Ex-Beatle John Lennon shot to death
'Local screwball' held in N.Y. slaying
NEW YORK (AP) ─ Former Beatle John Lennon, who with the long-haired British rock group was catapulted to stardom in the 1960s, was shot to death late yesterday outside his luxury apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side, police said.
Authorities said Lennon, 40, was taken in a police car to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
Police said the shooting occurred outside the Dakota, the century-old luxury apartment house where Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, lived across the street from Central Park.
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Police said they had a suspect and described him as "a local screwball" with no apparent motive for shooting Lennon.
Jack Douglas, Lennon's producer, said he and the Lennons had been at a studio called the Record Plant in midtown earlier in the evening and that Lennon left at 10:30 p.m. Lennon said he was going to get a bite to eat and go home, Douglas said.
A bystander, Sean Strub, said he was walking south near 72nd Street when he heard four shots. He said he came around the corner to Central Park West and saw Lennon being put into a police car.
"Some people said they heard six shots and said John was hit twice," Strub said. "Police said he was hit in the back."
He said others on the street told him the assailant had been "crouching in the archway of the Dakota . . . . Lennon arrived in the company of his wife, and the assailant fired."
He said the suspect, a "pudgy kind of man" 35 to 40 years old with brown hair, was put into another police car.
"He had a smirk on his face" when police took him away, Strub said.
Lennon rocketed to fame in the early 1960s when he and fellow Britons Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr introduced a new sound that changed the course of rock 'n' roll.
Lennon, who turned 40 on Oct. 9, was responsible for writing many of the songs that launched the Beatles in the early 1960s and heavily influenced rock music
After the Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon continued writing songs and recording. But in 1975, he dropped out for five years, saying he wanted to be with his son, Sean, and his wife.
It was not until last summer that he returned to music, and his 14-song album "Double Fantasy" was released last month.
