Review The John Lennon Assassination

[Doctor Omega]

Should Chapman ever be set free?

 

[Carol]

It was that awful "you'll never forget where you were" moment.
Even if he's served his sentence in full, the likelihood of being shot down himself within days of release is probably too high to risk -has anyone asked him how safe he'd feel walking down a street again?

 

[Doctor Omega]

I have never heard him say in interviews that he wouldn't feel safe if released. All he has said is that if he had to stay in prison forever, to make things right with Yoko, he would.

Yoko sends a letter to every parole hearing - next one due in 2018 - saying that neither she nor John's children would feel safe if he was released.

 

[Carol]

I hadn't heard that before - thanks. Thing is, I think he said he only shot Lennon to be famous - so the temptation to shoot the shooter in a fairly gun-fixated society must be worth avoiding, if only for the likely bystanders's sake

 

[Hux]

Had it not been Lennon, wouldn't he be out by now?

The problem with him being let out is that he would almost certainly gain financially. That doesn't sit well.

 

[Doctor Omega]

It is a tough one. The powers that be above him can't say that he is staying in because he killed JOHN LENNON who wasn't, say, a truck driver called Harry Dobbs, whereupon Chapman might well be out now.

On the other hand, how safe would he be on the streets, even if he is a changed and harmless man now?

So I think it is quietly agreed by all just to leave him where he is, even though it kind of elevates Lennon, in the eyes of the law, to being more important than said truck driver.

 

[Carol]

leave him where he is,

Though I'd like to think that any innocent truck driver shot down in the same way would have the same consideration, same for his loved ones, Chapman's whole - being famous for killing someone famous kicks in at some point. Waiting to see if the most recent, racist murder in New York gets the attention it needs.

 

[Amyghost]

A fascinating documentary on the night that John Lennon died...

Should Chapman ever be set free?

I'd say he should remain incarcerated, be it Lennon or Joe Blow whom he'd shot. From what I've read of Chapman he suffers from the sort of issues that are neither curable or easily controlled. After reading a pretty detailed story on him about a year or so ago, I feel more sorrow for him than anything else. He seemed as if he once might have been a fairly decent sort, til whatever it was went wrong, and then he began to disintegrate. But I don't think he's a good candidate for release now or ever. That's playing armchair psychiatric worker, I know, but from all I've ever read, including what Chapman has had to say about himself, his prognosis for living viably outside of an institutional setting doesn't sound too good.

I'd love to watch that doc, but I don't think I could. I still find this one too painful to dwell on, crazy though that might sound. There aren't any other celebrity deaths that have ever affected me as profoundly, for whatever that's worth.

 

[Carol]

for whatever that's worth.[/QUOTE

Worth lots my darllng - you had to be there to understand. Talked about it once to an older Irish friend who said the same about JFK. Sadly it might be universal - the "remember where you were when your hero X was viciously gunned down?"
I know that 2016's toll of famous deaths hit lots of people in different ways, so this isn't in any way a competition - but I don't know of any creative celebrity before Lennon who was actually murdered - bad enough when Elvis died... but killed was different.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Here is Yoko, when asked about the possibility of forgiving Chapman.....

... and here is Chapman in 1992, calmly (indeed, very calmly) recounting his memory of that night.

 

[TheSowIsMine]

Had it not been Lennon, wouldn't he be out by now?

The problem with him being let out is that he would almost certainly gain financially. That doesn't sit well.

You have the Son of Sam law that is designed to keep criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes.

 

[Hux]

That law doesn't apply in Britain. Our media would definitely want a piece of him.

 

[TheSowIsMine]

But he is an American citizen, so the law applies to him.

 

[Hux]

I think it would pretty easy to get around that. He'd definitely make money.

And how does such a law get policed? What if he gets a job as a janitor but only got it because the employer knew who he was and liked the idea of a celebrity janitor. Doesn't that mean he's indirectly profiting from his crime? Or I write a book (with his help) make a fortune and then "gift" him lots of money at Christmas (totally unconnected to the book, you understand)?

 

[chainsaw_metal1]

Ironic, is it not? This is a man that could have benefited greatly from some sort of mental help, but slipped through the cracks, and then was able to attain a firearm and kill a man. Famous or not, a man is dead because of that. And yet, thirty-seven years later, our elected officials - particularly in my state - continually cut funding for mental help and close down facilities - but refuse to make it more difficult to purchase firearms, because it's a "mental health issue, not a gun issue".

'Murica.

 

[Mary MacFarland]

He's a prime example of why we should reinstate the death penalty. Personally, I'm fed up with paying taxes so that people like him can be taken care of. If one commits a violent crime, especially murder, the death penalty should be automatically assigned and carried out immediately. I believe that if a felon is found to be mentally sound, and has been convicted of a brutal or violent crime, that individual just lost their rights. Why are we continuing to coddle these maggots? Is it wrong that someone like John Lennon who provided people all over the world with something to believe in and gets shot down by a waste of space loser like Chapman, be treated with some level of importance over the average citizen? I would hope that with all of the hearts that Lennon touched and all of the hearts that Chapman broke, somewhere in the settled dust there would be some level of superior justice for the victim and his family. If it were up to me with the remedial thinking taking place amongst the prosecutors/executioners, I would let the prisoner out now. Then, I'd start the bets rolling for how many days poor Chapman got to be alive as a free ex-con. My bet would be less than 24 hours. That's how to deal with our justice system. If we can't terminate him with the death penalty, let his peers do some target practice on him. Problem solved.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Moonlight Shadow


I did not realise for years, but this song is apparently about the shooting of John Lennon in 1980. The 'she' in the song would then be Yoko Ono, and the guy with the gun in the 'moonlight shadow' would be Mark David Chapman.


The first time ever she saw him
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
He passed on worried and warning
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
Lost in a riddle that Saturday night
Far away on the other side
He was caught in the middle of a desperate fight
And she couldn't find how to push through
The trees that whisper in the evening
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
Sing a song of sorrow and grieving
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
All she saw was a silhouette of a gun
Far away on the other side
He was shot six times by a man on the run
And she couldn't find how to push through
I stay, I pray
See you in heaven far away
I stay, I pray
See you in heaven one day
Four a.m. in the morning
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
I watched your vision forming
Carried away…

 

[Doctor Omega]

Some people have speculated that John had another stalker....

He confronted a seemingly homeless man in the grounds of his mansion in England....

Interestingly, he may have also been in touch with Lennon a second time. In an appearance on the Dick Cavett show in September 1971, an audience member that asks a question seems to bear a striking resemblance, in terms of both looks and voice:

Others believe it is a different man entirely.

 

[Doctor Omega]

On 30 December 1999, George Harrison and his wife were attacked at their home, Friar Park.

Michael Abram, a 36-year-old man, broke in and attacked Harrison with a kitchen knife, puncturing a lung and causing head injuries before Olivia Harrison incapacitated the assailant by striking him repeatedly with a fireplace poker and a lamp.

Abram suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, believing that Harrison was an extraterrestrial and that the Beatles were witches from Hell who rode broomsticks.

During the attack, Harrison repeatedly shouted "Hare Krishna" at Abrams.

Medical experts later stated that the phrase, which was unfamiliar to Abrams, further confused him and increased his paranoid state, and that had Harrison addressed him in a more conventional manner, Abrams may have been stopped the attack.

Following the attack, Harrison was hospitalised with more than 40 stab wounds.

He released a statement soon afterwards regarding his assailant: "[he] wasn't a burglar, and he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys."

 

[Doctor Omega]

Abram, who believed he was possessed by Harrison and that he was on a mission from God to kill him, was later acquitted of attempted murder on grounds of insanityand was detained for treatment in a secure hospital. He was released in 2002