John Lennon Murder
John Lennon's murder made front-page news all over the world. Here is the December 9, 1980, copy of the Milwaukee Journal, the day after Lennon was murdered. Lennon was featured on the front page and pages 12 and 13. A scan of the three pages is shown below; the converted text file of the Lennon front-page article is below the scan.
Left: Front page, Milwaukee Journal, December 9, 1980
Center: Page 12, Milwaukee Journal, December 9, 1980
Right: Page 13, Milwaukee Journal, December 9, 1980
Center: Page 12, Milwaukee Journal, December 9, 1980
Right: Page 13, Milwaukee Journal, December 9, 1980
Front page John Lennon Article
The Milwaukee Journal
December 9, 1980
Hawaii man held in death of music superstar Lennon
New York, N.Y. — A 25-year-old Hawaii man who apparently stalked John Lennon for three days was held Tuesday on a charge of gunning down the singer-songwriter who helped make the Beatles musical superstars and pop-culture legends in the 1960s.
The suspect, Mark David Chapman of Honolulu, was taken under heavy guard to the Tombs prison in downtown Manhattan early Tuesday to await arraignment.
A police source, who asked not to be identified, said Chapman gave different stories to detectives about the slaying. But he said Chapman was emphatic that he knew he was shooting the 40-year-old Lennon.
Minutes after the shots rang out Monday night, police took Chapman into custody. He was charged early Tuesday. No motive was known immediately. Fearing for the suspect’s safety, police were keeping Chapman under tight guard.
“Remember a gentleman named Lee Harvey Oswald?” asked a police spokesman. “We’re not going to permit that here.”
Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby while in police custody two days after he was arrested for the shooting of President John F. Kennedy.
Rushed to hospital
Yelling “I’m shot,” Lennon staggered and collapsed face down after the shooting at 10:50 p.m. EST Monday. Police rushed the former Beatle to Roosevelt Hospital in a squad car.
Lennon rocketed to fame as guitarist, singer and songwriter in the early 60s with fellow Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” sobbed his wife, Yoko Ono, when doctors pronounced Lennon dead. Lennon had said in an RKO radio network interview only hours before his death that he hoped to die before Ono because “if Yoko died, I wouldn’t know how to survive. I couldn’t carry on”
Police said the gunman emerged from the shadows as the Lennons stepped out of a limousine after a recording session and walked past the Dakota apartment building’s giant iron gate into the archway.
Lennon’s autograph
According to authorities, Chapman had come to New York from Hawaii about a week ago and was seen near the Dakota three times in the last three days. As Lennon left his recording studio earlier Monday, Chapman got his autograph, police said.
“Mr. Lennon?” police quoted him as saying before be allegedly fired five shots from a .38. caliber pistol.
Lennon, with three wounds in his chest, two in his left arm and two in his back, stumbled into an office and crumpled to the floor.
While the doorman summoned police and doctors, witnesses said, Chapman waited calmly. They said he dropped his gun, which a guard kicked aside and saved for police.
“Do you know what you just did?’ the doorman asked Chapman.
“I just shot John Lennon,” the gunman replied.
Stephen Lynn, a physician at Roosevelt Hospital, said: “I’m sure (Lennon) was dead when he was shot. Extensive resuscitation efforts were made and despite transfusions and other methods, he could not be revived.”
No criminal record
Police, who found Chapman standing near the scene, were considering the shooting “just as important as the assassination of John F. Kennedy,” said Lt. John Schick.
Police initially referred to the suspect as a “local screwball.”
Chapman, an unemployed security guard, bought a .38-caliber handgun in Hawaii six weeks ago, according to Honolulu police. He had no criminal record, so a gun permit was granted, police said.
Chapman lived with his wife in the high-rise Kukui Plaza. Mrs. Chapman, who spoke with reporters by phone and from behind the closed door of their apartment, said her husband had lived in Hawaii for four years, was unemployed and out of town. She would not say where.
She said she had heard of the shooting but had not been contacted by police.
John Lennon was born Oct. 9, 1940, in Liverpool, and his father, Alfred Lennon, deserted the family to seek the seafaring life when John was 3 years old.
