John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial review – ‘My work won’t be finished until I’m dead and buried’… The haunting words of the Beatle’s final interview on the day he was killed, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS
The casual confidence in John Lennon's final prediction, on the day he was murdered, is so tragically ironic it makes your skin prickle.
“My work won't be finished,” the former Beatle told RKO radio producer Laurie Kaye as he recorded his final interview, “until I'm dead and buried – and I hope that's a very long time.”
In a three-part documentary released this week, John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial (Apple TV+), Kaye describes how a pushy, distracted fan harassed them outside Lennon's New York apartment building that day in December 1980. She ignored him and turned away. and walked away.
The man, a 25-year-old from Hawaii named Mark David Chapman, demanded an autograph from Lennon – then waited for the star to return that evening and shot him dead, firing five bullets.
The story of Lennon's murder is so well known that it is extraordinary to realize how much has never been revealed until now and how many people have not been asked for their testimony.
For the first time, Jay Hastings, the caretaker of the Dakota building where Lennon and his family lived, tells his story – describing how Lennon ran a few steps past him, gasping, “I've been shot,” as blood poured out. his mouth gushed, before collapsing.
John Lennon arrives at 'The Hit Factory' recording studio in Times Square in 1980
Richard Peterson, taxi driver, in “John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial”
Pictured: Elliot Mintz in the upcoming documentary
The man, a 25-year-old from Hawaii named Mark David Chapman (pictured), demanded an autograph from Lennon and then waited for the star to return that evening and shoot him dead
The title of the documentary, narrated by Kiefer Sutherland, refers to the reason for this: Chapman pleaded guilty to murder, which surprised his own defense team, who expected him to argue that he was “not guilty by reason of insanity.”
As a result, he never stood trial. But the madness is clear. A New York detective tells how he accompanied Chapman to the restroom at the police station: “I said to him, 'Do you know what you did here?' And he said, 'Yes, I committed suicide, I'm John Lennon.'
He told his defense team another fantasy, saying he thought the murder would turn him into the hero of his favorite book: the cynical teenager Holden Caulfield in JD Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye.
And to the judge, explaining why he changed his plea to guilty, he claimed that God had spoken to him in his cell.
In his first TV interview, when he spoke from prison to talk show host Larry King in 1991, Chapman spoke about himself in the third person.
Although he insisted he was now sane, he appeared disturbed and was never released from prison.
Memories of friends from adolescence come closest to explaining the source of his psychotic delusions. Chapman was brutally beaten by his father as a child and tried to escape, taking drugs including opium, LSD and mescaline, and also became a born-again Christian.
But other forms of madness were also on display. One of Lennon's close friends, DJ Elliot Mintz, describes how disturbing it was for widow Yoko Ono when the crowd besieged the Dakota Building and sang Lennon's songs, as if that would bring him back.
Strangest of all, we hear for the first time tapes of Chapman's conversations with his lawyers, as he undergoes hypnosis and relives the moment of the murder.
That feels eerily like seeing the murder itself.