John Lennon’s last day: A gripping NEW eyewitness account on the 30th anniversary of Beatle’s murder



On the morning of December 8, 1980, John Lennon was happy in New York, his adopted home, and looking forward to the future.

Having recently turned 40, he had finally recovered from the years as a Beatle that he so hated. His controversial love affair with Yoko Ono had survived, weathering even John's drunken and womanising 18-month bender in Los Angeles that he'd called his 'Lost Weekend'.

After a five-year 'retirement' as a house-husband, bringing up his son Sean, he had gone back to making records. And he had just learned that his new album in partnership with Yoko, Double Fantasy, had gone gold.

In the words of his old Liverpool friend Gerry Marsden: 'John had found peace at last.'

But by the end of that day, 30 years ago this Wednesday, John would be dead at the hands of deranged former fan Mark Chapman and the world would be in mourning.



Fateful meeting: Lennon signs a copy of his Double Fantasy album for Mark David Chapman, who would be waiting for the star six hours later in the same spot - outside New York's Dakota apartments building

During the past six months I have been the executive producer of a major documentary for ITV1, The Day John Lennon Died, in which we have interviewed all the key witnesses – from the fan who took the last photograph of John to the policeman called to the scene of the shooting and the doctor who held John's heart in his hands and battled to save him.

This, arguably, is the most comprehensive timeline of that fateful day . . .



10AM It is an unusually warm and sunny pre-Christmas day in New York. John's usual morning routine is to have coffee at Café La Fortuna near his home on New York's Upper West Side. But on Mondays the cafe is closed, so he leaves the family apartment in the Dakota Building around 10am, to get his hair cut in a Fifties Teddy Boy style at a nearby barbershop.



11AM Photographer Annie Leibovitz and her assistant arrive at the Dakota for a photoshoot for Rolling Stone magazine. John tells Leibovitz that he knows Rolling Stone wants him on the cover by himself but it is important to him to pose with Yoko.

The photograph Leibovitz takes of a naked Lennon entwined around Yoko in black, like a child clinging to its mother, is to become iconic. John tells the photographer: 'You've captured our relationship exactly.'



11.45AM Amateur photographer Paul Goresh arrives at the Dakota. Goresh is one of a small group of devoted fans who frequently hang around outside John's home and whom John has got to know and trust. Also waiting is a stranger – 25- year-old Mark Chapman.

As Goresh recalls: 'When I got to the Dakota, the only other person there was a guy standing with a long overcoat with a fur collar and a fur hat. He had a scarf on and he was holding John's album Double Fantasy and he says to me, "Are you waiting for Lennon?"

'And I said, "Yeah." He said, "My name's Mark, I'm from Hawaii." I said, "I'm Paul, I'm from New Jersey." 'He asked, "Do you work for him?" I said, "No." He told me, "I came all the way from Hawaii to get my album signed." So I said, "Where are you staying while you're in the city?" And with that he seemed to change his whole demeanour from like a dope to an aggressive person. And he said, "Why do you want to know?" And I told him, "Go back where you were standing and leave me alone." '



Yesterday and today: Mark Chapman's 1980 mugshot, above left, and another taken this year. He has been repeatedly denied parole, and will have the opportunity to apply again in 2012



12.40PM A team from RKO Radio in San Francisco, headed by Dave Sholin, arrive at the Dakota to interview Lennon.

'We drive up to the Dakota, which is a very impressive building,' says Sholin today. 'It takes your breath away. And then we were ushered into this incredible space, this beautiful room where you take your shoes off, which is a wonderful custom, sit down on a couch, and Yoko was there. And I looked up at the ceiling and I saw these beautiful clouds that were painted on it.

'Then the door opens and John appears and does this little jump up in the air and says, "Well, here I am, folks, the show's ready to begin."

'He spreads his arms out and comes over. It was like he wanted to make us feel very comfortable and it worked, because in a matter of two or three minutes we were conversing as if I'd known him for years. It was just that kind of chemistry and it was tremendous. In the three-and-a-half hours we were together, he could not have been more upbeat, more excited about what lay ahead – both musically and with Yoko and Sean.'



1.30PM Sean Lennon and his nanny, Helen Seaman, plus Sean's bodyguard, return home after spending the weekend on Long Island.



3.30PM Goresh goes into the Dakota to find out if John has signed a copy of his book A Spaniard In The Works, which Goresh has left for him.

'When I went back to my post outside, the guy with the overcoat was there and he was alone, again on the other side of the archway,' says Goresh.

