December 8, 1980 (moments after the shooting)--John Lennon enters the Dakota lobby, where he sees Yoko Ono. He explains that he’s been shot.

Elaboration: Ono told Lennon to lie down, while Jay Hastings called police.

Commentary: Although he’s ambulatory at that moment, Lennon had no chance of surviving, because of the blood loss from his aorta.


December 8 (minutes after the shooting)--Perdomo confronts Chapman.

Elaboration: Perdomo asked Chapman if he knew what he’d just done. Chapman replied, “I shot John Lennon,” before either laying or throwing the gun on the ground.

Perdomo kicked the gun away, and told Chapman, “Leave! Get out of here!” Chapman ignoring the request, took out his copy of The Catcher in the Rye, and read.

A few moments later, Joseph Many picked up the gun, per Perdomo’s instruction, and took it to the basement, presumably for safe keeping until the police arrived.

Commentary: Some security guard. Despite the fact that the shooter is disarmed, Perdomo tries to shoo him away. Perdomo also seems to have an aversion to the gun, since he told Many to handle it for him. After all, if his fingerprints were on the gun, he could explain to police that he simply wanted to disarm the assailant. When a NYPD officer named Blake retrieved the gun from Many, he wrapped it up in newspaper. Even if he wanted to add no fingerprint marks on it, Perdomo could have found something with which to pick up Chapman’s gun.

Perhaps even more curious: when offered the chance to run, Chapman does not. Chapman, by his own admission, was terribly confused about that moment. As he told Jack Jones:

I was anxious. I wanted the police to hurry up and come. I was pacing and holding the book [Catcher in the Rye]. I tried to read but the words were crawling all over the pages. Nothing made any sense.

December 8 (minutes after the shooting)--NYPD Officers Steve Spiro and Peter Cullen hear a call of “Shots fired-1 West 72nd Street.” They rush to the scene, where they arrest Chapman.

Elaboration: Cullen and Spiro happened to be around the corner because they were on patrol looking for a thief (or thieves), who had stolen a number of area cars on previous nights. They got out at the Dakota. Spiro frisked, then handcuffed Chapman. In his report, he wrote:

...Upon exiting the car, a male in the street, on the passenger side, is yelling pointing toward the driveway archway. He’s pointing toward the left hand side saying: ‘He’s the one that did the shooting.’

I automatically draw my revolver, pointing it toward the man in the shadows.

I’m still thinking is this for real? (Think…What’s going on around you--get this guy fast.)

As I point a gun at Suspect, a male white starts to put his hands up toward the top of his head. ‘Don’t move! Put your hands on the wall!’ Suspect still has hands on his head. ’Put your hands on the wall and don’t move.’ Suspect does what he is told. ’Please don’t hurt me!’ says the Suspect.

Put gun to subject’s back. I see two males to my left. I don’t know who they are (thinking a robbery--more than one gunman?) I place my left arm around Suspect’s neck moving him against me and using him as a shield to defend myself against other possible gunmen. Turning toward my right with the suspect I see the doorman, another male, and at least three bullet holes in the glass doors. My gun is now pointed toward the doorway. The doorman, who I’ve seen before while working, yells that the man I have is the only one involved. I put the Suspect back up against the wall. Suspect says, ’I acted alone! Don’t hurt me!’ ‘No one is going to hurt you.’

Still thinking that there was a robbery inside the building I start asking Suspect ‘What apartment were you in?’ ‘Who did you shoot?’ No response. I hear Jose, the doorman, yell ‘He shot John Lennon.’ I ask Suspect ‘Did you shoot John Lennon!’--No response. Pete Cullen yells ‘Steve put cuffs on him!’ As I get cuffs on the Suspect asks once again--’Don’t hurt me.’ [underlined emphasis Spiro; italicized emphasis X. Dell]

December 8 (moments after Cullen and Spiro‘s arrival)--NYPD Officers Tony Palma and Herb Frauenberger arrive at the Dakota.

Elaboration: While Officers Cullen and Spiro atteneded to the suspect, Palma and Frauenberger arrived at the lobby, where they found a mortally wounded (yet still living) Lennon. Palma turned him to gauge the extent of injury. It became immediately apparent to him that Lennon could not afford to wait for an ambulance.


December 8 (moments after Palma and Frauenberger’s arrival)--NYPD Officers William Gamble and James Moran arrive at the Dakota.

Elaboration: Officers Palma and Frauenberger carried Lennon out to Gamble and Moran’s car while Roosevelt Hospital confirmed it was standing by and waiting to assist. After putting Lennon into the car, Palma, a Beatlephile, alerted Moran, a fellow Beatlephile, as to the identity of their passenger. As they sped away, Lennon confirmed his identity to Moran, but died minutes later en route to the hospital.


December 8 (c. 11:15pm)--Doctors at Roosevelt Hospital declare Lennon dead on arrival (see death certificate in previous post).

Elaboration: Despite the fact that they believed Lennon had already died, a team of physicians, led by Dr. Stephen Lynn, Director of Emergency Services, frantically tried to resuscitate him. After thirty minutes of futility, the surgeons gave up.

In the March 2, 2000 edition of Guitar World magazine, one of the attending physicians, chief surgical resident Dr. Frank Veteran, characterized the effort as follows:

‘Standing there, suddenly, everything just hit me,’ says Veteran. ‘For some reason, I thought of John Kennedy and Jesus Christ (I'm not on dangerous ground here, am I Mike?) It was just a weird thing that flashed in my head.’

