[crowd clamoring]
[reporter 1] Right now, I would say there's about 500 people
standing around, and they have strange looks on their faces.
It's a look of-- I don't know, it's hard to describe.
They seem to be in a daze.
They just can't believe John Lennon is dead.
[reporter 2] It was a somber crowd. They had not come to socialize.
They'd come to mourn.
John Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, had asked that the singer's death...
[interviewee] In the morning after John died,
I went through the gate,
and there was a police yellow tape
around the driveway area.
And there was broken glass on the ground.
And John's blood on the, uh, sidewalk,
and I had to step over that to enter the building.
Yoko was barely there.
She stared at the television for a while, although the sound was off.
It was only showing one thing over and over and over again.
We heard the singing from downstairs, although we were on the top floor.
We heard it very, very clearly.
And then she looked at me and said, "Why would that man do that?"
Yes. Uh, I'm the chief of detectives, James T. Sullivan,
New York City Police Department.
We asked you to come here to, uh,
give you a briefing on what we know at this point
and what has... [stammers] ...occurred at this point
regarding the homicide of John Lennon.
We have arrested Mark David Chapman
of 55 South Kukui-- K-U-K-U-I-- Street,
Hawaii, for the homicide of John Lennon.
[journalist 1] Does he have a history of psychiatric care?
[Sullivan] We don't know that at this point.
[journalist 2] How did he behave? Did he appear rational?
- He behaved very calmly. - [journalist 3] Could you tell us where...
- [journalist 2] But was rational? - ...Mr. Lennon was shot, please?
Uh, there were th-- He was shot three ti-- Well, no.
I can't say that he was shot.
That will be determined by the medical examiner.
But there are seven... [stammers] ...wounds.
And they can be entries and exits, though.
[journalist 4] How many shots was fired?
The gun was empty. Five-- Five shots.
[journalist 5] Did he give any reason? Any motive?
No.
- [officer 1] Okay. Thank you. - Thank you.
[Sutherland] The world's media have descended
on the New York Police Department's 20th Precinct.
They're desperate to know more about the man
who has just assassinated John Lennon.
[journalist 6] Where had they been? Did they act together?
Thank you, everyone.
[Sutherland] They're allowed to roam around,
interviewing police dealing with the case.
Can I get-- Just let me get this paperwork done.
[NYPD officer] At the precinct... [stammers]
...I was surrounded by reporters 'cause everybody wanted to know.
[journalist 7] How many times was he shot?
[journalist 8] Was he unconscious?
He was, uh-- As far as I know, he was unconscious.
[journalist 9] Was he moaning, saying anything at all?
- No. - And how about Yoko?
She was hysterical. Hmm. Yeah.
It would be somebody from England, somebody from Germany,
I mean, just wanting to talk to me, you know, and--
This was such a major case that was heard around the world,
and everybody wanted to know.
What do we know about the suspect upstairs?
- What're you being told? - I know nothing, man.
[journalist 10] Where was he when you-- when you got there?
- He was already in custody. - [journalist 11] Who's he being held by?
He was being held by Police Officer Spiro.
[journalists clamoring]
[journalist 12] Have you got a description of the suspect,
like a general description?
[Palma] When I was assigned to guard, uh, Chapman at the detectives office,
it was... [stutters] ...shocking, you know,
to be sitting there with this-- this guy who just killed John Lennon.
And at first, he was very calm,
but then he started to get nervous, and he started shaking.
And the detective came in and said, "We notified your wife in Hawaii that--"
Then he really got-- he really got upset and nervous.
And he said, "I have to go to the bathroom."
I said, "Okay, I'll take you, uh, to the bathroom."
I took him to the bathroom.
And while I was in there, I said to him,
"Do you realize what you've done here?"
He says, "Yes. I-I killed myself. I'm John Lennon."
And I-- [sighs] I just looked at him. I-I felt like, you know,
I wanted to throw him out the window, you know, but... [sighs]
[people clamoring]
[Sutherland] The police take an initial statement from Chapman.
He's then allowed to speak to his wife.
[phone line ringing]
- [Spiro] Hello, Gloria? - [Gloria] Yes.
[Spiro] Yeah. This is Police Officer Spiro.
- [Gloria] Yes. - [Spiro] I'm here with your husband.
