In Apple TV's 2023 'Murder without a Trial' TV series, Dakota workers Jay Hastings (Concierge) & Joseph Many (Basement Crew & Part Time Doorman) described their recollections of what happened to John Lennon after he had been shot.
I've never understood why the official narrative deems it necessary to have John say "I'm shot". If this is not true, what is it trying to achieve? Is it to distract attention from the fact that he died instantly from a front shooter?
When Jay Hastings first spoke to Rolling Stone journalist Greg Katz at the Dakota in the early hours of 9th December 1980, the official narrative had not yet been set. Katz used the fact that his parents lived above the very arch Lennon was assassinated in, to gain access to the crime scene. Katz was not expected and Hastings has admitted that he felt he needed to check in with Ono's gofer Richie De Palma, before talking to Katz.
No reference was ever made to Katz by Hastings of John making it to a back office. This unbelievable feat of endurance was omitted.
Jay told Katz that he moved Lennon to his 'side'. He did not say how John was then subsequently found face down by three NYPD police officers.
Another glaring (and telling) omission was Hastings stating that John told him: “I’ve been shot”, as he stumbled past him. He never mentioned this amazing detail to Katz.
Jay first added the talking John detail three years later to Ray Coleman.
Perhaps in the intervening three years, Jay had time to ponder how frankly ludicrous it was that such a mortally wounded man with various large holes around his heart, could travel such a long distance; walking through doors, climbing up six stairs and staggering through some offices - If John was talking, he must have been semi OK to move on foot while mortally wounded. Or perhaps Hastings just forgot all these crucial details and only remembered them three years later?
In recent years, Jay has started to state that John told him he had been shot - twice! Doubling down on the claim and re-affirming the idea that John was definitely able to talk to him while travelling with seven holes in his body.
What a terrible shame it is that we never got to see Hastings and his Dakota colleagues in a courtroom, to have all of their conflicting (and frankly ludicrous) claims interrogated by a defence lawyer worthy of the name.
There was a lot of speculative reporting in the hours after the murder. The Liverpool Echo also reported on a woman called Carrie Rouse hearing John's last words as 'Help Me', as John apparently lay dying in 'Yoko's arms'. The mysterious Rouse was never mentioned again after the Echo's 9th December edition. I don't think the Echo or any other newspaper mentioned John saying he had been shot after the 9th. Though some may have read the Echo and run with it themselves.
The NYPD never mentioned John talking after the murder at their press conference on the night of the event - or anytime thereafter. They did mention John running into the building. If they thought John was also talking, I'm sure they would have mentioned it.
Ono did mention to Detective Hoffman that her husband told her he had been shot - "Christ I'm Shot", but I don't believe the Echo or anybody else knew this until I gained access to Hoffman's notebooks a couple of years ago. This also would have been something John may have possibly said to Ono in the driveway, not in Hastings office as John ran by him.
It is highly likely that John fell in the driveway and for a short while, he could have been seen by Carrie Rouse.
A major problem with the Rouse account is that it does not match with what Yoko intimated (John went inside the glass door) and it does not match with what Jay Hastings said.
I'm 100% convinced John fell in the driveway and was moved into the back-office. Rouse may have seen some of this.
Rouse is doubly fascinating because she totally disappeared after 9th December. She was never mentioned again in the media. A woman who apparently saw the last moments of one of the world's most famous men, just disappeared into thin air.
I have tried to trace Rouse for a long time and hope one day she is found. I have a hunch she does not exist though. Her alleged account rings partly true, but without verification, it has to be put in the very large file named unsolved mystery.
The images ive seen of jay hastings shirt with lennon's blood on it , it doesnt look their is that much blood on the shirt compared to what ive read about lennon bleeding heavily and blood all over the place
I think John must have made it up the vestibule steps and through the door by himself. It makes no sense to me for anybody - complicit or otherwise - to fabricate that part of the story. If John had collapsed on the driveway or just inside the vestibule then that would give far more weight to MDC acting alone. How does it help the official narrative to falsely claim John made it inside the building alone?
