by Steve Lehto
Outside, Chapman dropped his gun on the sidewalk and calmly walked to the curb. He began reading his copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Police arrived and decided they could not wait for an ambulance. Two officers carried Lennon to a squad car as other officers arrived on the scene. Lennon was pronounced dead at 11:07 P.M. but doctors later said that there had been no chance of saving him; his wounds were so severe that he was dead around the time the 911 call was placed. Chapman was taken into custody.
Many Americans would learn of Lennon’s death when Howard Cosell broke the news during Monday Night Football. As the New England Patriots prepared for a field goal in a game against Miami, Howard Cosell said, “An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City. John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the west side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all of the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that news flash.” He made a similar announcement a little later in the game.
Cosell was right: Lennon was well known and his fame in America was unquestionable. Not only was his work with the Beatles popular, his recent recordings had been doing well. He was only forty years old and had recently released a much-anticipated album of new music. Lennon was also a resident of New York City and was often seen in and around town, while the other Beatles all still lived in England. Trying to summarize or explain Lennon’s importance to music would be impossible and unnecessary here. The real mystery was: Who was Mark David Chapman and why did he kill Lennon?
Chapman’s father was in the military and, as a result, Chapman moved around a lot growing up. Born in Texas, he went to high school in Georgia. He achieved poor grades and later claimed he was the victim of bullying. He tried college but dropped out and then ended up working as a security guard. Depressed, he moved to Hawaii. In June 1979, he married, but the marriage did not resolve his problems. He attempted suicide and also began drinking. He confided in friends that he was “going nuts” and became obsessed with the book The Catcher in the Rye. He signed letters Holden Caulfield, after the book’s protagonist. He also became fixated on John Lennon, who famously lived in New York City and occasionally was spotted on the streets, just like anyone else. In October 1980, Chapman traveled to New York City and upon his return told his wife he was going to kill Lennon. Despite his showing her the gun and some bullets he had, she did not warn anyone. She apparently hoped he was getting treatment for mental illness.
In December 1980, Chapman again went to New York City. He spent three days hanging around the front of the Dakota. The doorman even became aware of him but considered him harmless. At one point the doorman saw a homeless person ask Chapman for a handout and Chapman gave him ten dollars. Sometimes Chapman wandered away. On December 7, Chapman cornered the musician James Taylor in a subway station and began babbling to him. Taylor found the confrontation off-putting but not terribly out of the ordinary, considering how often he encountered people on the street who recognized him and wanted to talk to him. Chapman appeared to be rambling to Taylor, but later Taylor would tell authorities that Chapman had said he was planning on talking to Lennon as well. Taylor got away from Chapman and chalked it up to just another bad encounter with the public. The next day Chapman would wait outside the Dakota all day, getting Lennon’s autograph at one point and then killing him that evening.
News of Lennon’s murder shocked America, particularly those who grew up listening to the Beatles. Lennon’s album Double Fantasy had been released only a couple of weeks earlier. It had neared the top ten of the music charts but sales skyrocketed upon the news. It would hold the number one spot on the album charts for eight weeks in the United States and had similar success overseas. It would win the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1981. People began gathering in front of the Dakota that evening, and a crowd even gathered outside the hospital where Lennon had been taken. Newspeople shot photos and video of onlookers, many of them crying, seemingly confused by the evening’s events. The crowd spontaneously began singing the chorus of one of Lennon’s songs in unison, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” It was poignant, for Lennon was a well-known pacifist and his violent death seemed to indicate something horribly askew in the universe.
Chapman cooperated with the police and gave them a statement that night, in which he admitted he had shot Lennon but did not give any good reason for doing so. He told them that “part” of him was Holden Caulfield and another part of him was the “devil.” Medical authorities examined Chapman to determine if he was competent to stand trial, and they determined he was delusional but not insane. He was charged with murder.