- [Gloria] Uh-huh. Is he-- - [Spiro] He just wanted me
to get you on the phone first to tell you that he's all right.
- [Gloria] Uh-huh. - [Spiro] He's gonna talk to you now.
[Sutherland] Their phone conversation is recorded in case Chapman
reveals any key information.
- [Chapman] Hi. - [Gloria] Hi, Mark.
[Chapman] Are the police with you?
[Gloria] No. [chuckles] First call I got was a reporter.
[Chapman] Well, I don't want to talk to anybody else.
[Gloria] I know, but you don't want me to go there then?
- [Chapman] Where? - [Gloria] To New York.
[Chapman] No. No. No. Just stay where you are.
[Gloria] Has it hit you yet, what you've really done?
[Gloria] Okay. I love you though. [sobs] I always will love you.
[Chapman] I love you too. Love you.
[Gloria] Okay. Bye.
[phone disconnects]
[Hoffman] The problem was not, "Did we have the right man?"
We did have the killer.
We were very positive about that, but we just wanted to close
every possibility that he had no help or anything.
I wanted to get all the possible witnesses and anybody
that saw anything together before they disappeared.
[Sutherland] Taxi driver Richard Peterson
steps forward as a crucial witness.
When I got to the police station, it was a madhouse.
A madhouse.
The press had begun to... [stutters] ...assemble.
It was a big deal.
They questioned me, and I told them exactly what I saw.
But they made me repeat it a thousand times
because it's the weirdest thing.
After he shot him,
Chapman was still standing there with the gun.
And he dropped the gun, took off his overcoat,
and pulled out that book and held it up.
Catcher on the Rye.
[Sutherland] This bizarre behavior is corroborated
by one of the first police officers at the scene.
One of the unusual things was when Chapman was apprehended,
he was not trying to flee, but he was reading a book.
I go back to, uh, you know, the maybe minute or two
that he had to run into the park and disappear,
get on a plane and go back to Hawaii.
And who would know?
[Sutherland] After questioning, the police charge Chapman with murder.
[journalists clamoring]
[Cullen] When they took him out of the station house,
down to court, it was decided that if--
Somebody may want to take a shot at this guy.
So, let's do a decoy.
Now we had to get a volunteer who was gonna be the decoy. [chuckles]
Some guy who didn't care about life too much.
I don't know who it was. And that's what happened.
The picture you see of Steve taking him out is not him. [chuckles]
He went out another door and then in a patrol wagon down to court.
[Sutherland] While he is taken to court to be charged,
journalists from around the world begin
the process of finding out who Mark Chapman is.
As Beatles fans held their own private vigils,
the same question was on everyone's lips:
Why would anyone want to kill John Lennon?
The suspect is identified as Mark David Chapman, 25 years old.
[reporter 3] Mark David Chapman, an unemployed security guard from Honolulu.
[reporter 4] Mark David Chapman,
identified as a freelance photographer from Honolulu, Hawaii.
[reporter 5] Well, we know Chapman worked as a housekeeper
and printer at the Castle Memorial Hospital...
...picture. Every time a new fact comes into view,
the picture of Mark David Chapman changes.
You see, the whole world knows who John Lennon was,
and now we're trying to get our grips--
We're trying to get a picture of his alleged killer,
perhaps to make some sense of it, if any.
[Sutherland] Police discover, the night before the murder,
Chapman stayed at the Sheraton Hotel.
[Sutherland] They ask a judge for a warrant to search his hotel room.
And detectives arrive at the scene.
[elevator dings]
[Hoffman] After arresting the subject,
we went to the hotel room and got permission to enter.
We found, on the dresser, pictures and certain--
and personal possessions of Chapman.
Obviously, for us to find.
"The defendant had laid the following items on the table:
his passport, an 8-track tape of the music of Todd Rundgren,
a Bible open to the gospel according to John.
At the center of the arrangement of personal effects,
he had placed a small Wizard of Oz poster."
"A letter from a former YMC supervisor at Fort Chaffee,
where he had worked with Vietnamese refugees."
He was-- Always seemed to be working with children,
or people that needed help.
[Sutherland] For some, the items left by Chapman
prove the murder was premeditated.
Not only had he planned the killing,
but he'd also anticipated the police investigation.
For Chapman's defense team, however,
the display is clear evidence of his insanity.
