Read the caveat to this post below.

The morgue attendants, the death certificate, and Dr. Frank Veteran indicated that the bullets entered John Lennon on his left side. All agreed that the most devastating shot was the one to the aorta. Dr. Veteran stated specifically, “Lennon had been shot four times from the left at point blank range.” Veteran further stated that the shot appeared to have come from a .357 magnum.

Everyone now knows, as Dr. Veteran could have very easily learned by 2000, that Mark Chapman used not a .357 magnum, but rather a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special. In assessing the source of this discrepancy we could speculate that (a) Veteran had a faulty memory; (b) the damage done by the hollow-point bullets given to Mark by Dana Reeves might have confused the young doctor (only thirty years old at the time); (c) one of his colleagues might have initially guessed a .357 magnum because of the hollow-point damage, and he took that assessment at face value; or (d) he really was looking at wounds made by a .357 magnum. I wouldn’t doubt that over the years, Veteran had some difficulty in remembering details that he didn’t witness personally. But as to what he actually observed, he probably has it indelibly etched in his mind, for the physicians at Roosevelt Hospital mounted an intense, dramatic (perhaps you could say heroic) effort. So I couldn’t say there’s much wrong with his memory. And as a surgical resident on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Veteran would have treated other gunshot victims before he treated Lennon. Perhaps the only type of carnage that he had seen on that level came from a .357 magnum, so he made the association. He most likely would have also have recognized the gunshot residue pattern on the victim as indicative of a point-blank shooting. And because doctors would have had to consider removing bullets still in the victim (in this case, only one was), they really have to know from what direction the shots came from.

The death certificate indicates that the fatal bullet had a specific route passing through the (1) left shoulder, (2) left subclavian arterery, (3) the left lung, and (4) the aorta. That’s a bit of an area to cover, but it does narrow things down a bit, and supports Dr. Veteran’s recollection that the shots came from the left side, two of them passing through Lennon‘s arm. When you put together the information from Dr. Veteran, the morgue attendants and the death certificate, and take into account that they passed through the aorta (Figures 1 and 2) the possible bullet trajectories would appear as described in Figure 3.

Figure 1. Medical diagram of the human cardiovascular system, showing the location of the aorta


Figure 2. Medical diagram showing the location of the subclavian artery


Figure 3. Potential bullet paths through Lennon’s body


We have four wounds that constitute a “good shot group.” That means their entry points were very close. The shooter really hammered in on that spot. If the person were standing directly off Lennon’s left, then one would expect the three exiting bullets to have entered the side, and exited as shown by Potential Bullet Path 2 (or PBP2, as marked on Figure 3). Were someone to have shot Lennon from behind, and considerably to the left, the bullet path might more resemble PBP1. If we imagined that Lennon had an exaggerated arm swing when he walked (and there’s no indication that he did--I’m just supposing), then it’s possible that the path entry wound could have been more toward the back, as pictured in PBP3. Then again, the definition of left shoulder is in itself rather broad (no pun intended), so someone could say that it included the part of the shoulder up to where we would cease to define it as a shoulder, and regard it as a neck, or upper back. If Dr. Elliot Gross, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy and signed the death certificate, saw the bullet wound right where the shoulder met the neck, and then described that as being the shoulder, then the bullet’s trajectory would correspond to the path marked PBP4.

In other words, it’s reasonable to think that the bullets entered Lennon somewhere between PBP1 and PBP2, but it’s possible that the bullets could have entered anywhere between PBP2 and PBP4, given the limited description afforded by the death certificate. However, given Dr Veteran’s recollection that two shots went through Lennon‘s left arm, the vicinity of PBP1 would be the most likely point of entry--provided the doctor‘s memory and observations are accurate.

Because of where witnesses placed the principles in this event, we have a severe problem reconciling the shots with Mark Chapman’s position. Compiling together witness accounts and police reconstructions, the New York Times published a sketch of where everyone was in its December 10, 1980 final edition:

Figure 4. New York Times sketch of the crime scene.


Witnesses placed Chapman on the right side of the arch at the time of the shooting, with Lennon and Ono passing to his left. If this sketch were accurate, then one would have difficulty assessing how Chapman might have done the shooting, because he‘s standing on the right side, and the bullets are moving from left to right. The distance, as depicted here, would be about five or six feet between Lennon and Chapman, much closer together than others say they were (Chapman estimates twenty feet, while Ono says John was almost to the door; conceivably, they are placing him in roughly the same position--were Lennon, say ten to twelve feet away from the door, he would have been a little over twenty feet from Chapman).

I stress that I’m no forensic expert, but it’s difficult to understand how, standing to his right, Chapman managed to get off a shot that went through Lennon’s left upper arm and shoulder--especially if Lennon started to turn because someone called out his name, as the early reports said. Were the point of entry closer to PBP4, then we might surmise that the bullet could have deflected slightly. It might, at first blush, seem possible that the bullets could have ricocheted off the wall before hitting Lennon, although that would have been really fancy shooting.

