The 7 most disturbing moments from Apple TV’s “John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial”

Jay Hastings — a former doorman at the Dakota, the New York City apartment building that Lennon called home during his final days — recalled what happened moments after Lennon was shot five times by Mark David Chapman on Dec. 8, 1980.

“He goes, ‘I’m shot,’ had blood coming out of his mouth already and just collapsed on the floor,” Hastings said. “I half-rolled him to his back and took his glasses off, put ’em’ on the desk. And Yoko was screaming, you know, ‘Get an ambulance, get an ambulance, get an ambulance!’”

In an exclusive interview with People, Hastings said he approached Chapman when he learned the assailant was still outside and unarmed. He noticed Chapman “facing the wall, doing something . . . He was reading a book.” The book was later revealed to be “Catcher in the Rye.”

When the police arrived, they initially thought Hastings was the killer: “I looked a little crazy, I already had blood on my hands, I just had my shirt on, my white shirt with no tie.” Chapman was later identified as the culprit. He was arrested and ultimately sentenced to 20-years-to-life for shooting Lennon.

Lennon was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, known today as Mount Sinai West, where hospital workers spent 45 minutes trying to find “some flicker of life” before announcing Lennon’s death.

“You could’ve heard a pin drop,” Barbara Kammerer, a nurse present at the scene, said. “You still want to do more, but now you know you stop and there’s nothing to say really, unfortunately. It’s just very, very quiet.”

Kammerer’s co-worker, emergency room nurse Deartra Soto, said that Lennon’s greatest hit song managed to find him during his final moments of life: “When [doctors] called [the time of death], and it was over, and we walked out of that room, the Muzak was playing ‘Imagine.’”

“That was everybody’s ‘Oh s**t’ moment,” Kammerer said.

News reports identified Chapman as a 25-year-old Beatles fan who was obsessed with Lennon’s lifestyle and public persona. Chapman was described as “an unemployed security guard from Honolulu,” “a freelance photographer from Honolulu,” and a former housekeeper and printer at the Castle Memorial Hospital.

Police discovered that Chapman had been staying at the Sheraton Hotel the night before Lennon’s murder. In his hotel room, Chapman laid out several items, including pictures and certain personal possessions, on his dresser. The items included his passport, an 8-track tape of the music of Todd Rundgren, a Bible open to “The Gospel According to John,” a small “Wizard of Oz” poster and a letter from a former YMC supervisor at Fort Chaffee (where Chapman had worked with Vietnamese refugees).

At this point, some investigators believed Lennon’s murder was premeditated. The items, along with their display and careful placement, proved Chapman had both planned the killing and anticipated the police investigation.

Chapman was eventually taken to Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward for psychiatric evaluation. He was greeted by Assistant Commissioner of Correction Ed Hershey, who recalled Chapman’s “normal” looks and calm demeanor.

“He almost looked at peace,” Hershey recalled. “Boy, he did not portray any emotion at all.”

“I’ve never expressed this before. One of the things that Yoko asked me was to look into the various theories, the conspiracy theories after John’s murder,” confessed Elliot Mintz, a family friend of Lennon’s.

Because Lennon was incredibly outspoken about his stance against Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, some fans believed hidden political forces were to blame for Lennon’s death. FBI files revealed that Lennon was considered a political threat by the Nixon administration. At one point, both Ono and Lennon were convinced that their Dakota residence was bugged.

In preparation for trial, Chapman’s legal team frequently visited him in prison to build his defense. Each conversation was recorded but never shared publicly. 

In one such conversation (played for the very first time in the documentary), Chapman revealed that he thought “I would turn into somebody if I killed somebody.

“You know the book ‘The Catcher in the Rye’? I had that book on me, you know? I thought that I would turn into the character of the book . . . Holden Caulfield,” Chapman is heard telling his attorney David Suggs.

Chapman’s new lawyer Jonathan Marks instructed him to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. But while under hypnosis, Chapman claimed he shot Lennon because the artist was “a phony.”

When asked to recount Lennon’s murder, Chapman said he saw a black limo pull up to the Dakota while sitting on the curb. He first saw Ono, then Lennon.

“I see a struggle,” Chapman said. “Part of me didn’t want to do it. Part of me did. I had a voice in my head, saying, ‘Do it! Do it! Do it!’” He then walked over to Lennon and began firing: “Took the gun out of my pocket and aimed at him and just fired away, all five shots. It felt like it was not me but it was me.”

In the tape recording of the hypnosis session, Chapman explained that the reason why he targeted Lennon was because of his signature catchphrase: “All you need is love.”

“All you need is love and $250 million. He was the biggest, phoniest bastard that ever lived,” Chapman said. “I wasn’t about to let the world endure 10 more years of his menagerie of bulls**t.”

In addition to Lennon, Chapman thought about killing other major public figures, including David Bowie, Johnny Carson, Paul McCartney, Ronald Reagan and Elizabeth Taylor.

Hours before Lennon was shot, he and Ono were finishing their album “Double Fantasy.” Lennon also spoke with RKO radio producer Laurie Kaye, telling her, “I consider my work won’t be finished until I am dead and buried. And I hope that’s a long, long time . . .”

After Lennon was shot, his final words were simply, “I’m shot.” Richard Peterson, a taxi driver who was present at the scene of the crime, said he momentarily thought he was being filmed for a movie. But that was far from the truth:  

“I thought they were making a movie. But I didn’t see no lights or cameras or anything,” Peterson said. “So, I realized, ‘Hey, this ain’t no movie.’”