[reporter 5] Another part of the picture comes from Mark Chapman's lawyer,
Herbert Adlerberg, who convinced the court
to put Chapman under psychiatric observation.
He seems confused.
He seems, uh, at least in my opinion, unable to fully cooperate
with his attorney at this point. And, uh--
In what way?
Well, his answers are not responsive to the questions that I pose to him,
specifically the questions dealing with the incident itself.
Uh, and I thought that it would be advisable
to have him examined psychiatrically before any further proceedings occurred.
[Sutherland] Chapman is taken to Bellevue Hospital
prison ward for evaluation.
Assistant Commissioner Ed Hershey awaits his arrival.
[Hershey] I was at Bellevue when he was brought in.
[people chattering]
[Hershey] And I actually went up in the elevator to the floor
that our jail complex was
with him and the officer who was escorting him.
And we were inches apart.
I said to him, "You okay?" And he nodded.
I remember thinking how ordinary he looked.
There was nothing particularly distinguishable about him.
And I was trying to think of stuff
because I had to go tell the reporters what I'd seen.
He almost looked at peace.
Boy, he did not betray any emotion at all.
This is the prison unit of Bellevue Hospital where Mark Chapman,
the alleged killer of former Beatle, John Lennon,
is being held on a second-floor cell amidst extraordinary security precautions
by the Department of Corrections.
[Sutherland] Chapman is now in the hands of psychiatric professionals,
and Dr. Naomi Goldstein assesses his sanity and ability to stand trial.
She's never spoken publicly about her findings before.
They send him in, and he walks in.
And I say, "Hi, I'm Dr. Goldstein. Would you have a seat here?"
I wanted to know what happened and how he got there.
And we talked for quite a while, if I recall.
He showed so many different facades.
He could be nasty. He could be sweet. He-He was difficult.
He was... [stammers] ...trying to avoid giving straight answers,
so it was a puzzle.
"Speech coherent, relevant and logical.
Very anxious, hyperventilating and exhausted,
but cooperative, appropriate and in good contact."
Meaning he's talking to me.
[crowd singing "Give Peace A Chance"]
[Mintz] When I was in the old bedroom with Yoko,
we heard John's songs being sung by thousands of people.
[singing "Give Peace A Chance" continues]
Ringo was the first to call and to physically show up.
[stammers] John loved Ringo. Spoke about him all the time, glowingly.
[Ringo Starr] I went into the Dakota.
I said to Yoko, "I know how you feel."
And the woman, straight as a die,
she said, "No, you don't."
Because no matter how close I was to him,
I was not half as close as she was to him.
[Starr] And there were people, while we were there, shouting up,
you know, to Yoko, "Come to the window." Or Sean.
Uh. Where-- I mean, in fact, it would have been better
if they'd all left her alone because they're not gonna bring him back.
And they didn't help her by having this whole crowd outside,
uh, playing his music.
[shouting, clamoring]
[Starr] And then when we came out,
I didn't need to hear people telling me how much they loved the Beatles
or any of that when we'd just lost John.
'Cause I wasn't there to see a Beatle.
I was there to see my friend not relating to this band.
[Mintz] This is what Yoko wrote on December 9, 1980.
"There is no funeral for John.
Later in the week, we will set a time for a silent vigil to pray for his soul."
With John... [stammers] ...he was to be cremated
and his remains, to this day, remains in an undisclosed place.
[Sutherland] Lennon's sudden murder without any apparent motive
leaves those closest to him desperate for answers.
[Mintz] I've never expressed this before.
One of the things that Yoko asked me
was to look into the various theories,
the conspiracy theories, uh, after... [stammers] ...John's murder.
[Sutherland] Some believed hidden forces might be behind Lennon's murder.
In the 1970s, he was an outspoken figure in American political life,
mobilizing his huge following against President Nixon
and the war in Vietnam.
[protestors shouting]
We're here to bring the boys home, but let's not forget the machines.
Bring the machines home, and then we'll really get somewhere.
The two of them were convinced that the Dakota building,
their-- their apartment area, was being bugged.
There is no question
that the intelligence agencies of this country,
be it CIA, FBI, National Security,
a variety of others, were doing that.
[Lennon] I know the difference between the phone being normal
when I pick it up and when every time I pick it up,
there's a lot of noises, you know.