A court-appointed attorney entered a not-guilty plea—by reason of insanity—and prepared to defend Chapman on those grounds. After several psychiatrists and others had examined him, Chapman decided to plead guilty. Chapman’s attorney argued to the court that if he was truly insane, his guilty plea should not be accepted by the court. The court listened to arguments from all sides and then determined that Chapman was mentally sound enough to enter the plea and accepted it.
While he had been awaiting trial, Chapman had sent a note to the New York Times, telling them to encourage their readers to read The Catcher in the Rye. At his sentencing, when asked if he had anything to say, he read a passage from the book to the court. It was the passage where Caulfield describes thousands of children playing in a field of rye near the edge of a cliff and how he would have to stand guard at the edge, to keep children from accidentally falling off the edge. “That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.”
The judge sentenced Chapman to twenty years to life, although the maximum sentence was twenty-five to life. It seems unimportant, however. The notoriety of the case guarantees that he will never be paroled. The court also ordered that he be given psychiatric treatment while incarcerated.
The Dakota was originally designed as an apartment building and built in the period between 1880 and 1884. The Dakota Apartments building was supposedly so named after people remarked on the area where it was built. In the 1880s, that portion of New York City was so far away from the city’s hub it was considered by many to be in the wilderness. Whether true or not, that is the most commonly told story.
The building is huge. When it was first constructed, it held sixty-five apartments in its ten stories and was aimed at a wealthy clientele. The apartments varied wildly in layout and size, and it was also said that no two were alike. The smallest had only four rooms while the largest had twenty. The building had its own power plant and central heating, both quite unusual for the 1880s. The apartments were all spoken for before construction was completed, and since its opening the Dakota has been known for being a desirable address. The list of famous people who have lived there is robust. Actors and actresses include Lauren Bacall, Jose Ferrer, Judy Garland, Boris Karloff, and Lillian Gish. From television came Connie Chung, Maury Povich, and Gilda Radner. The co-op board famously turned away Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, along with Gene Simmons of the band Kiss, Billy Joel, and Carly Simon. The building has also shown up in many movies such as Rosemary’s Baby and Vanilla Sky. Without a doubt, however, it is most famous as being the home of John Lennon, where he was gunned down in 1980.
As Chapman sits in prison, his name appears in the news from time to time. He has given a few interviews to reporters, and the topic of Lennon’s murder seems to surface occasionally as well. For example, in all the confusion after the shooting, the album Chapman had asked Lennon to sign earlier that day got left behind on the sidewalk. Someone found the album and noticed that it bore Lennon’s autograph. It was turned over to the police and taken into evidence but was returned to the finder after Chapman was sentenced. The BBC reported that the album was placed for sale by a memorabilia house with an asking price of $525,000. At the time, it was unclear if the album sold, and if it did, what its selling price was or who bought it.
The Dakota is privately owned but visible from
the sidewalk and street. It sits on the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West.
*The Editors of Rolling Stone, The Ballad of John and Yoko (1982).
The House from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
THE MERCER-WILLIAMS HOUSE MUSEUM
1981
429 Bull Street
Savannah, Georgia 31401
James Arthur Williams was a prominent antiques dealer who bought and restored many old homes in Savannah, Georgia’s historic district. On May 2, 1981, Williams shot and killed his assistant, Danny Lewis Hansford, in the Mercer-Williams House, another grand structure he had resurrected. Williams and Hansford were the only people present in the house at the time of the killing, so the facts remain a bit murky. Prosecutors would argue that Williams and Hansford had been lovers and Williams killed Hansford out of jealousy. Williams said it was self-defense. The story would be rehashed in four murder trials—a record for the state of Georgia—and would end in an acquittal for Williams. And while the legal aspects of the trials would be interesting to some, a bestselling book and then a movie would guarantee this murder house’s place in the American consciousness.