Once John is through the door at the top of the steps, the best evidence seems to suggest that he fell into Hasting's arms. Is it then possible that Hastings tried to drag John away to safety (having heard the bullets and anticipating the shooter running in after him) but struggled to hold on to John and then accidentally dropped John on to a hard floor, which may have finished John off 30 seconds or so early - Something Hastings felt uncomfortable admitting to in the immediate aftermath and has stuck to his "ran past me" story ever since?
It's obvious MDC was programmed to be there, but with Hallerin now less than certain about entrance and exit wounds, maybe it makes more (if far from total) sense for MDC to have fatally shot John, who would only have needed to turn enough for one bullet not to go in the back to make it appear as if all four went in the front. The tight grouping could be a pure fluke - which is to say John was moving and MDC was firing somewhat randomly but three bullets just so happened to hit him in the same area by chance.
I understand the pattern and parallels with other assassinations involving a professional 2nd shooter, but as this was a minor irritant pop star by comparison, could they have trusted MDC to carry out the mission to a full conclusion by himself?
Phrequency has replied better than I could have, but I'll just add some points. Firstly, have you read David's book?
You say it makes no sense to fabricate John running up the steps and into the back office. Well, yes it does if you, the killer (Jay Hastings), has just executed him in the stairway. The look of shock (or confusion/disgust) makes perfect sense if someone you have known and presumably got on with for x-amount of years shoots you at point blank range. Hastings lied about how his shirt got covered in blood. Yes, John could well have fallen into Jay's arms, but I doubt very much in the way that you are proposing.
You have also missed the point that MDC was using hollow points. I.e. there would be no exit wounds, front or back. "The tight grouping could be pure fluke" 🤦♂️
I'm sure it can. The point was MDC was supposedly using hollow points. And if MDC was at point blank range, all of this alternate '2nd shooter' theory falls away. I'm sure certain people would be very happy if that were the case.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not ruling anything or anybody out. I think it would be fair though to point out that MDC *says* he used hollow points, we don't know for sure that he did. Two different types of bullets are in the evidence bag with two bullets not recovered, right? So that could mean MDC had a mixture, or one of the recovered bullets was fired by MDC and the other by somebody else, or both by somebody else, or neither.
It makes sense to be highly suspicious of Hastings. My gut feeling is that he may have been paid off to be of assistance in some way but was not fully aware of how it would play out. If he did kill John, would he be this willing to give numerous interviews - including to camera? Granted, it would look highly suspicious if he refused to do any interviews at all, but if he had been hired to do that job then surely he would have been advised to only speak with carefully vetted people and to otherwise keep a low profile. Continuing to draw attention to himself knowing that he's murdered a Beatle would be wild.
Yes, perhaps it was a mix, but that could only mean that two bullets at most were hollow points, because of the 3 exit wounds, and conveniently the other bullets all landed in a tight grouping above the heart. Very, very unlikely.
Yes, Hastings is suspect numero uno in my book. He disappeared not long after the killing and to my knowledge never did a filmed interview until that Apple series, so no I wouldn't say he gave numerous interviews, not even close to that.
Also, if he's a psychopath, sociopath, or Narcissist (NPD) he would not care about drawing attention to himself. When David Whelan questioned Hastings and asked something like, "This makes you look guilty, do you want to change anything?" Nope, he didn't care if his nonsense story didn't fit the evidence. I'm sure he's very confident that he will never be held accountable.
It's all very dodgy and JH comes across as the dodgiest of them all. JM, JP, and YO don't come out looking good either.
And let's not forget, Jay Hastings was never brought in for questioning by the police. The night of the shooting, he bragged to coworkers that he didn't have to talk to the police. Why not? And how could he be so sure? Jay was the one wearing John Lennon's blood all over himself. This was a hit that couldn't fail. This was a hit MDC had to be found guilty of. John was shot in the vestibule with no possible witnesses as MDC waited for the police to focus on him. The force of the bullets pushed him outside the vestibule. He left a puddle of blood there. Jay picked him up and carried him face-to-face, up the stairs to the back office. I'm envisioning John's arms over Jay's shoulders. When Jay got him to the back office, he just let John slide face-first with his arms outstretched, like a diver about to dive into a pool. Jay moved backward to make room for John. He may then have put his hand over John's mouth and nose to make sure John was good and dead before the police arrived. Again, this hit had to succeed. Inconvenient items like the holes in the vestibule windows would be taken care of later. After a few news cycles, the pictures of the holes in the vestibule windows started to disappear from newspapers and TV news segments. By the early 2000s, it was no longer easy to find photos of those holes in the vestibule windows. Only the sleuths on the internet could do so.