And I'd open the door and there'd be guys standing on the other side of the street.
I'd get in the car, and they'd be following me.
Suddenly I realized this was serious, you know.
They were coming for me one way or the other.
[Sutherland] John and Yoko's paranoia was well-founded.
[reporter 6] These FBI files, 26 pounds of them,
obtained by author Jon Wiener clearly reveal Lennon
was considered a political threat by the Nixon administration.
There are hundreds and hundreds of pages
written to the director of the FBI from Richard Nixon,
where it was determined that John and Yoko
were to be followed, monitored,
and steps were taken on the highest level of government...
to do something about the Lennon problem.
Nobody's ever given peace a complete chance.
Gandhi tried it and Martin Luther King tried it, but they were shot.
[Sutherland] If a third party was behind Lennon's death,
how might Mark Chapman have been involved?
[reporter 7] MKUltra is the code word for a secret CIA project
in which unsuspecting people were used in mind control experiments.
[Sutherland] Dr. Milton Kline, a world expert in hypnosis,
was a significant part of the CIA's MKUltra program.
Most government agencies concerned with intelligence operations
have been looking to hypnosis as a tool
to execute certain intelligence operations.
[Sutherland] Dr. Kline will later visit Chapman during his incarceration
and become part of his defense team.
[reporter 8] Documents clearly show that the CIA was attempting
to develop agents over whom they had as much control as possible.
It is the closest experimentation to brainwashing yet disclosed.
[Sutherland] The CIA was fascinated by the idea of mind control,
and some believed it had a role to play in Robert Kennedy's assassination.
[gunshots]
[reporter 9] Sirhan says he remembers
being at the hotel the night of the killing.
He remembers pouring coffee for a pretty girl,
and then he goes blank.
Sirhan remembered then walking through an alcove filled with mirrors,
and he was dazed by the mirrors.
The defense believes they put him into a form of hypnotic trance.
Sirhan remembered his first reaction was to shake hands with Kennedy,
but then as the crowd rushed at him, he pulled the gun.
[Sutherland] Chapman's unusual behavior immediately after shooting Lennon
is a key concern for lead detective Ron Hoffman.
[Hoffman] Was he alone?
Was somebody working behind the lines with him?
Was it a conspiracy?
All these questions started running through my mind and everybody else's mind.
We sent the team to Hawaii
to interview his current friends and relatives.
We spoke to his family.
We spoke to everybody that we could find that knew him.
He was very quiet most of the time, and he was a very good worker.
Soft-spoken, quiet, intelligent young man.
He, uh-- Very intellectual. Very level-headed
[reporter 10] In many ways, Chapman's life remains a jumbled mosaic.
His friends are still trying to put together the pieces,
are still wondering,
"Could the Mark Chapman they have known here these last several years
really be the same man who now stands accused of John Lennon's murder?"
[reporters speaking indistinctly]
[Sutherland] Chapman remains a puzzle,
and the world's media are as eager as the police to understand him.
They soon track down one of those closest to him in the hope of revealing more.
[reporter 11] A guard was posted this afternoon
at the Chapmans' 21st-floor apartment.
Chapman's wife, the former Gloria Abe,
is reported to be inside with a woman friend,
declining to speak with reporters.
We approached the door at about 7:00 this morning
before the guard was posted, and heard crying.
[attorney] She was so overwhelmed by the media.
She needed legal help, and she called me.
So, I thought the most effective way was to get all the press together in one room,
let them ask as many questions as they wanted to and be done with it.
[Gloria] Being a Beatles fan,
I mourn the death of John Lennon and feel great sadness for his wife,
Yoko, and his son, Sean.
I just want to say that I'm just very, very sorry that this had to happen to, uh,
Yoko Ono and-and her family, and that her husband had to die.
[Hart] When I heard her saying, you know,
"It's a great shame that he had to die,"
I wasn't sure whether that was Gloria's poor choice of words.
Because he didn't have to die if Chapman didn't go and kill him.
I don't think it bespoke of any foreknowledge
that he was going to die.
I don't think she had accepted, at that point,
the reality that her husband killed him.
Gloria did not do anything or participate in any way
in this trip in a way in which she did consciously
lend any support to, uh, Mark's actions.
[Hart] She... [stutters] ...didn't waiver much from that straightforward,
matter-of-fact presentation.
