two men on intense personal journeys that converged in a single shocking act. i took five steps and fired. five shots. i literally held john lennon s heart in my hand. it was an unthinkable crime that left millions in mourning. the murder of john lennon next. it s a chilly night at around 10:45 p.m. police respond to a report of a shooting at the dakota. an exclusive apartment building on manhattan s upper west side. when we drove up to the dakota, there s a man standing in the middle of the street, pointing to the archway saying that s the man doing the shooting. we got out of the car, we approached the archway on each side of it. looked in and saw a man with his hands up. five shots had been fired. all but one found their target. so i grab the guy around the neck. the doorman, jose, said he s the one. he s the only one. he shot john lennon. i was totally shocked. i threw him up against the wall. i said you did what? former beatle john lennon has been shot
And said why do you want to know? sometime before 5:00 p.m., lennon and ono leave the apartment to go to his last recording session. chapman and gorish are on the sidewalk out front. chapman silently hands lennon his copy of double fantasy. guy came on john s left and held out the album and john turned and look theed at him and said do you want me to sign that? he nodded, john took the album. john said do you have a pen? he handed him a pen. john started to sign the album, and i had my camera on my neck, and it looked like a good picture, so i looked through the view finder, and i took the photo. that is the photo of john signing the album for his killer. and he looked at me, and he said, is that all? do you want anything else? and i felt then and now that he
To new york city and take up residence at the fabled dakota apartments. the dakota s gothic facade had been featured in the film rosemary s baby. it was home to the world s most famous actors and musicians. i think they viewed america as being a breath of fresh air for them at that time. little did they know what trouble awaits them. in new york, john and yoko adopted a high profile, politically and musically. it drew the attention and ire of the nixon administration. in the early 70s, the united states government began a campaign against john lennon to silence him. they were really concerned that he would influence young people voting in the 1972 election. and they didn t want that to happen. they were conducting surveillance operations. they were monitoring him. cars would follow him around.
Another fan named paul gorish. gorish, an amateur photographer, had come to know lennon personally. one of the photos was later used as the cover of lennon s when he was there, he was holding a copy of double fantasy in his left arm and this guy approached me and he said are you waiting for lennon? i said yeah. he said, do you work for john? i said no. he said, oh, my name is mark. he said, i m from hawaii. what struck me strange is when he said that he had a southern accent. so, i said, if you re from hawaii, how come you have a southern accent? and he said, well, originally, i m from georgia. and i said, oh. so i then said where are you staying while you are in the city? and with that, he turned to me
there was absolutely no evidence suggesting he was assisted or aided by another person. he was simply someone who acted alone without assistance of other people. i ve been through every fbi document in john s file. there is not one shred of evidence to suggest that the u.s. government had the least interest in john after 1972. what do you make of all the conspiracy theories that have come up in the last 12 years? cia, mind control, et cetera? against john lennon? yeah. hog wash. no one asked you to do it. no one prompted you to do it, no cabal, nothing? no, they probably wish they would have had me, larry, but they didn t. this was me doing it. more than 30 years after killing john lennon, mark chapman remains in prison. he first became eligible for parole in the year 2000. he has been denied at least seven times since then. i think it s best for mark chapman to stay in psychiatric