John Lennon was killed in 1980. (Picture: John Lindsay/ AP Photo, File)
Jay Hastings was working on the concierge desk of Manhattan’s Dakota building on a cold December evening back in 1980 when he saw John Lennon, one of the biggest stars in the world, come running past him.
‘I’m shot,’ Jay claims The Beatles star yelled out to him, with blood oozing from his mouth.
Those two tragic words would appear to be his last as Jay says John then collapsed to the floor. He rolled the star over to see his signature round framed glasses were shattered.
His wife Yoko Ono screamed for Jay to call an ambulance. But it was too late. John had been shot four times in the back by obsessed fan Mark David Chapman and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Roosevelt Hospital.
This haunting depiction of John Lennon’s final moments are being told for the first time by Jay in a new Apple TV+ documentary that re-examines the murder that sent shockwaves around the world.
John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial is a three-part docu-series that will see witnesses to the shooting and aftermath speak for the first time in 43 years.
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Taxi driver Richard Peterson had been parked outside of the Dakota, where John and his family lived, when the shooting took place.
‘Lennon was walking in and this kid says, “John Lennon.” He was a chunky guy. I’m looking at him through the front window of my cab. I’m looking at him shoot him. This guy just shot John Lennon.
‘I thought they were making a movie, but I didn’t see no lights or cameras or anything so I realised, hey, this ain’t no movie.’
The documentary is narrated by 24 star Kiefer Sutherland and produced by 72 films, the team behind Jimmy Saville: A British Horror Story.
Granted extensive Freedom of Information Act requests from the New York City Police Department, the Board of Parole and the District Attorney’s office, the documentary is described by AppleTV+ as ‘the most thoroughly researched examination of John Lennon’s 1980 murder, which shocked and saddened the world’.
On the day that he died, Lennon made a bold statement about his lasting legacy, telling RKO radio producer Laurie Kaye: ‘My work won’t be finished until I’m dead and buried – and I hope that’s a long, long time.’
Mark Chapman gunned down the icon after hearing a voice telling him to ‘do it!’ (Picture: AppleTV)
Chapman is serving a 20-to-year life sentence for Lennon’s murder (Picture: REUTERS)
The title of the new series refers to the fact that there was little need for a big trial. Chapman’s crime was witnessed by others and he waited at the crime scene where he was quickly apprehended and confessed his guilt. His defense team believed he would later plead ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ but he stayed true to his guilty confession.
He was sentenced to serve a minimum prison term of 20 years to life for second-degree murder. He was denied parole for the 12th time last year but could face release as early as February 2024.
The documentary also features interviews with Mark Chapman’s defense lawyers, psychiatrists, detectives and prosecutors.
Chapman’s chilling taped confessions can be heard for the first time in the documentary too, as he admits he gunned down Lennon when a voice in his head told him: ‘Do it! Do it!’
He was the biggest, phoniest b*****d that ever lived
In another taped confession, he said he believed he would turn into Holden Caulfield in JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye if he ‘killed somebody.’ The literary character is a disturbed upper-class teen who, whilst home from boarding school, creates a storm in Manhattan when he rallies against ‘phonies’.
Chapman even insisted that he had killed Lennon to encourage others to read the famous book.
Later, he slammed Lennon as the ‘’biggest phoniest b*****d that ever lived’.
‘Here’s what I have to say about John Lennon. ‘All you need is love’, have you ever heard that? Well, this is what I say to that: all you need is love and 250 million dollars.
‘He was the biggest, phoniest b*****d that ever lived. I wasn’t about to let the world endure 10 more years of his bulls***t’.
Chapman asked Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono to sign an album hours before killing the singer on December 8, 1980 (Picture: Getty Images)
Chapman seemed incensed by Lennon’s call for peace and for people to imagine a world with no possessions whilst he lived a life of staggering wealth.
NYPD officer Peter Cullen claims in the documentary that Chapman’s arrest was a bizarre experience. According to eyewitnesses, Chapman remained under streetlights reading The Catcher In The Rye until police arrived at the scene.
‘We put the cuffs on him and it was strange: there was no resistance at all. He actually apologised to us. He said, ”Gee, I’m sorry you guys, I ruined your night.” I said, ”You gotta be kidding me. You know you just ruined your whole life?”’
Also in the documentary is Lennon and wife Yoko’s shared confidante Elliot Mintz, who questions whether Chapman’s crime had a religious motive or perhaps he was part of a wider conspiracy to murder high profile people.
John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial features accounts from eye witnesses never heard before (Picture: AppleTV)
Chapman had travelled thousands of miles from Hawaii to New York on December 8. Earlier that day, he had spotted the Beatles star and even asked him to sign a copy of the new album by Lennon and his wife Yoko – entitled Double Fantasy.
In his parole hearings, Chapman appeared conflicted about the murder and even suggested that he had tried to talk himself out of it.
‘It wasn’t all totally cold-blooded, but most of it was. I did try to tell myself to leave. I’ve got the album, take it home, show my wife, everything will be fine,’ Chapman said in 2012.
‘But I was so compelled to commit that murder that nothing would have dragged me away from that building.’
Lennon’s son Sean with wife Yoko was just five when he was murdered. His eldest son Julian, from his first marriage, was only 17.
In 2020, Chapman issued a public apology to Yoko Ono for the pain he had caused.
‘It was an extremely selfish act,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for the pain that I caused to her. I think about it all of the time.’
John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial premieres globally on AppleTV+ on December 6.
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Chilling new details surrounding Beatles icon’s 1980 murder emerge in Apple’s new documentary.