I would've expected more... [stutters] ...emotion.
I think that's just the way she is.
I'm a Christian, and I believe that forgiveness is one of the greatest things.
I've always felt that I'm a very forgiving person.
[Sutherland] Gloria answers questions from the press,
but there are aspects of her relationship with Chapman that are not disclosed.
[Hart] She told me that after they married, Chapman, uh,
took to, uh, drinking and even hit her several times.
And then, uh, you know, he would be unkempt and kind of out of it.
And this caused her to have some great doubt about his mental health.
[Sutherland] Back in New York, psychiatrist Dr. Naomi Goldstein
has reached a conclusion regarding Chapman's ability to stand trial.
Competency to stand trial is defined as the ability
to understand the charges against him and to cooperate in his own defense.
Nothing remotely psychotic came out of him.
No evidence of hallucinations or delusions.
Final assessment: Fit to stand trial.
Step to the side, folks. Come on, folks. Step to the side. Come on.
[Sutherland] With the trial imminent, anti-Chapman sentiment
shifts the public mood from grief to anger.
[journalist] Mr. Adlerberg, can you tell us why you've resigned?
[Sutherland] It proves too much for even his own lawyer.
Crackpot calls, curiosity seekers.
My phones were tied up constantly throughout the day.
I felt I couldn't really represent this fellow
to the best of my ability under those circumstances.
[officer 2] Walk back. Walk back.
[Hershey] We had to make the assumption that any number
of people would have loved to get at him
because we had an individual who had just shot a Beatle.
So we needed to find the most secure place in our system,
and overnight it was determined that that was
in an infirmary on Rikers Island.
[reporter 12] Mark David Chapman was moved from Bellevue Hospital
yesterday following an avalanche of death threats.
[sirens wailing]
[Hershey] Rikers Island Prison is in the East River,
reachable only by bridge,
and it is fairly remote considering it's in the city of New York.
That isolation made it ideal for somebody like Chapman.
[Sutherland] Amid the growing hostility,
a young and relatively inexperienced defense lawyer steps into the limelight.
[reporter 13] Thirty-seven-year-old Jonathan Marks said he was
called this morning and asked if he would take the case.
He told reporters he couldn't think of a reason why not.
[journalist] The fact that a lot of people are angry with, uh, Mr. Chapman--
the fact that you're going to represent him--
how do you feel about that?
Well, I can't imagine that anybody who feels anger for Mr. Chapman
would take that out on me.
I am simply a lawyer representing a client.
[Sutherland] To assist with the growing scale of the case,
Marks recruits a junior lawyer, David Suggs.
[Suggs] In my view then and now,
there's really no higher calling for a lawyer
than to defend an unpopular criminal defendant.
But there was no question that, uh, you know, you were feeling the pressure.
I'd been on a number of high-profile cases before.
But as it turned out, this was like a quantum leap... [chuckles]
...beyond anything else I had ever worked on.
[Sutherland] In preparation for trial,
Chapman's defense team start visiting him in prison.
[Marks] It is Sunday
and I'm at Rikers Island
to see Mark Chapman.
[Sutherland] They now record every conversation they have with him.
[Marks] I'm truly happy
to be representing you.
[Sutherland] These conversations have never been heard publicly before.
[Chapman] Do you promise that, uh--
I'll just ask this once and I won't ask it again.
Uh, you'll stick this out with me?
[Marks] I promise.
And you can ask that as many times as you like.
It was weird because you could talk to him at times
and he would seem pretty normal.
And then wham!
Out of his mouth in the next instant would come something
that was just so out of left field, uh,
you know, you realize, "Oh, yeah, he's crazy."
[Marks] So, tell me what happened.
[Chapman] Well, this is kind of a crazy thought.
I thought I would turn into somebody if I killed somebody.
[Marks] What did you think you'd turn into?
[Chapman] You know the book The Catcher in the Rye?
- [Marks] Yeah. Yes. - I had that book on me, you know?
I thought that I would turn into the character of the book.
Now, I realize that-that--
[Marks] What'd you think you'd turn into?
[Chapman] Holden Caulfield.
He thought he was going to turn literally into Holden Caulfield,
the character in the book The Catcher in the Rye.
He was gonna change from, you know... [stammers] ...a pretty stout,
uh, young man into a t-tall, uh, slender, uh, teenager.