Lennon’s mother, Julia, died in an automobile accident before he was 14. However, before that he had gone, by choice, to live with a favorite aunt, Mary Smith.
Still, Lennon was always gentle in remarks about his mother, He said he considered her responsible to a large degree for his later success; she was a pianist’ who taught him basic chords when he acquired his first guitar and encouraged him in his interest in the early recordings of Elvis Presley, whom he frankly credited as a major inspiration in his early years.
In 1958, he met Paul McCartney, and the two young men helped each other in mastering the guitar and in developing personal musical techniques.
Billed as the Nurk Twins (a title borrowed from Royal Air Force slang), they began to offer occasional performances, and in the following year were joined by another guitarist, George Harrison, and by drummer Pete Best. They called themselves first the Quarrymen Skiffle Group (derived from John’s old private school) and then the Moondogs, later the Moonshiners.
“Silver Beatles”
Later, they became the Silver Beatles (“Never mind where that comes from; if you don’t know, you don’t want to know”) and finally—perhaps, as manager Brian Epstein like to explain, because of the four-four beat insistence—as the Beatles.
In October 1961, Epstein, who ran a family record business not far from the club, received a request for a record called “My Bonnie,” made by the Beatles as accompaniment for Tony Sheridan, a popular singer.
Epstein ordered 200 copies of the record, promptly sold them out, and went looking for the group that had made it.
“Dead scruffy and untidy they were in those days,” Epstein said. “But you could feel it, something happening when they worked, something exciting—this amazing communication with the audience, and this absolutely marvelous humor. Well, I knew they could be on of the biggest theater attractions in the world, didn’t I? So what was I to do, let it pass by?”
Epstein became the Beatles’ manager in January 1962. He got them a contract with Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd. (EMI). Their first hit, “Love Me Do” (written by Lennon and McCartney in an idle hour) sold 100,000 copies.
It was followed in the spring of 1963 by “She Loves You,” which sold a million copies, and by the albums “Please, Please Me” and “With the Beatles,” each of which sold 300,000 in their first exposure.
Meanwhile, the composition of the group had changed.
Best had departed to be succeeded by Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr.
“The rest,” Epstein was fond of saying, “is musical history…”
Their appearance at the London Palladium in October 1963 established the Beatles’ status as a British musical institution.
“The only good story”
“Part luck,” said Lennon. “You know, there were no wars, no invasions, no state secrets opened up that particular day. The Beatles were the only good story the London comics had—so they played it up.”
In 1963, the Beatles were booked on their first American venture beginning, in February 1964, with an appearance on the “Ed Sullivan Show” for CBS-TV, plus two Carnegie Hall concerts.
Beatlemania was at its height in the US after the first tour, and there were more records, more tours, the movies, the books. Then for a while, it seemed to come to an end.
More to the story
But there was more to the story so far as Lennon was concerned.
“The times were changing’,” he said. We hadda’ grow another skin, four of ‘em, didn' we? So we did it.”
Even the music changed: Hard acid rock, it was called, and Lennon admitted that he and the others “held breath a bit” to see what the reaction would be.
It was ecstatic.
In 1962, Lennon married Cynthia Powell; they had one son, Julian. In 1968, they divorced, and Lennon married Yoko Ono, by whom he had a son, Sean.
There were rumors of dissension within the group; stories of ego-trips and business squabbles centering on the profits of the Beatles’ own music- publishing company, Apple Enterprises.
Epstein pooh-poohed the stories, managed to hold the four together for a few more successful and profitable years. And then Epstein — the Fifth Beatle — died.
In 1970, it was all over.
On his own
John, on his own now, wrote and recorded “The Dream Is Over,” and said publicly he wanted the memory of the Beatles “off my back.”
Another song, “Woman is Nigger of the World,” in 1972 (which many stations refused to play because of its title) was also treated ironically by Lennon in the latest interview.
“I accepted intellectually what we were saying in the song,” he said, “but I hadn’t really accepted it in my heart.”
And so, five years ago, the Lennons suddenly became, in Yoko’s words, “permanently unavailable” for press interviews.
Lennon learned to cook and care for his young son and became, he said, “a househusband in every sense.”
Blamed for breakup
This change, however, only gave added intensity to the rumors that it was Ono who was somehow responsible for the breakup of the group; for the suspicions that she interfered rather than helped in the recording studio.