'He came over and said, "I owe you an apology for the way I acted earlier. But you're in New York. You never know who you can trust these days." '



3.55PM John concludes his interview with Sholin, saying: 'I consider that my work won't be finished until I'm dead and buried and I hope that's a long, long time.'



Double Fantasy: Lennon's last studio album. It was this album cover that he signed for Chapman out the front of the Dakota building. It shows a quickly scrawled signature and the year

4PM As the RKO radio crew wait outside the Dakota for their limo, John and Yoko come out looking for their car to take them to the Record Plant recording studio in Midtown to work on a new song. Sholin says: 'John was looking around and for a split second, I'm thinking, "Well, this is pretty amazing – here is John Lennon outside in New York." I just dismissed it. In this town, I thought, it's no big deal and that was it.'

'John Lennon 1980': The simple and final autograph

Goresh adds: 'John said to me, "Don't forget to get your book." And as he was talking to me, the guy with the overcoat approached him from the left. And the guy didn't say a word, he just held the album out in front of John and John turned to him and looked at the album and said, "Do you want it signed?" And the guy nodded. He didn't say a word.

'It looked like a picture, so I snapped a couple of frames and the first picture I took was John signing the album. And the guy nodded and he took the album and he just backed away. And then John turned to me and looked at me as if to say, "That was peculiar."'



Meanwhile, there is still no sign of John's taxi. Says Sholin: 'So John is saying, "Well, our car isn't here. You're going to the airport, would you mind giving us a ride?" I said, "Hop on in." And on the way, I ask him about his relationship with Paul McCartney. [Lennon and McCartney had supposedly been estranged since The Beatles' breakup in 1971 and had traded insults on their respective solo albums].

'He says, "Well, he's like a brother. I love him. Families – we certainly have our ups and downs and our quarrels. But at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, I would do anything for him, I think he would do anything for me."

And we said our goodbyes and dropped John and Yoko off at the studio.'



5PM John and Yoko arrive at the Record Plant to continue work with record producer Jack Douglas on Yoko's Walking On Thin Ice, which is to be their next single. The lyrics are a 'spoken word poem' by Yoko which, like the song's title, will turn out to have a eerie significance. They are about John and Yoko and how they will be remembered after their deaths. John loves it and tells her over the studio talkback system: 'I think you've just got your first number one, Yoko.'

The last music John ever records is the guitar work on this track.

'John was really on top of the world,' recalls Douglas. 'We finished the mix that night and I walked him down to the elevator and I said, "I'll see you at Sterling," the mastering house, at 9am. And he was all smiles. He had a cassette of the song with him. And Yoko was all smiles. And the elevator door closed.'



10.30PM In the car, Yoko proposes going to the Stage Deli for something to eat before they go home. But John says he wants to go back to the Dakota to see Sean before he goes to sleep.

The December night is exceptionally mild. Instead of driving through the arch into the safety of the Dakota's inner courtyard, the limo draws up at the kerb.



John and Yoko: Ono is still angry that a man who became an icon for peace was killed so violently. She has made her wish clear that Chapman never be released

10.45PM As John gets out of the car, Chapman comes forward, still clutching his autographed copy of Double Fantasy. He softly calls out 'Mr Lennon', produces a .38 handgun and, dropping down into a combat stance, fires five shots, four of which hit John. John keeps walking, goes up the stairs into the porter's vestibule, then collapses, scattering the cassettes he's been carrying.

A few seconds later, Yoko bursts in screaming: 'John's been shot.' The duty porter, Jay Hastings, rings the alarm that goes through to the police, then kneels beside John to try to administer a tourniquet. This being futile, he removes John's glasses and covers him with his porter's jacket.



10.50PM Police patrolman Steve Spiro gets a call in his radio car to say there has been a shooting at 1 West 72nd Street. He and his partner, Peter Collin, get there in less than a minute.

'There was a man pointing into the vestibule and he said, "That's the man doing the shooting," ' says Spiro. 'We realised this is for real. I peeked in and saw a man with his hands up, so I threw this guy against the wall and at that point the porter says to me, "He shot John Lennon." And I said, "You what?"

'I saw two of my fellow police officers carrying a man out, face up with blood coming out of his mouth. I recognised John Lennon.'



10.53PM Patrolmen Bill Gamble and James Moran put John in the back of their car and speed to Roosevelt Hospital at 59th Street near Central Park. Yoko follows behind in another police car.



11PM Emergency Room doctor Stephan Lynn has left for the night, but the hospital calls him back. 'I actually got there before the patient,' recalls Dr Lynn. 'I didn't know exactly what was happening. Through the doors, two police officers came in. They were carrying a body over their shoulders. It was lifeless. We were ready.'

