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John's assassination (8 December 1980)
1 October 2015
10.57am
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O Boogie
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He might have as well said that, and I think that his treatment of Julian was in the forefront of his mind during that period, and I believe he spoke about it to Seaman because Cynthia mentions in her book that he had indicated to Seaman that his journals should be passed on to Julian once he was gone.

 

For tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the Sun

1 October 2015
11.11am
castironshore
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Chapman had planned to kill other celebrities at various points before opting for john. It was instant notoriety he wanted and craved.

The irony being as experttexpert says,lennon was long convinced he would suffer retribution for the violence he had carried out.

1 October 2015
11.23am
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Expert Textpert
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P3pperish said

He might have as well said that, and I think that his treatment of Julian was in the forefront of his mind during that period, and I believe he spoke about it to Seaman because Cynthia mentions in her book that he had indicated to Seaman that his journals should be passed on to Julian once he was gone.

And then Yoko, not knowing about this, went after Seaman for “stealing” the journals.

Or who knows, maybe she did know. If I were Yoko, I would not want Seaman to have his hands on the journals. Seaman hated Yoko.

"If you're ever in the shit, grab my tit.” —Paul McCartney 

1 October 2015
11.51am
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O Boogie
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Either way, the loser is Julian. 

I’m sorry for going off-topic, but what happened to those journals? Are those lost or are they in Yoko’s possession? Or did Julian get them?

 

There was hardly anyone who liked Yoko in those days. People have softened their stance towards her only in the recent years.

 

For tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the Sun

1 October 2015
12.27pm
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I believe they were returned to Yoko.

But this 1983 article says the most important one was still missing. Does anyone know if this one made it back?

http://www.people.com/people/a…../article/0,,20085405,00.html

"If you're ever in the shit, grab my tit.” —Paul McCartney 

1 October 2015
12.57pm
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I know we should

stay-on-topic

but I just wanted to say that if my wife died and her journals were taken without my knowledge, I would feel that I had every right to get them back. If someone told me “But she told me to take them from you and give them to so and so,” I’m not sure I would honor that.

"If you're ever in the shit, grab my tit.” —Paul McCartney 

4 October 2015
6.25pm
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I was the walrus
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@meanmistermustard no problem at all for the move.  But thanks for the answer to my question! 

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20 January 2016
8.37pm
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Derek_Francis
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The court decision ruled that he knew right from wrong and used the assassination purely as a way to garner attention for himself, denying him the insanity defense.

30 January 2018
8.46pm
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Ron Nasty
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I intended to bump this thread in the next day or two to look at the changing accounts of what took place at the hospital, and who was involved in the attempt to save John, as it came up in another thread yesterday. I feel this is a more appropriate thread to discuss the events, especially given some don’t really want to read about the details of that day. Anyone who clicks on this thread though, has to have some idea it may contain disturbing details.

Once I’ve drawn my sources together, I’ll make that post about Dr. Stephan Lynn, Dr. Richard Marks, and Dr. David Halleran.

However, in this first post of the bump, I want to address the post above:

@Derek_Francis said
The court decision ruled that he knew right from wrong and used the assassination purely as a way to garner attention for himself, denying him the insanity defense.  

This is entirely inaccurate.

John’s killer (I refuse to use his name unless absolutely necessary, and it isn’t here), on the advice of his lawyer, Jonathan Marks, entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity at his January 1981 pre-trial hearing. Most legal experts believed this was likely to be successful.

His trial was set to begin on 22 June.

Minutes before the trial was due to begin, against the objections of his lawyer, he changed his plea to guilty. The reason he gave his lawyer was that on 8 June and 10 June God had told him to plead guilty.

While the Judge could have ordered an assessment of him to determine if he was mentally fit to make that decision, he decided not to, saying, “Every defendant in any case has the right to make that determination. The ultimate decision as to pleading is not that of the attorney, (but) rather the client.”

The only person who denied him an insanity defence was the killer himself.

You can read the New York Daily News report on the 22 June hearing here.