Hastings taking John inside and smothering him takes time to do with no guarantee that some resident or co-worker doesn't appear out of nowhere and sees something incriminating. Would this not add an unnecessary layer of risk if the victim is being shot at point-blank range with a 'certain-as-you-can-be' outcome?
If they'd factored into the plan that Lennon could potentially survive - or survive long enough to give details - then surely they'd conclude that a 2nd shooter, if there was one, would have to be somebody not known to him.
If Hastings shot him then it's absolutely in his interests more than anybody else's to make it as obvious as possible that MDC acted alone. Hastings carrying John away from the scene does the complete opposite.
Then how did John get up the vestibule stairs, open the door, go into the lobby, and then into the back office before collapsing face-first with his arms stretched forward? He had four big holes in his chest right above his heart. John Lennon had been mortally wounded. Hastings smothering is conjecture on my part. We will never know because Hastings was alone with John until Joseph Many showed up. The story of Yoko cradling John's head is entirely made up. What else are they making up?
The lead detective has recently stated that the murder happened inside the vestibule. Hence, the bullets went through the vestibule windows, which we have photographic evidence of despite those doors conveniently disappearing from history. One of the witnesses -Jose Perdomo?- said that the shots pushed John out through the vestibule door.
There was a puddle of John's blood outside the door in the walkway. One theory is that Jay Hastings was the shooter inside the vestibule. Presumably, he picked John up and carried him back into the lobby and then to the very back office where he claimed to have seen John's death rattle.
Jay Hastings said he could always tell by the sound of his walk when John was coming through the archway. He also gives an account of John's face being confused and disgusted after being shot. That's pretty intimate knowledge of John. No one knows the prey better than the hunter. There is an intimacy in an up close murder like John's.
I envision Jay carrying John up the stairs to the back office and putting his hand over John's mouth and nose to ensure no recovery. John was dead before the officers arrived.
The arriving officers said they found John face down, arms up, like he was diving into a pool. There was no Yoko cradling John—no Yoko at all.
Dr. Hallerin has been gotten to.
For decades, Dr. Hallerin and the two attending nurses maintained that John was shot from the front 4 times in a close grouping above the heart—three exit wounds with one bullet lodged in John's shoulder.
The killer likely looked John right in the face.
The .38 Special was likely on hairline trigger (hammer back) and placed right against John's chest and fired. This would be the first shot and was probably enough to kill John.
I believe the rush to cremate John (just 36 hours after being shot) was to prevent a 2nd autopsy, which would reveal the fatal shots were fired mere inches away from John's chest. This would prove MDC couldn't possibly be the real shooter.
These two key witnesses are only given less than 30 seconds each to tell their stories - where is the rest of the footage of both interviews? It should be released in the public interest.
Interesting to see them talk about the night, some differences between their own words, add those attributed to them. A couple of points, wasn’t John found face down? Did Hastings turn him over and then return him face down for the police to find him? Also why was Hastings covered in blood? According to his other statements John ran past him and collapsed. No physical contact. Is Joe Many being honest, or did Hastings have more involvement in getting John to the back office?