The doctors had already been trying to resuscitate Lennon. ‘His chest was open,’ Veteran says. ‘They were doing everything to save him.’

He [Veteran] stepped up to the table and took a grim assessment of the patient. Lennon had been shot four times from the left at point blank range with a .357 magnum revolver. Two bullets had passed through his upper left upper arm and entered his chest; two more entered his chest just behind the arm. [Traveling] through his torso, they ripped through his lungs and arteries. Three of the bullets exited the front of his chest: one under his left clavicle and two on the left side of his sternum. The fourth remained lodged inside his body.

In all, the punctured aorta caused Lennon to lose 80% of his blood volume. [emphasis X. Dell]

December 8-December 9 (c. 11:00pm-4:00am)--Police take Chapman into custody.

Elaboration: After Mirandizing him on the way to the Twentieth Precinct, Cullen and Spiro took Chapman into an interrogation room for questioning Outside the station house, a small army of press congregated.

In the wee hours of December 9, Chapman received a call from his wife, Gloria, in the interrogation room. That surprised Officer Spiro somewhat, for it’s rare for someone to receive a call under such circumstances. Even if such a call comes to the station it’s rarely put through. But what really unnerved Spiro was Chapman’s reaction. Going back to the officer’s report:

I pick up the phone and introduce myself to Mrs. Chapman as Police Officer Spiro 20 pct New York City PD and that it was the officer who arrested her husband. I tell her that Mark is OK and I assure her no one will hurt him. She thanks me and then I give Mark the phone.

Chapman’s calm rational thinking amazes me under the circumstances. [emphasis Spiro].

Later, lead detective Lt. Arthur O’Connor, questioned Chapman, noting something very odd about his state of mind.

Commentary: Bresler also noted that a few weeks later, in January 1981, another person close to Chapman, his former pastor Rev. Charles McGowan, managed to initiate contact with Mark while he was in a presumed state of isolation with the outside world. While he was very careful not to suggest that either Gloria or McGowan had any other agenda than the obvious--i.e., to support and comfort Chapman during a time of crisis--he wondered how many other calls were getting through to Chapman, and if these other calls might have been made by an intelligence handler, or if the telephone calls themselves were some kind of trigger mechanism.


December 8 (c. 11:45pm)--Doctors inform Yoko Ono that Lennon has died.

Elaboration: With Ono at the hospital is David Geffen, who had just seen the two of them at the Record Plant a couple of hours earlier.


December 9, 1980 (4:00am)--Detectives put on a ruse to sneak Chapman out of the precinct to take him to another facility.

Elaboration: The officers of the Twentieth were very concerned about Chapman’s safety. They consciously articulated the similarities between transporting Mark and police in Dallas escorting Lee Oswald. At the time, they were determined not to let some kind of “Jack Ruby” (their words) scenario play out.

Commentary: Note the parallels between the JFK assassination and the Lennon murder that began to form independently during the early hours of the investigation. The police have it deliberately in mind when transporting Chapman. The same thought surfaced from the unconscious mind of Dr. Veteran while he treated Lennon.


December 9 (c. 10:30am)--Ringo Starr and his wife, Barbara Bach arrive at the Dakota.

Elaboration: Ono met Starr at the gate, and told him that she had to speak with him alone. Starr, in effect, replied “No you don’t. If I go, Barbara goes. Remember, you started this.” A couple of hours later, Starr emerged from the Dakota visibly shaken and upset.

Commentary: This exchange, witnessed by mourners who had gathered for a vigil, has made its way into conspiracy lore as evidence that Ono might have played a role in Lennon’s death. After all, without context, this (true) story would lead us to believe that Starr and his wife, vacationing in the Bahamas at the time of Lennon’s death, hauled ass to New York once they found out so that they may comfort his widow, but wound up accusing her of complicity in the crime.

In his 1998 biography Ringo Starr: Straight Man or Joker , Alan Clayson provided the context of this brief conversation between Ono and Starr over Bach, in effect rendering it quite innocent.

First of all, Ono had legitimate business to discuss with Starr alone. Ringo had been planning to record an album with Lennon since September 1980. They had scheduled the studio for January 1981. As Ono would explain many times later, in the initial hours after her husband’s murder, she was somewhat in a state of denial. And in weird times, it’s sometimes comforting to do normal things. If Yoko wanted to apprise Starr of her status and fitness to enter a recording studio again, this time without John, then that would have been something that would have pertained to Starr alone, and not Bach.

Also missing from the conspiracy tale is Starr’s tone of voice when saying, “You started all this.” Ringo wasn’t accusing Ono of anything here. Think of it more as a gentle reminder that during the latter days of the Beatles, John would insist on Yoko’s presence when meeting about band issues. Starr was simply asking Ono to extend the same courtesy to his wife.

While there, Starr mainly focused on simply being there for both Yoko and Sean. He left two hours later when she told him that she didn’t want any funeral or fuss (because either would immediately confront her with the reality of Lennon’s demise). Starr left in deference to her feelings.

Starr also had a reason to be more upset upon his departure than on his arrival to the Dakota. The mourners gathered outside bothered him. As he told Clayson:

These people showed very little respect for either John [or] Yoko. It was disgusting....

When we came out…I didn’t need to hear people telling me how much they loved the Beatles because I wasn’t there to see a Beatle. I was there to see a friend.

It would take only a little time for Starr, Harrison and McCartney to realize that they too “...could be a target for the next madman” (Starr to Clayson).