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The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966

31 January 2018
2.54pm
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QuarryMan
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I’ve read that he planned to kill others that night too. I wonder why then he remained at the scene reading the Catcher in the Rye – did he give up on his further plans? Did he feel remorse? 

“While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I’m a naysayer and hatchet man in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I’ll gladly take another - because I choose to live my life in the company of Ghandi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. I love you, Sheriff Truman.”

 

7 March 2018
7.56pm
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Ron Nasty
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While that man did have a list of other possible targets (among whom was Paul), @QuarryMan, I have never heard the slightest suggestion that he intended a killing spree that night. He had a list, and he settled on John because – alongside his twisted reasons – of his accessibility.

It’s been a difficult few weeks for me but I hopefully will get to the story of the doctors next week, when I should be back at home.

Anyway, the reason I am here now, is the demise of the NME had me hunting out the NME obituary/editorial following John’s assassination. It is well worth a read, though it has errors and mistakes (much of it bad copying from the original, though there are some factual howlers:

“Everybody had a good year, everybody put the fool down,” he sang on ‘Let it Be’ with tongue firmly in cheek…

Really?!!!).

Anyway, in the 20 December issue, under the headline “Lennon: Elergy for Winston O’Boogie”, then-editor Neil Spencer began:

Peace and love. If we are able to take anything from the tragic death of John Lennon – and god knows the senselessness of his murder defies meaning – then it must, paradoxically, be these values we take away from the slaughter on New York’s 72nd street last week.

It would be comforting to say that John Lennon died for peace and love, but his death was not that of a martyr, even though this was a role he seemed to relish at some points of his life.

No, he died without reason at the hands of a madman in a city and country where psychosis, violence and assassination are virtually a way of life.

@meanmistermustard, in another conversation, among other points I largely agreed with, argued this:

And in truth do we really need to be having in-depth discussions on … gun laws…

8 December 1980 is why I believe – and will always believe – America’s gun culture, its 2nd amendment, and, yes!, its gun laws, will always be a valid discussion on a Beatles forum. Beatles fans paid a high price for America’s gun laws, and the ability of “a madman” to legally buy a weapon. I will always rail against that stupidity, at every opportunity, LOUDLY, and make no distinction between a 40-year-old Liverpudlian making his way home in New York City in 1980 and 17 children and adults in a school in Parkland, Florida in 2018, and all those lives lost in-between in similar senseless circumstances.

Every single one of those lives lost was as valuable as John’s, and while knowing it makes some of our American friends uncomfortable (mainly because of their own frustration at their lawmakers inaction because they are in the pocket of the gun lobby instead of their electorate, who polls show want change), in John’s memory, in memory of the 17 who lost their lives in an equally senseless manner in Parkland, just after 37 years since John’s murder, and approaching the 19th anniversary of Columbine (13 dead), when the phrase “school shooting” entered the language, and all those lost lives, lost treasure, lost potential that runs from 8 December 1980 (long before even, that’s just when I entered the debate) through to today, I will SCREAM and RAGE at every opportunity, however futile it may seem, for the US to bring in stronger gun laws.

In that way, I honour John, and every other victim since.

Maybe things are changing though, maybe there is a chink of light in the days since Parkland. The children of Columbine are coming of age. They have spent their whole childhoods under the shadow. Were they growing up in the Fifties, they would have been taught how to hide under their desks in the event of an incoming nuke from Russia, but the children of this generation have been taught how to hide from, usually, a disgruntled and disaffected fellow or ex- student(s) roaming the halls with legally obtained weapons about whom there were warning signals.

The Parkland survivors have been magnificent in the way they have raised their voices on behalf of their dead. There has been a different reaction this time, from companies removing perks they offered NRA members to US stock market funds disinvesting from gun companies. Maybe a corner is being turned. Maybe this generation entering adulthood are going to be the change. We do hope, and possibly feel a little optimistic…

But John Lennon , and the senseless events of 8 December 1980, is why – in my opinion – US gun laws will ALWAYS be a valid debate on a Beatles forum.

[NOTE: I wasn’t quite sure where to put this. The discussion about the future of the forum didn’t seem the right place, and I’m not sure this is now it’s written, so if any mod has a better idea, feel free…]

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8 March 2018
5.58am
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Timothy
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John’s death is one of the most senseless acts in human history, and I still brood about it. But I also don’t like to. It really annoys me that sometimes it seems like he’s famous for dying, as if that was his most memorable act. It was a shocking event, but I prefer to celebrate his life. To appreciate the real reason why he was famous and loved. 

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8 March 2018
10.44am
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QuarryMan
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Well said, @Ron Nasty !

“While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I’m a naysayer and hatchet man in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I’ll gladly take another - because I choose to live my life in the company of Ghandi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. I love you, Sheriff Truman.”

 

20 April 2018
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Jolly Jimmy
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Here is something I’d like to get feedback on.

Many hosts of Beatle radio shows and podcasts, not to mention some internet sites refuse to mention Chapman’s name when bringing up the murder.  Perhaps it is too painful.  Perhaps they don’t want to give MDC any publicity.  But then there are others feel he is part of history just like John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald.  People more openly mention those names when discussing Lincoln or JFK.

There are good arguments on both sides.  What are your thoughts on the issue?  Some of you already alluded your feelings.  But I’d like to get the overall consensus of the Beatles Bible universe and possible see some new interesting points of view.

What say you?

You are all my friends.

20 April 2018
8.14am
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meanmistermustard
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I don’t get offended or irked by his name being mentioned but I generally wont as the motivation, or one of them, for the murder was to be famous and have his name spoken of for all of time. I don’t wish to see that granted so don’t.

If others do then so be it.

"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

20 April 2018
1.04pm
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There is a doctor named Vernon Neppe (Behavioral Neurology, Neuropsychiatry, Psychiatry, Psychopharmacology, and Forensic Psychiatry) who has suggested that society (police and media) not name such assassins, and only refer to them in public by some anonymous code, like “XY123” or something — in order to deprive them of the notoriety that is part of their motivation. Who knows, if implemented this might also put a damper on potential killers.

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20 April 2018
3.53pm
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The problem with that is that the media and the public always wants to know the identities.

“While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I’m a naysayer and hatchet man in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I’ll gladly take another - because I choose to live my life in the company of Ghandi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. I love you, Sheriff Truman.”

 

23 April 2018
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Timothy
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Come on, let me through
I got so many things I gotta do
I got no business being here with you
This way

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23 April 2018
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The identity does not concern me as much as the motivation.  If we can get into the minds of these killers and understand what makes them tick, maybe we can improve treating mental health and prevent killings in the future.

This applies not just to MDC, but also to to all those mass shooting we have had in the past few years.

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23 April 2018
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Timothy
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Yeah. I always remind myself that the jerk traveled to kill John. He went out of his way to find him. If John lived in London, or Ireland, or wherever, that’s where the jerk was going to go. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It’s easier said than done, but we need to try and pick up on any warning signs.

I always think of what music John would have made. Or how long he actually would’ve lived if he was left alone. We’ll never know. I’m well aware that John said he didn’t believe in worshiping dead rock stars. He valued the people who survived – people who chose to fade away gracefully rather than burn out.

John was cleaning his life up before it was taken from him. That’s the key difference with him and people like Elvis and Sid Vicious. 

John liked to portray himself as not very sentimental, but I think he was. Very much so. Just look at the influence of Julia on his life. 

But at the same time, his words do make it easier to get on with life. “And so dear friends, you’ll just have to carry on.” His statement about how we’ll always have the old records to play if he want to reminisce. How it’s all down to us, and nobody else. And how we need to make a better tomorrow. I remember an interview where John also said he was always interested in what was happening today, with trends and new technology. Remember that.

Worshiping isn’t necessarily healthy, I agree. But fascination is another thing. The way John viewed the world should not be forgotten. And it won’t be.

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