They are both performing, but neither of them is speaking the truth. Joseph Many, in particular, is not convincing. The more I've read the evidence you've unearthed after 40 years, the more I'm convinced that Jay Hastings was the trigger man and Joseph Many was there to handle the gun or guns after John was shot. It's possible that both MDC and Jay Hastings (or whoever the shooter was) had .38 Special snub-nosed revolvers. MDC's was firing blanks, and the other gun was hot. Does anyone else find it highly suspicious that Joseph Many took the gun down to the basement and put it in a drawer? This would be the time to hide one of the weapons and bring the other one up for the police. All safely away from prying eyes. The chain of custody was deliberately broken for a reason. It reeks of cover-up. When was the last time you heard of a shooting where the employees removed the gun from the scene of the crime? The police would be there in minutes. There was no reason to remove the gun(s) unless of course...this was an orchestrated hit and cover-up.
Definitely suspicious taking the gun away. There was absolutely no need for that, even if they were not certain it was empty, it had been kicked away from the 'shooter' and he was clearly not a threat to anyone present.
Everything about the gun(s) is suspicious...Jose Perdomo's story is about taking the gun from MDC and kicking it to the back of the archway. Who does that? Jose is seen a few minutes later by the vestibule nervously standing by a gun...this was probably the gun used inside the vestibule and then dropped just outside the vestibule—the real murder weapon.
Yeah, good points there. I had forgotten about Jose standing by the gun. To pull this off as well as they did there would need to be a conspiracy. Just how many people were part of that, we can only speculate. I'm certainly not one of those people that believes Yoko is innocent. If she was not involved in this particularly conspiracy, she was certainly involved in one with her first husband which involved her stalking, and getting her claws into, Lennon. Alas.
Actually...that was her 2nd husband...the one with FBI ties that supposedly missed her from the NYC art scene and flew to Japan to fetch Yoko from a mental hospital? Who does that? No one...it's like Dana Reeves driving 1,500 miles to pick up MDC...that was a mission with orders...not a friend being nice...MDC says he doesn't remember aiming a gun at John Lennon...he remembers hearing the shots and being relieved that the bullets worked...he also remembers hearing, 'do it do it do it' which was presumably Jose Perdomo. Is it possible that MDC just went into a programmed daze and didn't fire a gun? Had the NYC police performed proper forensics, we'd know whether MDC fired a weapon. They should have performed this on Jay Hastings, Jose Perdomo, and Joseph Manny. Find out who has gunpowder residue on their hands and why. Carrying a freshly fired gun will produce different residue on the hands than firing one. This is especially the case with a revolver.
Oh was it her second husband? Tony something? *EDIT: Tony Cox...a grifter. It's been a while since I've looked into any of that, but yeah VERY weird making a contract with your soon to be ex-husband to pass money to him from any inheritance of the Lennon estate (my details may be off here, as I haven't looked into this for a while, but it was something dodgy like that and it stinks!).
1500 miles is an INSANE car trip.
I guess we will never know just what MDC was programmed to do, but he certainly seemed to bug out a bit. I imagine that David is correct and Mark was supposed to run into Central Park.
Yes, the forensics (or lack thereof) was shocking. As you said on another comment, the hasty cremation was surely to prevent a second autopsy. Absolutely disgusting! Thanks, once again, to David Whelan for being the only person seriously questioning the official narrative.
God Bless David Whelan...I've been waiting for someone of his caliber to look seriously at all the evidence...David has exceeded all expectations in what he has unearthed...
John was not a soldier in a battle or aware he was in danger. He was a skinny rock star causally entering his home at night. He was relaxed and not aware he was about to be shot multiple times. Adrenaline does not come into this scenario. Pumping adrenaline around a body would require a fully working heart. Multiple arteries around John’s heart were either badly damaged or completely severed.
All of the experienced medical personnel who actually saw John’s wounds up close, including the CMO, said John would have died almost instantly from them.
Yoko gave five varying statements to detectives. In none of them does she mention John making it into a back office. Jay Hastings has said that Yoko followed John into his office. Yet a newly uncovered witness statement from Nina Rosen reveals that Yoko was outside in the courtyard screaming moments after gunfire. We could compare the Rosen recollection with Jay Hastings official statement, but Jay was never asked to give an official statement to the NYPD. Despite being a secondary witness to one of the most famous crimes in history, Jay was not asked to give an official statement. Perhaps the NYPD forgot to ask him. The NYPD also did not ask Nina Rosen or Yoko Ono to give an official statement to them. The statements we have from them are in note form from detectives notebooks. In fact, we have no signed official statements from any witness from 8th December. The doorman may have given a signed official statement, but we have never been allowed to see a statement from the alleged all-seeing doorman.
