Gary James' Interview With Fenton Bresler, Author Of The Book
Who Killed John Lennon?



On the evening of December 8^th, 1980, John Lennon was murdered in front of his apartment building in New York City. Lennon's assassin was Mark David Chapman. After committing the crime, and showing no emotion, Chapman calmly sat down and waited for police to arrest him. There was no trial in Chapman's case. He pleaded guilty and was Sentenced twenty years to life in Attica State Prison. No formal investigation was ever launched to determine Chapman's motive(s) for the killing. And today, many questions remain about the murderer of John Lennon. Was Chapman a "lone nut" or was he part of a conspiracy? British writer/attorney Fenton Bresler believes Mark David Chapman may have been programmed to kill John Lennon, programmed by the CIA. The CIA says that's "ridiculous," and Chapman denies any involvement in a conspiracy. Fenton Bresler addresses the mystery surrounding John Lennon's death in his book Who Killed John Lennon? (St. Martin's Press) We talked with Mr. Bresler about his eight-year investigation into John Lennon's murder and some of the startling discoveries he's made.

Q - You're not the first person to put forth the conspiracy theory. Within a month of John's death, S. J. Publications put out a magazine titled John Lennon, The Legend. Conspiracy? Do you have that magazine?

A - I have it. But there again, you see, when you look at some of the illustrations in that, men with beards, supposed to be anarchists. A lot of it was rubbish. I've dismissed it.

Q - Whatever happened to the record album that Lennon autographed for Chapman?

A - Well, that again is a mystery in itself. Quite honestly I wasn't all that concerned about it. One version is that it was picked up by someone at the scene, and is now in some rich man's collection. Another thing is that it was recovered and sold for charity. No one quite knows. Quite honestly I was really more concerned with more important matters than the album.

Q - Albert Goldman in his book The Lives Of John Lennon said the New York Police Department did an investigation into Lennon. They checked his long distance phone calls and looked into his private life. They sent detectives to Atlanta and Honolulu to investigate Chapman. Goldman then states "It seems odd that during the six years of intense research that formed the foundation for this book, virtually no one was found whom the police had interrogated closely, even among John Lennon's closest associates". He goes on to say, "The most notorious murder case in the recent history of New York City was buried in the files of the Police Departent where it remains to this day, inaccessible to Freedom Of Information Act inquiries." I don't understand what's going on here. Is this true?

A - Well, it's so typical of Mr. Goldman, a mixture of fact and nonsense.

Q - Alright, what's the factual part of it?

A - Well, the fact is, that investigation is buried in the files. But then I had a great deal of co-operation from the district attorney in the case, Allen Sullivan, who was very helpful and was prepared to show me what he could show me. The only problem is, when I came back from Honolulu, convinced there had been three missing days in Chicago (referring to Mark David Chapman's travel plans), the one document that could have proved there were no three missing days in Chicago, the 18-page chronology was missing from his files. So that solves that problem. And with respect, Goldman is talking nonsense or writing nonsense. I found that the senior officer dealing with the case, the Lt. of Detectives, whom I credited in the book, he said, "Counsellor, the case was a grounder." I didn't even know what the term meant. It was a smoking gun. There was no investigation. Now you see, I don't want to smear Mr. Goldman, but I think he does pay for information. I never have paid for information except for documents. If you pay for information, you tend to get the sort of information which the informant thinks you want to receive.

Q - And what of Mr. Goldman's claim that he had never run across the same people the police had interrogated. Is there anything to that?

A - I think it's nonsense. For a start, in his investigation Goldman never went to Honolulu. There was only one local man who conducted the investigation in Honolulu, and it wasn't the New York cops at all. It was one man called Louis Souza, who was a one-man band. I'm the only person to have interviewed him. It's always difficult to prove a negative, but the answer is no.

Q - Wasn't Chapman stalking John Lennon for years in Europe? Wasn't there a picture taken of Chapman sitting in the audience at one of Lennon's concerts?

A - That's the sort of thing you read, I won't necessarily say in the publication you mentioned earlier, but it's in that kind of publication. Look, when you have a case like this where there was no trial, there was no trial 'cause God told the boy to plead guilty; where there was no investigation because the New York police thought it was a grounder, you're gonna have all kinds of nonsense churned out.

Q - Someone wrote into Parade magazine and asked if there was any validity to the story that Chapman was programmed by the CIA to murder Lennon. Parade's response was, "No evidence has been provided to prove the allegation or theory that the CIA programmed Chapman to kill Lennon because he was a political rabble-rouser. John Mitchell, Richard Nixon's attorney general, wanted Lennon deported, but that's a far cry from conspiring with the CIA to have him killed."

A - I read it and I immediately referred it to my publisher because, shall I say this? I thought the timing of that little letter, that little question, was very interesting. The timing is right on to discredit my book. And I know my publishers have written to the man who does that page, pointing out the fact that to say there's no evidence is not quite right. There's 292 pages of my book that supplies the evidence.

Q - Chapman was not tested for drugs when he was arrested, and this was not normal procedure according to one Arthur O'Connor (Commanding Officer of the Detectives, 20th Precinct of New York Ponce, now retired).

A - Right.

Q - So, if we're going to have a cover-up, the beginnings of a cover-up would start right there.

A - Yeah.

Q - You'd want to know if the guy was drunk or stoned when he pulled the trigger.

A - I couldn't agree with you more. But what can I say? I'm just telling you what the man said. He said he could have been programmed or on drugs, and before I could even say it, he said, "We didn't check for drugs."

Q - But he didn't elaborate on that.