He was not rational.
This was not a whodunit. Clearly, he shot Lennon.
He made no attempt to escape.
The question was going to be,
"What was his mental state at the time he committed the act?"
You know, our intent was to prove to the jury that this man was, in fact,
insane, uh, and warranted, uh-- as a result of that-- uh,
psychiatric care, um, as opposed to, you know,
punishment in a, uh-- in a prison.
[Sutherland] The prosecution, however, don't accept Chapman's insanity defense.
Now, if someone were suffering from a mental disease so severe
that they picked up a gun and thought that it was a banana,
uh, that would be one-- one pathway to establish an insanity defense.
But in our view, he didn't have a mental disease.
He knew what he was doing, he had a gun, he used it for its intended purpose.
And-And he knew what he was doing was wrong
because after the murder, he waited for the police to arrive.
[journalist 1] And what will your psychiatrist examine?
- When will they be examining him? - [journalist 1] What and why.
And what for?
They're going to be looking into his state of mind at the time of the act.
[Sutherland] Chapman's lead lawyer, Jonathan Marks,
now reveals a controversial appointment to his team.
I've chosen, uh, the best I could find.
[journalist 2] Can you tell us who they are?
[journalist 3] Isn't Milton Kline a, uh, hypnotist?
Uh, Milton Kline is a clinical psychologist, uh,
and he does use hypnosis as a diagnostic tool.
[Sutherland] He's hired the former consultant
to the CIA's mind control program, Dr. Milton Kline.
You could train them to use firearms indiscriminately.
You could train them to shoot people with very little feeling or thought,
with no hesitancy, with no concern.
[Marks] Mark, this is Dr. Milton Kline.
[Kline] How are you, Mark? Good to meet you.
[Sutherland] If there are any hidden aspects to the murder,
Dr. Kline hopes to reveal them via hypnosis.
[Kline] What I'd like you to do, Mark,
is just focus your eyes up on the ceiling.
Just begin to close the eyelids down gently.
Let the whole body begin to relax now,
from the top of the head all the way back to the tips of the toes.
And feel yourself growing deeper and deeper relaxed now.
Deeper and deeper and deeper.
[Chapman] I'm in a very weird state right now.
I feel very relaxed.
- [Kline] It has that effect, doesn't it? - [Chapman] Mm-hmm.
[Kline] Try to visualize that scene for me if you would.
- [Chapman] The death scene? - Yeah.
[Chapman] Okay. I was sitting down and a car pulled up.
And I knew it was his, so I said, "This is it."
The door opened up. Yoko got out, and I nodded to her.
And then he came out.
I looked at John when he went by.
And then I stepped out off that little curb area,
walked about six feet, turned and faced him,
took the gun out of my pocket
and aimed it at him,
and then just fired away.
All five shots.
And then they took me away, and that's when I said,
"I'm the Catcher in the Rye."
[Kline] Do you remember how you were feeling? Just the feeling.
[Chapman] It just felt like it wasn't me, but it was me.
I did it, and I remember doing it.
[Kline] And what part of your mind made the decision?
[Chapman] Oh, I see a struggle.
Part of me didn't want to, part of me did.
All I remember is-is I had a voice in my head
that said, "Do it, do it, do it, do it," right when he was going past me.
And I did it.
[reporter 14] And now we will have ten minutes of silent prayer to pray,
as Yoko Ono has asked,
- for John Lennon's soul. - Ladies and gentlemen...
Please turn off all radios.
Please stop any sale or vending of any merchandise.
Meditate in your quiet way. We start now.
May we all pray. Thank you.
[Sutherland] As Chapman prepares for trial,
thousands gather for Lennon's vigil in Central Park.
One attendee has followed recent events especially closely.
His name is John Hinckley Jr.
He also has a copy of The Catcher in the Rye.
And he's about to shoot the president of the United States.
- [people clamoring, screaming] - [gunshots]
[reporter 15] Mark Chapman has pleaded innocent to the shooting
by reason of insanity.
God told him to do it.
He's guilty 'cause I don't believe in the insanity clause or whatever.
He wasn't mentally ill.
His intention was to bring fame to himself.
[interviewee] Under any other circumstance,
he would have been tried as an insane person.
He shot the wrong man.