Jay Hastings has greatly embellished his encounter with John over the years. He has also failed to give a believable reason why his shirt was covered in blood. Like Yoko and her varying accounts, Jay is not a reliable witness.
To try and compare an encounter with a fan to John being shot is frankly ridiculous.
You appear to not want to mention the awkward fact that John was discovered face-down in a back-office by the NYPD. But I suspect you are alluding to this when you mention how ‘John collapsed the way he did, if he hadn’t tripped on an edge off a carpet’. Dakota workers have told me that there was no carpet in the back office. Even if there was, it does not explain why Yoko Ono, Jay Hastings and other Dakota workers who subsequently came on the back-office scene before the cops arrived, left John lying face down when he was heavily bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds and obviously dying.
I will leave your comment on this thread, but I have no intention of debating you any further. My Substack is a space for people familiar with the case and my investigation findings, who want to interrogate the official Lennon assassination narrative and discuss more likely scenarios for the event. Whoever you are, I suggest you take your interest in this case and re-direct it to Wikipedia or official Beatles forums. You will almost certainly find a unanimous chorus of approval for your official narrative bolstering there.
I've never understood why the official narrative deems it necessary to have John say "I'm shot". If this is not true, what is it trying to achieve? Is it to distract attention from the fact that he died instantly from a front shooter?
When Jay Hastings first spoke to Rolling Stone journalist Greg Katz at the Dakota in the early hours of 9th December 1980, the official narrative had not yet been set. Katz used the fact that his parents lived above the very arch Lennon was assassinated in, to gain access to the crime scene. Katz was not expected and Hastings has admitted that he felt he needed to check in with Ono's gofer Richie De Palma, before talking to Katz.
No reference was ever made to Katz by Hastings of John making it to a back office. This unbelievable feat of endurance was omitted.
Jay told Katz that he moved Lennon to his 'side'. He did not say how John was then subsequently found face down by three NYPD police officers.
Another glaring (and telling) omission was Hastings stating that John told him: “I’ve been shot”, as he stumbled past him. He never mentioned this amazing detail to Katz.
Jay first added the talking John detail three years later to Ray Coleman.
Perhaps in the intervening three years, Jay had time to ponder how frankly ludicrous it was that such a mortally wounded man with various large holes around his heart, could travel such a long distance; walking through doors, climbing up six stairs and staggering through some offices - If John was talking, he must have been semi OK to move on foot while mortally wounded. Or perhaps Hastings just forgot all these crucial details and only remembered them three years later?
In recent years, Jay has started to state that John told him he had been shot - twice! Doubling down on the claim and re-affirming the idea that John was definitely able to talk to him while travelling with seven holes in his body.
What a terrible shame it is that we never got to see Hastings and his Dakota colleagues in a courtroom, to have all of their conflicting (and frankly ludicrous) claims interrogated by a defence lawyer worthy of the name.
Hi David, thanks for your reply.
I checked my copy of the Liverpool Echo from the morning after the assassination and the second paragraph says this:
"....he yelled "I'm shot" and staggered up a few steps into the apartment building".
So it looks like the narrative of JL speaking after being shot was laid out almost immediately.
There was a lot of speculative reporting in the hours after the murder. The Liverpool Echo also reported on a woman called Carrie Rouse hearing John's last words as 'Help Me', as John apparently lay dying in 'Yoko's arms'. The mysterious Rouse was never mentioned again after the Echo's 9th December edition. I don't think the Echo or any other newspaper mentioned John saying he had been shot after the 9th. Though some may have read the Echo and run with it themselves.
The NYPD never mentioned John talking after the murder at their press conference on the night of the event - or anytime thereafter. They did mention John running into the building. If they thought John was also talking, I'm sure they would have mentioned it.
