came from a credit union loan. Carlson went on to say:

He was as obsessed as anyone you could imagine. He would go from gallery to gallery. He would call me three or four times a week to talk about his art. He didn’t just ask questions, he did a lot of investigative work, making long distance calls and writing letters all over the United States. He really became an authority.

Commentary: The art becomes an important part of the story because this is how Chapman supposedly financed his trips to New York. The purchase of the Dali, however, highlights a disagreement between “the official story” and Carlson’s recollection.

Also, the obssessive quality of Chapman's art interests falls neatly in line with the Asperger's supposition.

Speculation: If Carlson is correct, then we have the beginnings of an interesting relationship between Mark and his credit union. They sure didn’t treat him bad.


c. February 1980--Radio stations discuss a rumor that Lennon wanted to sell his stake in Apple Corporation for $10 million.

Elaboration: I remember the discussions over the local radio stations in Cincinnati during this time. That’s not to say that the rumor is true, just that it circulated.

Speculation: After five years of inactivity, perhaps Lennon felt safe to record again. Maybe this was a way to tidy his affairs, should the worse happen.



June 1980--Lennon sails to Bermuda.

Elaboration: During this voyage, Lennon made the decision to go back into the studio. He also wrote several songs that would wind up on the album.



July 14, 1980--Ronald Reagan receives GOP nomination for President.


July 23, 1980 - January 1981--The Phantom of the Metropolitan Opera Case.

Elaboration: During the intermission of a performance by the Berlin Ballet, violinist Helen Hagnes Mintiks (left) went missing. Witnesses discovered her naked corpse after the show at the bottom of an airshaft, where she had fallen from much higher up. Before she took that fatal tumble, someone had raped her.

In a classic whodunit that grabbed a lion’s share of New York’s front page headlines, the police finally arrested a stagehand, Craig Crimmins, for Mintiks’ murder during the last week of August, 1980. Because of the sensational publicity surrounding the case, the investigating precinct was under tremendous pressure to bolster the prosecution’s case up until the trial in January 1981.

Commentary: Lt. Arthur O’Connor (NYPD), heavily involved in this case, also served as the lead detective in the Lennon case. O’Connor explained to Bresler that Mintiks’ murder strained all of the department's resources and efforts, and thus had a direct impact on the investigation of Lennon’s death.