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There’s no joy to be had in this subject, but it is an important topic for an open discussion. We have been fed a narrative for 43 years regarding the murder of John, yet there were aspects that either lacked detail or, upon closer inspection, made little sense. At least a couple of of authors have published books on the case, but documentary-maker David Whelan has approached the subject with fresh eyes, resulting in three years of research and interviews that he presents in Mind Games: The Assassination of John Lennon. He makes the case that virtually nothing we were ever told about what happened is supported by evidence and much is substantially contradicted. We managed to touch on only part of his research in this conversation, but you can learn more through the book, David’s Substack site, and his YouTube channel.
I haven’t read the book, but did listen to the full show. It got me thinking, when I consider traumatic things that I’ve experienced, that a lot of the contradictions and so on in this case, certainly with the recollections of people on hand at the moment it happened, are a mixture of trauma response to an experience that would be shocking enough if it were the death of someone who wasn’t one of Lennon’s stature, but as it was it came under the scrutiny of the world.
The talk of how the scene was in either the received narrative or speculative one just made me viscerally feel how horrendous it must have been to those present however many culprits there were. I wouldn’t necessarily hold anyone responsible for not having total recall, how they recalled it years later would be a mixture of horrifying moments of memory and what they read or discussed as they came to terms with it themselves.
As, I seem to remember was said in the interview, the fact that there was someone who seemed to be the perpetrator at the scene meant the police just did the minimum required which then opened the door for laziness and indifference when piecing together events – it probably didn’t matter to them whether he was shot from the front or back, just that he was shot and dead and they had someone saying they did it with witnesses corroborating that and it was John Lennon so everyone wanted to know instantly.
I did think that David Whelan because he couldn’t grasp that people do odd little things, or he couldn’t get why little anomalies, which are often the mainstay of everyday life and we are all capable of, are just things that happen or that the incompetence and laziness that we are all often guilty of in our everyday lives and in jobs we find boring doesn’t mean there are nefarious things going on. Possibly the things people say after to cover their errors, maintain job security and a lack of presence lead to speculation.
Lennon being shot in the early seventies would be open to these wonderings, but Lennon soon after his 50’s revival album and 5 years off isn’t so much, to me anyway.