Late on a mild December evening in 1980, a young man with a revolver shot John Lennon four times in the back as the singer arrived home from a recording studio with his wife, Yoko Ono.
Police found his killer reading a book as he waited for them to arrest him outside the Dakota apartment building in midtown Manhattan.
Lennon was rushed to hospital on the back seat of a police car but “did not have the slightest chance of surviving” despite receiving several blood transfusions, a doctor told reporters.
An AFP breaking news dispatch on Dec. 8 read: “Former Beatle John Lennon was assassinated in front of his home in New York.”
It was the start of a flood of media coverage th…
Keep on reading: Imagine: John Lennon shot on his doorstep 40 years ago