Lennon also gave the lie to that in talking to Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times.
She had been, he said, an artistic catalyst for him: questioning, discussing and challenging. When they split up for 18 months during the early ‘70s (and Lennon reacted with a drunken “long weekend” in Los Angeles), he said one of his discoveries was that he needed her as much as he needed his music.
New York, N.Y. — A 25-year-old Hawaii man who apparently stalked John Lennon for three days was held Tuesday on a charge of gunning down the singer-songwriter who helped make the Beatles musical superstars and pop-culture legends in the 1960s.
The suspect, Mark David Chapman of Honolulu, was taken under heavy guard to the Tombs prison in downtown Manhattan early Tuesday to await arraignment.
A police source, who asked not to be identified, said Chapman gave different stories to detectives about the slaying. But he said Chapman was emphatic that he knew he was shooting the 40-year-old Lennon.
Minutes after the shots rang out Monday night, police took Chapman into custody. He was charged early Tuesday. No motive was known immediately. Fearing for the suspect’s safety, police were keeping Chapman under tight guard.
“Remember a gentleman named Lee Harvey Oswald?” asked a police spokesman. “We’re not going to permit that here.”
Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby while in police custody two days after he was arrested for the shooting of President John F. Kennedy.
Rushed to hospital
Yelling “I’m shot,” Lennon staggered and collapsed face down after the shooting at 10:50 p.m. EST Monday. Police rushed the former Beatle to Roosevelt Hospital in a squad car.
Lennon rocketed to fame as guitarist, singer and songwriter in the early 60s with fellow Beatles Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” sobbed his wife, Yoko Ono, when doctors pronounced Lennon dead. Lennon had said in an RKO radio network interview only hours before his death that he hoped to die before Ono because “if Yoko died, I wouldn’t know how to survive. I couldn’t carry on”
Police said the gunman emerged from the shadows as the Lennons stepped out of a limousine after a recording session and walked past the Dakota apartment building’s giant iron gate into the archway.
Lennon’s autograph
According to authorities, Chapman had come to New York from Hawaii about a week ago and was seen near the Dakota three times in the last three days. As Lennon left his recording studio earlier Monday, Chapman got his autograph, police said.
“Mr. Lennon?” police quoted him as saying before be allegedly fired five shots from a .38. caliber pistol.
Lennon, with three wounds in his chest, two in his left arm and two in his back, stumbled into an office and crumpled to the floor.
While the doorman summoned police and doctors, witnesses said, Chapman waited calmly. They said he dropped his gun, which a guard kicked aside and saved for police.
“Do you know what you just did?’ the doorman asked Chapman.
“I just shot John Lennon,” the gunman replied.
Stephen Lynn, a physician at Roosevelt Hospital, said: “I’m sure (Lennon) was dead when he was shot. Extensive resuscitation efforts were made and despite transfusions and other methods, he could not be revived.”
No criminal record
Police, who found Chapman standing near the scene, were considering the shooting “just as important as the assassination of John F. Kennedy,” said Lt. John Schick.
Police initially referred to the suspect as a “local screwball.”
Chapman, an unemployed security guard, bought a .38-caliber handgun in Hawaii six weeks ago, according to Honolulu police. He had no criminal record, so a gun permit was granted, police said.
Chapman lived with his wife in the high-rise Kukui Plaza. Mrs. Chapman, who spoke with reporters by phone and from behind the closed door of their apartment, said her husband had lived in Hawaii for four years, was unemployed and out of town. She would not say where.
She said she had heard of the shooting but had not been contacted by police.
John Lennon was born Oct. 9, 1940, in Liverpool, and his father, Alfred Lennon, deserted the family to seek the seafaring life when John was 3 years old.
Lennon’s mother, Julia, died in an automobile accident before he was 14. However, before that he had gone, by choice, to live with a favorite aunt, Mary Smith.
Still, Lennon was always gentle in remarks about his mother, He said he considered her responsible to a large degree for his later success; she was a pianist’ who taught him basic chords when he acquired his first guitar and encouraged him in his interest in the early recordings of Elvis Presley, whom he frankly credited as a major inspiration in his early years.