Savannah is one of America’s most historic Southern cities, having been founded in 1733. Its historic downtown is filled with grand mansions, many built long before the Civil War. It seems fitting that—along with the Conrad Aiken house—it is home to another renowned murder house. Less than a mile from the Aiken House sits the Mercer-Williams House Museum, the site of the Hansford murder. In a city with perhaps a thousand historic buildings, the Mercer was quite well known even before anyone was killed there. And, in the fashion of the Clutter murders and In Cold Blood, the crime here was immortalized in a bestselling book and in a Hollywood movie.
The Mercer home is named for the man who began its construction in 1860, a Confederate officer named Hugh Weedon Mercer. Mercer didn’t get a chance to live in the house, however. The Civil War broke out before the home was completed. He sold it and let the new owner finish construction, which would not be until 1868. The Mercer name is quite well known in Savannah and elsewhere, but not just because of the house or for the man who had it built. One Mercer who never lived in the house has a story that provides a soundtrack to the events that happened in the house.
John Herndon Mercer, or “Johnny” as he would become professionally known, was the great-grandson of Hugh Mercer. Born in 1909 in Savannah, Johnny became a well-known songwriter, and several of the songs he worked on became American standards. “Hooray for Hollywood” and “Moon River” were just two of the more than 1,500 songs to which he contributed lyrics or music. Many of the songs were for movies, and he was nominated for nineteen Academy Awards and won four. Mercer also co-founded Capitol Records.
As with many neighborhoods in America’s larger cities, the one that contained the Mercer house fell out of vogue, and for many years the homes there were not well maintained. In the 1950s, more than a few of Savannah’s most historic homes fell victim to the wrecking ball. The Mercer house had been vacant and neglected for a decade when a man named Jim Williams bought it. Williams was well known in Savannah. An antiques dealer, he also refurbished and restored historic homes. He had personally resurrected more than four dozen homes in Savannah’s historic districts, homes that had been abandoned and filled blighted and decaying neighborhoods. Some of them would not exist today if Williams had not intervened. Williams bought the home for $55,000 in 1969. Before it had been left vacant, it had last been used as a Shriners temple. Williams moved into the Mercer home and spent two years bringing it back to life. When he was done, he remained in it and ran his antiques business from the carriage house on the property. He also hosted extravagant balls at his house for Christmas that were highlights of the Savannah social calendar.
Things were fine until the day in 1981 when Williams shot and killed Danny Hansford. Many people whispered that Hansford was Williams’s lover. Williams admitted he had shot Hansford but claimed that Hansford had come at him with a gun and that the shooting was in self-defense. Williams was arrested and posted bond. At first the court asked only for $25,000, but the court soon upped bail to $100,000.
Williams made legal history in Georgia: He was the first person to be tried four times for the same murder. The first trial was in February 1982, where Williams faced a jury of six men and six women. He took the stand and testified in his own defense. It didn’t help; the jury returned a guilty verdict after four hours of deliberation. After the conviction, someone sent an anonymous letter to his attorneys pointing out that one of the police officers had contradicted what he had written in his report. The defense attorney had missed it because someone had altered the report before it was given to the defense. Williams appealed and argued that this was grounds for a new trial. The Georgia Supreme Court agreed and granted him a new trial, blaming the errors on the prosecution.
Williams got his new trial in October 1983, and this time the jury was out for only three hours. Still, he was found guilty again and sentenced to a life term in prison. He filed an appeal and complained to anyone who would listen that he was being convicted by the media. Then, a new witnesses came forward with evidence supporting Williams, saying that Hansford had indeed planned to harm Williams. He was granted a third trial. The court released him on $250,000 bond while waiting for trial.
In 1985, John Berendt moved to Savannah to study the story. He had been planning on writing a book about the murder and had been traveling down from New York for visits that lasted a few weeks. The more time he spent in Savannah, the more he realized he needed to live there to observe and absorb the scenery and the characters. He carried a notebook and spent time with the people who would eventually populate his bestseller. Berendt introduced himself to locals saying, “I’m here writing a book.” Soon, he became part of the landscape too.
The jury for the third trial, which took place in June 1987, spent four days in deliberation before reporting that they were deadlocked at eleven to one to convict. The prosecution insisted on a fourth trial. At this point, Williams and his attorney appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, arguing that it was unconstitutional to try him again after a jury had deadlocked on his case. The court didn’t buy it. Williams took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they declined to hear it. He would go to trial a fourth time.
This time, the local trial court decided it had had enough. The venue was changed and the trial was conducted a little over 120 miles away, in Augusta, in May 1989. There, a jury found him not guilty, returning their verdict in under two hours. Williams didn’t have long to enjoy his freedom; he died less than a year later, in January 1990. He was fifty-nine. His body was found in the Mercer house, in the same room where Hansford had been killed.
The story of the Hansford killing might not have become known outside Georgia if not for the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. In the 1994 work, Berendt took the events of the Hansford killing and wrote a nonfiction novel, much as Capote did with the Clutter murders in his book In Cold Blood. Berendt’s book hit the bestseller charts and stayed there for an astonishing 216 weeks, going through more than a hundred printings. It sold more than three million copies. The length of time on the bestseller list made it the longest-running bestseller—fiction or nonfiction—of all time.
The book was quickly turned into a movie. Directed by Clint Eastwood, it starred Kevin Spacey as Williams, Jude Law as the man he shot, and John Cusack as the reporter who watched it all unfold, took notes, and then wrote about it later. As with many Hollywood productions, there were hiccups along the way to the silver screen: At one point, producers considered making the character of Berendt a lawyer, to be played by Jodie Foster. Much of the movie was shot in Savannah, including many scenes that were actually shot in the Mercer house. The study where the killing took place was even used in the movie and locals were hired as extras. The movie’s premiere was held at the Johnny Mercer Theater in Savannah on November 20, 1997, just
six blocks over from the Aiken house, on Oglethorpe Avenue. The soundtrack to the movie featured fourteen songs by Johnny Mercer, including “Skylark,” sung by k. d. lang, which was played over the opening credits.
After Williams died, his sister, Dorothy Kingery, moved into the ten-thousand-square-foot home and started operating it as the Mercer-Williams House Museum. Today, visitors can stroll through the home and admire antiques gathered from around the world by Williams. They can see the room where Williams shot a man and then later passed away himself.
The house also contains a gift shop where visitors can buy items commemorating the home’s history and its place in the story Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The cover of the book features the “Bird Girl” statue, a work by Sylvia Shaw Judson. Judson cast four of the statues and one was placed by a family next to a grave in the Bonaventure Cemetery. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil featured the Bird Girl on its cover, and soon it was another destination for visitors to the Bonaventure Cemetery. After the Bird Girl had been in the cemetery for more than half a century, the family that had placed her worried that she might not be safe left where she was. They moved her to the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah. Visitors to the Mercer-Williams House Museum can purchase a miniature replica of the Bird Girl.
Hugh Weedon Mercer, the man who began the construction of the house before he left for the Civil War, is also buried in the Bonaventure Cemetery.
*mercerhouse.com
*“Witnesses: Hansford Never Fired Gun,” Waycross (GA) Journal Herald, May 9, 1989.
The Dark Side of Hollywood
THE WONDERLAND MURDERS
1981
8763 Wonderland Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90046
On July 1, 1981, around four o’clock in the morning, several people crept into a multilevel home on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles. There, they surprised the five occupants of the house and attacked them viciously with pipes. Four of the victims died and the fifth suffered such grievous injuries that she could not recall anything about that horrible night. The gruesomeness of the killings made headlines, but there was even more to the story: The house, which was also believed to be a center of drug dealing, was known as a place where adult movie star John Holmes spent much of his spare time. He claimed he was not there the night of the killings, although he did arrive at his own home shortly after the murders occurred, covered in blood.