A - Well, he just said it wasn't standard procedure. The fact remains that, look, they just had that appalling crime with the poor girl who was a violinist with the visiting symphony orchestra in the Metropolitan Opera House. It was coming up to Christmas. They have twenty-four detectives for a precinct of one million people. There's a smoking gun. The man doesn't try to run away. He stands there and says, "Yes, I did it." You haven't got to be sinister to think that so far as the police are concerned initially, there was anything sinister about it at all. I'm not saying that for one second. The figures in the book, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think it was the 462nd street killing that year. So, just one more whacko kills a guy, big deal. It's Lennon. What a shame. No more than that. It doesn't mean to say that they're criminals or CIA agents in disguise. They're just ordinary human beings, overworked, underpaid, no doubt, doing a job under pressure.

Q - And there would have been an investigation had Chapman tried to leave the scene of the crime.

A - Oh, yes, of course. That's the point Arthur O'Connor made to me. But look, he accomplished his mission. He just stood there. I don't want to be arrogant and British and start telling you how to do your business because that's entirely wrong, and I don't mean to do that, but I do honestly believe that the investigation in London would have been better. I think Scotland Yard would have handled it better. I have to tell you that.

Q - And now we have a new killer on the loose, the "Celebrity Stalker." It's very frightening.

A - Of course it's frightening, but I think it's a by-product. If in fact, the conspiracy theory holds up and as you know, at the end of the day, I write in the book, "Members of the jury, the verdict is yours." If the evidence is right, what I've discovered about the three missing days in Chicago, and the fact that he wasn't a particular Beatle fan, the fact that he was not an ex-mental patient, that he was in Beirut in 1975, etc., etc., etc. If all that is right, what it means is this, that if you are to have that kind of political murder, you want it done by a so-called "lone-nut" because everyone accepts at once that it was a lone-nut, that it was a deranged fan or whatever. And that in itself inevitably, in time, breeds its own repetition. The one thing that the murder of Lennon did was it made an absolute boom in the minder business 'cause all the stars got scared. Now you have that kind of situation and inevitably there's going to be an imitative murder. Now, by working backwards, that could mean all the more that the original killing was political, and in fact was an assassin because it was done clinically and ruthlessly and cynically so that you would have these subsequent weirdos who shoot people like (actress) Rebecca Schaeffer, 'cause that makes the original murder all the more kosher, if you know what I'm trying to say. Are you with me or is that too convoluted a thought?

Q - I'm trying to sort it all out.

A - Let me try and explain it more simply. What I'm trying to say is this: The hypothesis is that Lennon was shot by someone who was not a lone-nut. In truth, neither was he a professional hit-man. He was in fact a programmed killer whom the CIA, or maverick elements within the CIA, because of Lennon's re-found political activism and the known conservative policies of the incoming Reagan administration, was undesirable as a person who was alive and well and still healthy. So, in order to mask the fact that it's a political killing, he is killed by someone who can be paraded, especially with a press that isn't too particular sometimes about the truth, as a deranged fan, a lone-nut. Now a by-product of that is that they know that inevitably that will make all the other stars get minders and get terrified about real deranged fans and inevitably, because this is the way murder goes, there will be imitative crimes, crimes by people who are genuine deranged tans. So the spin-off from getting a programmed, deranged fan to kill Lennon is that subsequently, almost inevitably, you're going to have some genuine ones.

Q - What did Mark David Chapman get out of killing John Lennon? Was he so crazy that he didn't even think about it?

A - Well, he wasn't totally nuts. He was a poor man and was programmed. He doesn't know even now why he did it. He wrote to me, "The reasons for killing Lennon are complex. I'm still trying to work them out." If I'm right and the book is right, then there are two victims of this tragedy. One is Lennon and the other is Chapman.

Q - Would Chapman's parents know what their son was doing in Chicago for those three missing days?

A - No. By then his parents were divorced. The father lived back home in Atlanta and has refused to talk to anyone. He's obviously out of the man's life. The mother was in Honolulu and she's given one interview to Jim Gaines of People magazine. And they don't even talk about Chicago. I've tried three times to speak to Gloria, the wife (of Mark) and she won't talk to me. What again I think is this: Souza, the Honolulu police lieutenant, doing his follow-up, said he wants to speak to the wife. And she says, and I'm not attacking her for one second, "I'm too upset." And he says "Okay." Can you understand that? Not pursuing an interview with the wife of the murderer?

Q - I think if I were in the CIA and wanted to eliminate John Lennon, I would have done it back in 1969 when he was singing "Revolution", not in 1980 when he's singing "Woman" and "Starting Over".

A - Aaah, no. The difference is that then he was just one more weirdo in a decade of weirdos, and his message was general. Now, if that is right, Reagan had just been elected president, and he was a threat to the Reagan administration. I'm not saying for one second that Reagan was behind it or Reagan knew anything about it. That's nonsense. But the fact is, Reagan was going to bring in conservative policies. But at the same time, there were those in authority who knew, so it was put to me that if there was one person who could bring a million people out in protest of the policies of the Reagan administration, it would be John Lennon. So, they got rid of him before he could even take the oath of office. And the fact remains Nixon didn't try to kill Lennon. Of course he didn't because he was not that powerful a threat. Besides, why do it? Get him out of the country cleanly and there's no need. That's what they tried to do to Lennon then.

Q - Is it too late to get to the truth?

A - I never say that. It's never too late to get the truth if the intention is there, if people were to exert pressure for there to be a re-opening of the investigation. It's not yet nine years. It could be done.

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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