I remember watching aghast when the news came in that John Lennon had been murdered in cold blood outside his home at the Dakota Building on New York's fashionable West 72nd Street. This senseless taking of a life still remains vivid in my mind as if the event had occurred more recently and it is a sign of getting old that I can recall what happened on the night of 7 December 1980 - 30 years ago. Had he lived, John Lennon would now have been 70-years of age.
Mark David Chapman, apparently for no reason at all except to gain some kind of warped notoriety pumped five bullets from a ,38 revolver into Lennon's back at around 10.50pm local time and the singer was pronounced dead on arrival at the Roosevelt Hospital at 11.07pm. Earlier in the eveing Lennon had autographed a copy of the Double Fantasy album for his killer. The world lost a talented, sensitive song writer - one of the 1960s great icons - perhaps the most popular of the Beatles and Yoko Ono became a widow. Chapman remains in an American jail having been denied parole several times. Finding the killer had been easy because Chapman had remained on the scene waiting for the arrival of the police.
Lennon was cremated at the Ferncliff Cemetery, in Hartsdale, New York and Yoko scattered his ashes in Central Park.
Read The Guardian article on John Lennon
Read Ray Connolly's article on John Lennon
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