In 1958, he met Paul McCartney, and the two young men helped each other in mastering the guitar and in developing personal musical techniques.
Billed as the Nurk Twins (a title borrowed from Royal Air Force slang), they began to offer occasional performances, and in the following year were joined by another guitarist, George Harrison, and by drummer Pete Best. They called themselves first the Quarrymen Skiffle Group (derived from John’s old private school) and then the Moondogs, later the Moonshiners.
“Silver Beatles”
Later, they became the Silver Beatles (“Never mind where that comes from; if you don’t know, you don’t want to know”) and finally—perhaps, as manager Brian Epstein like to explain, because of the four-four beat insistence—as the Beatles.
In October 1961, Epstein, who ran a family record business not far from the club, received a request for a record called “My Bonnie,” made by the Beatles as accompaniment for Tony Sheridan, a popular singer.
Epstein ordered 200 copies of the record, promptly sold them out, and went looking for the group that had made it.
“Dead scruffy and untidy they were in those days,” Epstein said. “But you could feel it, something happening when they worked, something exciting—this amazing communication with the audience, and this absolutely marvelous humor. Well, I knew they could be on of the biggest theater attractions in the world, didn’t I? So what was I to do, let it pass by?”
Epstein became the Beatles’ manager in January 1962. He got them a contract with Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd. (EMI). Their first hit, “Love Me Do” (written by Lennon and McCartney in an idle hour) sold 100,000 copies.
It was followed in the spring of 1963 by “She Loves You,” which sold a million copies, and by the albums “Please, Please Me” and “With the Beatles,” each of which sold 300,000 in their first exposure.
Meanwhile, the composition of the group had changed.
Best had departed to be succeeded by Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr.
“The rest,” Epstein was fond of saying, “is musical history…”
Their appearance at the London Palladium in October 1963 established the Beatles’ status as a British musical institution.
“The only good story”
“Part luck,” said Lennon. “You know, there were no wars, no invasions, no state secrets opened up that particular day. The Beatles were the only good story the London comics had—so they played it up.”
In 1963, the Beatles were booked on their first American venture beginning, in February 1964, with an appearance on the “Ed Sullivan Show” for CBS-TV, plus two Carnegie Hall concerts.
Beatlemania was at its height in the US after the first tour, and there were more records, more tours, the movies, the books. Then for a while, it seemed to come to an end.
More to the story
But there was more to the story so far as Lennon was concerned.
“The times were changing’,” he said. We hadda’ grow another skin, four of ‘em, didn' we? So we did it.”
Even the music changed: Hard acid rock, it was called, and Lennon admitted that he and the others “held breath a bit” to see what the reaction would be.
It was ecstatic.
In 1962, Lennon married Cynthia Powell; they had one son, Julian. In 1968, they divorced, and Lennon married Yoko Ono, by whom he had a son, Sean.
There were rumors of dissension within the group; stories of ego-trips and business squabbles centering on the profits of the Beatles’ own music- publishing company, Apple Enterprises.
Epstein pooh-poohed the stories, managed to hold the four together for a few more successful and profitable years. And then Epstein — the Fifth Beatle — died.
In 1970, it was all over.
On his own
John, on his own now, wrote and recorded “The Dream Is Over,” and said publicly he wanted the memory of the Beatles “off my back.”
Another song, “Woman is Nigger of the World,” in 1972 (which many stations refused to play because of its title) was also treated ironically by Lennon in the latest interview.
“I accepted intellectually what we were saying in the song,” he said, “but I hadn’t really accepted it in my heart.”
And so, five years ago, the Lennons suddenly became, in Yoko’s words, “permanently unavailable” for press interviews.
Lennon learned to cook and care for his young son and became, he said, “a househusband in every sense.”
Blamed for breakup
This change, however, only gave added intensity to the rumors that it was Ono who was somehow responsible for the breakup of the group; for the suspicions that she interfered rather than helped in the recording studio.
Lennon also gave the lie to that in talking to Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times.
She had been, he said, an artistic catalyst for him: questioning, discussing and challenging. When they split up for 18 months during the early ‘70s (and Lennon reacted with a drunken “long weekend” in Los Angeles), he said one of his discoveries was that he needed her as much as he needed his music.