Ono did mention to Detective Hoffman that her husband told her he had been shot - "Christ I'm Shot", but I don't believe the Echo or anybody else knew this until I gained access to Hoffman's notebooks a couple of years ago. This also would have been something John may have possibly said to Ono in the driveway, not in Hastings office as John ran by him.
It is highly likely that John fell in the driveway and for a short while, he could have been seen by Carrie Rouse.
A major problem with the Rouse account is that it does not match with what Yoko intimated (John went inside the glass door) and it does not match with what Jay Hastings said.
I'm 100% convinced John fell in the driveway and was moved into the back-office. Rouse may have seen some of this.
Rouse is doubly fascinating because she totally disappeared after 9th December. She was never mentioned again in the media. A woman who apparently saw the last moments of one of the world's most famous men, just disappeared into thin air.
I have tried to trace Rouse for a long time and hope one day she is found. I have a hunch she does not exist though. Her alleged account rings partly true, but without verification, it has to be put in the very large file named unsolved mystery.
The images ive seen of jay hastings shirt with lennon's blood on it , it doesnt look their is that much blood on the shirt compared to what ive read about lennon bleeding heavily and blood all over the place
I think John must have made it up the vestibule steps and through the door by himself. It makes no sense to me for anybody - complicit or otherwise - to fabricate that part of the story. If John had collapsed on the driveway or just inside the vestibule then that would give far more weight to MDC acting alone. How does it help the official narrative to falsely claim John made it inside the building alone?
Once John is through the door at the top of the steps, the best evidence seems to suggest that he fell into Hasting's arms. Is it then possible that Hastings tried to drag John away to safety (having heard the bullets and anticipating the shooter running in after him) but struggled to hold on to John and then accidentally dropped John on to a hard floor, which may have finished John off 30 seconds or so early - Something Hastings felt uncomfortable admitting to in the immediate aftermath and has stuck to his "ran past me" story ever since?
It's obvious MDC was programmed to be there, but with Hallerin now less than certain about entrance and exit wounds, maybe it makes more (if far from total) sense for MDC to have fatally shot John, who would only have needed to turn enough for one bullet not to go in the back to make it appear as if all four went in the front. The tight grouping could be a pure fluke - which is to say John was moving and MDC was firing somewhat randomly but three bullets just so happened to hit him in the same area by chance.
I understand the pattern and parallels with other assassinations involving a professional 2nd shooter, but as this was a minor irritant pop star by comparison, could they have trusted MDC to carry out the mission to a full conclusion by himself?
Phrequency has replied better than I could have, but I'll just add some points. Firstly, have you read David's book?
You say it makes no sense to fabricate John running up the steps and into the back office. Well, yes it does if you, the killer (Jay Hastings), has just executed him in the stairway. The look of shock (or confusion/disgust) makes perfect sense if someone you have known and presumably got on with for x-amount of years shoots you at point blank range. Hastings lied about how his shirt got covered in blood. Yes, John could well have fallen into Jay's arms, but I doubt very much in the way that you are proposing.
You have also missed the point that MDC was using hollow points. I.e. there would be no exit wounds, front or back. "The tight grouping could be pure fluke" 🤦♂️
At point blank. A .38 Special can push a hollow point through a person. Especially a 135 pound skin and bones John Lennon
I'm sure it can. The point was MDC was supposedly using hollow points. And if MDC was at point blank range, all of this alternate '2nd shooter' theory falls away. I'm sure certain people would be very happy if that were the case.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not ruling anything or anybody out. I think it would be fair though to point out that MDC *says* he used hollow points, we don't know for sure that he did. Two different types of bullets are in the evidence bag with two bullets not recovered, right? So that could mean MDC had a mixture, or one of the recovered bullets was fired by MDC and the other by somebody else, or both by somebody else, or neither.
It makes sense to be highly suspicious of Hastings. My gut feeling is that he may have been paid off to be of assistance in some way but was not fully aware of how it would play out. If he did kill John, would he be this willing to give numerous interviews - including to camera? Granted, it would look highly suspicious if he refused to do any interviews at all, but if he had been hired to do that job then surely he would have been advised to only speak with carefully vetted people and to otherwise keep a low profile. Continuing to draw attention to himself knowing that he's murdered a Beatle would be wild.