Also in the ER, after a motorcycle accident earlier that evening, was a young ABC newsman called Alan Weiss, for whom the events of that night are an indelible memory.

He recalls: 'The doctor said, "I'm going to take you into X-ray and see what the damage is." At that moment, the door behind me slams open and a man comes running in yelling, "We've got a gunshot, gunshot in the chest." And the doctor says, "When's it coming in?" He says, "Hitting the door right now."

'She says, "Alan, I'm sorry, I've got to take care of this." I reply, "No problem, I understand." And I can hear footsteps and the door opens up and I look behind me and in come I'm not sure quite how many police officers carrying a stretcher.'

Dr Lynn continues: 'We positioned the body in front of us on a stretcher in the resuscitation room. It was clear that there were three gunshot wounds in the left upper chest and one to the left arm. It was also clear that there was no circulation, no profusion.

'We initially didn't know that it was John Lennon. As part of our normal routine we took his identification out of his clothing and it said John Lennon but the nurses said, "This doesn't look like John Lennon, it can't be."

Happy couple: People close to Lennon and Ono, seen here being interviewed in the early Seventies, said the former Beatle was optimistic about the future the night he was killed

'Almost immediately thereafter Yoko Ono entered the emergency department. We knew who we were dealing with. We had a very important person in our midst and it was our job to attempt to resuscitate him.'

Still lying on his stretcher in the corridor outside, Weiss overhears two police officers talking. 'One says to the other, "Can you believe it – John Lennon?" I open my eyes and I look up and I say, "Excuse me sir, what did you say?" And he says "I didn't say anything," and he moves away.

'Well, did he say John Lennon? Did he say Jack Lemmon? Did he say some other name of somebody we don't know?

'And I hear crying. And I look behind me and in comes walking an Asian woman in a full-length mink coat. I knew it was Yoko Ono so it had to be John Lennon.'



11.10PM As Weiss hobbles to a payphone to alert his newsdesk at ABC, Dr Lynn and his team are battling to save John's life. But they find that Chapman's bullets – the kind which expand on entering the body – have destroyed all the blood vessels that leave John's heart, the aorta and all of its branches.

'We tried to find a place where we could stop the bleeding,' says Dr Lynn. 'I literally held John Lennon's heart in my hand and I massaged it to try to get his heart going again and we transfused blood. But it was clear with all the vessels destroyed there would be absolutely nothing we could do that evening. About 11.10, 11.15pm, we pronounced John Lennon dead.

'I think every one of us in the room suddenly realised what we were doing, where we were and who we were dealing with. A lot of people began to cry.

'We reminded the staff not to say anything to anybody until an appropriate Press announcement had been made. We told the staff that they couldn't sell their uniforms that might be blood-stained. We made certain that all the linens, all the equipment in the room were secured and that the medical record was tightly secured.'

In England: Lennon and Ono at home in Tittenhurst Park in 1970. John moved to New York the following year and, even before his death, became an iconic part of the city

Dr Lynn realises that he will have to break the news to Yoko Ono. Weiss – whom security men have by now moved into another corridor – hears the hospital sound system break into The Beatles' All My Lovin'. Two minutes later, he hears a shriek: 'Oh, no, no, no.'

Dr Lynn says: 'Her first response was immediate, "It's not true. You're lying. It can't be. I don't believe you." In my mind it literally felt like this was going on for about five minutes.

'She was lying on the floor, she was hitting her head against the floor. I put my hands behind her head to try to prevent damage to her.

'Yoko Ono was incredibly emotional for quite a long time. And in fact it was when one of the nurses bought in John Lennon's wedding ring and gave it to her that she accepted the fact that her husband was dead.

'And I was touched by the first thing she said. What she said was, "My son, Sean, is still awake. He's probably sitting in front of the TV set. Please delay making the announcement 20-25 minutes so I can get home and make certain that I tell him what happened before he sees it on TV." '



Thanks to the efforts of Weiss, it is ABC that breaks the news of John's death. Sports commentator Howard Cosell stuns millions by announcing it live during coverage of a Monday night American football game between the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots.

Fans begin gathering outside the Dakota Building in their hundreds, then thousands. Some even go on to commit suicide. There are spontaneous vigils in New York and Liverpool. It is the beginning of a wave of grief which will engulf the world.

Back in England, John's Aunt Mimi, his childhood guardian, is woken by a phone call at the house John has bought her overlooking Poole Harbour in Dorset.

Her reaction is the same as when John was a naughty schoolboy and the headmaster's secretary used to telephone: 'Oh Lord, what's he done now?'

