Murder of John Lennon Murder of John Lennon John Lennon was an English musician who gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, for his subsequent solo career, and for his political activism and pacifism. On the evening of Monday, 8 December 1980, Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman in the archway of the Dakota, his residence in New York City. Lennon had just returned from Record Plant Studio with his wife, Yoko Ono. After sustaining four major gunshot wounds, Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital. Shortly after local news stations reported Lennon's death, crowds gathered at
John Lennon one has only to review the literature of nonsense to see how well Lennon has brought it off. While some of his homonyms are gratuitous word play, many others have not only double meaning but a double edge." Lennon was not only surprised by the positive reception, but that the book was reviewed at all, and suggested that readers "took the book more seriously than I did myself. It just began as a laugh for me". In combination with "A Spaniard in the Works" (1965), "In His Own Write" formed the basis of the stage play "The John Lennon Play: