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Most people know that on the night of December 8th 1980, Mark David
Chapman murdered John Lennon, the ex-Beatle and rock superstar. Chapman
had waited several hours outside Lennon's apartment in the Dakota
Building, New York.
What most people don't realise was that Mark Chapman had tried before.
In late October, he had quit his job, signing out as "John Lennon",
because he had "personal problems to settle". He bought a gun, had a
farewell dinner with his mother, and flew to New York on a one-way
ticket.
He tried to buy bullets for his Charter Arms Undercover .38 but without
a New York licence that was not possible.
He flew down
to Atlanta to visit an old friend, got the bullets he needed and did some
practice shooting in the woods. Early November he was back in New York, hanging
around outside the Dakota Buildings. In his pocket he had a list of celebrities
he planned to kill.
But he could
not go through with it. He took himself to the top of the Statue of Liberty and
thought about throwing himself off. But he could not kill himself.
He flew back
home to Honolulu thinking he had "won a great victory."
But early December, he
returned to New York, checked into the Sheraton Center Hotel on 7th Avenue, set
up a display or tableau of props in his room and waited outside the Dakota Buildings for
John Lennon.
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Mark
Chapman suffered delusional paranoid schizophrenia,
and was receiving psychiatric help during 1979 and 1980.
Feeling his very existence was being threatened, he had attempted suicide
twice.
He became increasingly fixated on both Holden
Caulfield (the fictional hero of J D Salinger's "The Catcher In The
Rye") and John Lennon, the rock legend. He
told his wife he was going to change his name to "Holden Caulfield",
but, at the same time, signed himself out of work as "John Lennon".
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John
Lennon
was having nightmares about
violent deaths and gunshot wounds. During 1980, Lennon became fascinated
by numerology and Fate, and experienced vivid premonitions of his own
sudden death by gunshot.
John
Lennon was making a come-back after almost five
years out of the recording studio - In early August he
was back in The Hit Factory Studio laying down the
tracks for "Double Fantasy". By September, with the
release of his new album, he was giving interviews - in
Playboy and in Newsweek. John Lennon was back.
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Chapman,
like most paranoid schizophrenics, was convinced he had been chosen,
like a Messiah, to fulfil a special mission. He was certain he was being
given clear and unequivocal signs that nobody else could see or
understand.
These signs,
or triggers, were concealed in the text of magazines and books he read; they were
displayed on television in hidden symbols; they were painted in the
art-work he began to collect during 1979, and they were buried in the
lyrics of songs he listened to.
He
believed only he could interpret the significance
of these signs, and only he could save the world from false prophets.
He was now
waiting for the final signals...
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John Lennon's paranoia was growing - as he emerged more and
more into the limelight, he suspected the FBI were keeping him under
close surveillance.
His new album,
titled "Double Fantasy" - after a flower he had seen while on
holiday in Bermuda - hinted at another kind of "double" - the
double, or doppelganger that was Mark Chapman, stalking him outside
his apartment.
Lennon was
unwittingly sending out the very signals his killer was waiting for.
The lyrics in one of the last songs he ever wrote, mentions "the
angel of destruction" haunting him. |
These are the two sides
to this tragedy.....Lennon and Chapman are the two
spirits dancing so strange.....coming together,
slowly, but surely...
This website gives only a tiny fraction of my findings.... my books
contain the full story.
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