Complicating this is the fact that as bullets go through bodies, they don’t always travel in a straight line as depicted in Figure 3, because dense muscle and bone tissue can alter their course. In fact, bullets have been known to take right angle turns upon entering the body. However, such is usually only the case with full and partial metal jacket bullets. Full and partial metal jackets can also ricochet, even inside the body (when hitting bone or other dense material). These bullets are far more likely to leave exit wounds.

Figure 5. .38 hollow-point after mushrooming



The problem is, Chapman supposedly used .38 hollow-point bullets. Hollow-points are designed to expand (or “mushroom”) and break up upon impact (Figure 5). If a hollow-point enters someone, it should expand and break-up within the body, not exit it. As stated by the Internet Pathology Laboratory for Medical Education (Mercer College of Medicine Savannah, The University of Utah Eccles Health Sciences Library):

For handgun cartridges, hollow-point projectiles produce the greatest increase in volume of disrupted tissue, along with fragmentation, and are unlikely to produce an exit wound. Full metal jacket projectiles are more likely to exit. Both full and partial metal jacket projectiles may ricochet off bone.

It could be the case that once inside the body, the bullet’s fragmentation might cause injuries that aren’t in line with the point of entry. Once again, the Internet Pathology Laboratory for Medical Education:

Fragmentation of the bullet may produce secondary missiles, one or more of which may have exit wounds. The bullet path may be altered by striking bone or other firm tissues, such that the bullet track may not be linear, and exit wounds may not appear directly opposite entrance wounds.

So it’s possible, for example, that if Chapman hit Lennon from the right, at or around PBP4, a little piece of the bullet could have broken off to the right, injuring the left subclavian artery, and piercing the aorta. Conceivably another piece from the same, or another bullet could have broken off, and gone through his left arm, thus explaining Dr. Veteran’s observation.

It’s clear that Dr. Veteran saw the arm injuries as entry wounds. In general, entry wounds are much smaller than exit wounds. However, if the victim is wearing tight fitting clothing at the time of the shooting, the exit hole might not be significantly larger than the entrance wound. Once more, the Internet Pathology Laboratory for Medical Education:

If the exit wound is ‘shored’ or abutted by a firm support such as clothing, furniture, or building materials, then the exit wound may take on appearances of an entrance wound, such as a circular defect with an abraded margin. This can occur with contact, close range, or distant shots. 92% of shored exit wounds in one study had a round or ovoid defect, and all had some degree of abrasion. The degree of shoring abrasion increased directly with the KE [kinetic energy] of the projectile and the rigidity of the shoring material.

If we posit Chapman as the lone shooter, and wish to keep that hypothesis consistent with the death certificate, Dr. Veteran’s observations, the position of the principles as depicted in the Times sketch (Figure 4) and the physical environs of the Dakota, then we could speculate that he hit Lennon some place between PBP1 and PBP4. The fatal bullet then broke up with one portion taking a detour towards his aorta, the other taking a left and heading to the left arm on a day that Lennon happened to prefer a snug fit.

Unfortunately, we have a number of problems with this scenario as stated. As Maury Solomon and other witnesses pointed out, there were three bullet holes in the door after the shots ended. These are supposedly hollow-point bullets. One wouldn’t expect that there would be three exit wounds to hit the glass, since the bullets are designed not to leave the body--in fact, some people use them precisely to keep innocent bystanders from getting hit by a bullet leaving the victim‘s body. Also, the bullet’s not supposed to ricochet. If Chapman shot Lennon from that angle, and put holes in the door, the bullet would have had to ricochet off of either Lennon’s bones, or the wall after the bullet pierced his body--and that’s after we scratch our heads wondering why the bullet didn’t break up on hitting one object, let alone two. Secondly, if we explain the injury on Lennon’s upper left arm as an exit wound from a “secondary missile,” that poses a bit of a problem, for only one of the bullets stayed in the body, while the other three passed through. Okay, maybe two pieces of the same bullet broke off into the left arm. But Dr. Veteran would have probably judged them entrance wounds because of the GSR pattern and size of the wounds, and not just the size alone.

Under certain circumstances, Chapman might have possibly caused an injury resembling a point blank shooting from the distance depicted in the Times‘ diagram. The problem is, the sketch places him to the right of Lennon, not his left-hand side where GSR would be present. We also have one bullet acting as expected, and three behaving as though they were a different type of ammo altogether (although a hollow-point can conceivably cause an exit wound, that’s not what one would expect from one, let alone three).

In short, assuming Chapman alone shot Lennon, then he probably didn’t do it in the way depicted in Figure 4. What‘s worse, even if you dismiss Figure 4, then you’re hard-pressed to come up with a scenario in which Chapman, firing from the right, could have struck Lennon from the left, and at point blank range, especially if he were twenty feet away--the distance Ono and Chapman indicated.