Witness Reveals John Lennon’s Last Words In New Documentary

The new documentary, John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial, gives more details about John Lennon’s tragic death in December 1980. The Apple TV series reveals the singer’s last words as told by the concierge of The Dakota building in Manhattan, where Lennon’s killer, Mark Chapman, shot him.

Jay Hastings recalled hearing Lennon mutter the words “I’m shot” before collapsing to the ground with blood flowing from his mouth. “I half rolled him to his back and took his glasses off, put them on the desk,” he added. “And Yoko was screaming, ‘Get an ambulance, get an ambulance, get an ambulance!’”

Mark David Chapman offers an explanation

Another witness recounted seeing Lennon’s shooter, who muttered the star’s name before killing him. “He was a chunky guy. I’m looking at him through the front window of my cab. I’m looking at him, shoot him. This guy just shot John Lennon,” taxi cab driver Richard Peterson said.

RELATED: Paul McCartney Says John Lennon Worried About How People Would Remember Him After Death

Audio recordings of Mark David Chapman, Lennon’s killer, before his trial revealed his reason for murdering him, citing the singer’s “phoniness,” making reference to a Beatles’ song lyrics. “’All You Need Is Love,’ have you ever heard that? Well, this is what I say to that: all you need is love and $250 million,” he told his lawyers. “He was the biggest, phoniest b*****d that ever lived.”

Nick Holt wanted to preserve the accounts

The docuseries director, Nick Holt, compiled these testimonies before they got “lost forever,” bringing together accounts from other contributors like nurse Barbara Kammerer, who broke the news of the singer’s death to Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, and first police responders.

More chilling audio from Chapman reveals that JD Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, inspired him to kill Lennon, because the book’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield, hates “phoniness.” He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, confessing to using hollow-point bullets to ensure fatality. He was sentenced to at least twenty years and has been denied parole 12 times so far.