8 DECEMBER 1980 (NYC), THE MURDER OF JOHN LENNON

Today, The Grandma has remembered one of the saddest days in New York City. 

It was 8 December 1980 when John Lennon was killed in the archway of his residence.

On the evening of 8 December 1980, English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of the Dakota, his residence in New York City. 

His killer was Mark David Chapman, an American Beatles fan who was incensed by Lennon's lavish lifestyle and his 1966 comment that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

Chapman said he was inspired by the fictional character Holden Caulfield from J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye, a phony-killer who despises hypocrisy.

Chapman planned the killing over several months and waited for Lennon at the Dakota on the morning of 8 December.

Early in the evening, Chapman met Lennon, who signed his copy of the album Double Fantasy and subsequently left for a recording session at the Record Plant. Later that night, Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, returned to the Dakota.

Chapman waited for Lennon outside the Dakota in early-morning and spent most of the day near the entrance to the Dakota, talking to fans and the doorman. During that morning, Chapman was distracted and missed seeing Lennon step out of a cab and enter the Dakota. Later in the morning, Chapman met Lennon's family nanny, Helen Seaman, who was returning from a walk with Lennon's five-year-old son Sean. Chapman reached in front of the housekeeper to shake Sean's hand and said that he was a beautiful boy, quoting Lennon's song Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy).

More information: Biography 

As Lennon and Ono approached the entrance of the building, Chapman fired five hollow-point bullets from a .38 special revolver, four of which hit Lennon in the back. 

Chapman remained at the scene reading The Catcher in the Rye until he was arrested by the police. Lennon was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital in a police car, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at around 11:15 p.m.

A worldwide outpouring of grief ensued; crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and in front of the Dakota, and at least three Beatles fans died by suicide.

The next day, Lennon was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York; in lieu of a funeral, Ono requested ten minutes of silence around the world. 

Chapman was convicted of murdering Lennon and was given a sentence of 20-years-to-life imprisonment.

More information: Society of Rock

A judge remanded Chapman to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

On 6 January 1981, Chapman was charged with second-degree murder, as premeditation in New York state was not sufficient to warrant charge of first-degree murder. Despite advice by his lawyers to plead insanity, Chapman pleaded guilty to murdering Lennon, saying that his guilty plea was the will of God.

Under the terms of his guilty plea, he was sentenced to 20-years-to-life with eligibility for parole in 2000. Before his sentencing, he was given the opportunity to address the court, at which point he read a passage from The Catcher in the Rye. 

He has been denied parole eleven times and remains incarcerated in Wende Correctional Facility, east of Buffalo, New York.

More information: New York Post

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.
I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends
and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.
That's what's insane about it.

John Lennon

JOHN LENNON, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE, ONE MORE TIME

John Lennon

John Winston Ono Lennon (9 October 1940–8 December 1980) was an English singer and songwriter who co-founded The Beatles, the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. With fellow member Paul McCartney, he formed a celebrated songwriting partnership.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into the Beatles in 1960. 

When the group disbanded in 1970, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced albums including John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and songs such as Give Peace a Chance, Working Class Hero, and Imagine. After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to raise his infant son Sean, but re-emerged with Ono in 1980 with the new album Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.

More information: John Lennon Official Website

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. Controversial through his political and peace activism, he moved to Manhattan in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while some of his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture.

Yoko Ono and John Lennon in Gibraltar, UK

At around 10:50 p.m. on 8 December 1980, as Lennon and Ono returned to their New York apartment in the Dakota, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times in the archway of the building. Lennon was taken to the emergency room of nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:00 p.m. Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.

Ono issued a statement the next day, saying There is no funeral for John, ending it with the words, John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him. His body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields Memorial was later created. Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20-years-to-life. In 2016, he was denied parole for a ninth time.

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, 

is to try and express what we all feel. 

Not to tell people how to feel. 

Not as a preacher, not as a leader, 

but as a reflection of us all. 

John Lennon