Yes, perhaps it was a mix, but that could only mean that two bullets at most were hollow points, because of the 3 exit wounds, and conveniently the other bullets all landed in a tight grouping above the heart. Very, very unlikely.
Yes, Hastings is suspect numero uno in my book. He disappeared not long after the killing and to my knowledge never did a filmed interview until that Apple series, so no I wouldn't say he gave numerous interviews, not even close to that.
Also, if he's a psychopath, sociopath, or Narcissist (NPD) he would not care about drawing attention to himself. When David Whelan questioned Hastings and asked something like, "This makes you look guilty, do you want to change anything?" Nope, he didn't care if his nonsense story didn't fit the evidence. I'm sure he's very confident that he will never be held accountable.
It's all very dodgy and JH comes across as the dodgiest of them all. JM, JP, and YO don't come out looking good either.
And let's not forget, Jay Hastings was never brought in for questioning by the police. The night of the shooting, he bragged to coworkers that he didn't have to talk to the police. Why not? And how could he be so sure? Jay was the one wearing John Lennon's blood all over himself. This was a hit that couldn't fail. This was a hit MDC had to be found guilty of. John was shot in the vestibule with no possible witnesses as MDC waited for the police to focus on him. The force of the bullets pushed him outside the vestibule. He left a puddle of blood there. Jay picked him up and carried him face-to-face, up the stairs to the back office. I'm envisioning John's arms over Jay's shoulders. When Jay got him to the back office, he just let John slide face-first with his arms outstretched, like a diver about to dive into a pool. Jay moved backward to make room for John. He may then have put his hand over John's mouth and nose to make sure John was good and dead before the police arrived. Again, this hit had to succeed. Inconvenient items like the holes in the vestibule windows would be taken care of later. After a few news cycles, the pictures of the holes in the vestibule windows started to disappear from newspapers and TV news segments. By the early 2000s, it was no longer easy to find photos of those holes in the vestibule windows. Only the sleuths on the internet could do so.
Hastings taking John inside and smothering him takes time to do with no guarantee that some resident or co-worker doesn't appear out of nowhere and sees something incriminating. Would this not add an unnecessary layer of risk if the victim is being shot at point-blank range with a 'certain-as-you-can-be' outcome?
If they'd factored into the plan that Lennon could potentially survive - or survive long enough to give details - then surely they'd conclude that a 2nd shooter, if there was one, would have to be somebody not known to him.
If Hastings shot him then it's absolutely in his interests more than anybody else's to make it as obvious as possible that MDC acted alone. Hastings carrying John away from the scene does the complete opposite.
Then how did John get up the vestibule stairs, open the door, go into the lobby, and then into the back office before collapsing face-first with his arms stretched forward? He had four big holes in his chest right above his heart. John Lennon had been mortally wounded. Hastings smothering is conjecture on my part. We will never know because Hastings was alone with John until Joseph Many showed up. The story of Yoko cradling John's head is entirely made up. What else are they making up?
The lead detective has recently stated that the murder happened inside the vestibule. Hence, the bullets went through the vestibule windows, which we have photographic evidence of despite those doors conveniently disappearing from history. One of the witnesses -Jose Perdomo?- said that the shots pushed John out through the vestibule door.
There was a puddle of John's blood outside the door in the walkway. One theory is that Jay Hastings was the shooter inside the vestibule. Presumably, he picked John up and carried him back into the lobby and then to the very back office where he claimed to have seen John's death rattle.
Jay Hastings said he could always tell by the sound of his walk when John was coming through the archway. He also gives an account of John's face being confused and disgusted after being shot. That's pretty intimate knowledge of John. No one knows the prey better than the hunter. There is an intimacy in an up close murder like John's.
I envision Jay carrying John up the stairs to the back office and putting his hand over John's mouth and nose to ensure no recovery. John was dead before the officers arrived.
The arriving officers said they found John face down, arms up, like he was diving into a pool. There was no Yoko cradling John—no Yoko at all.
Dr. Hallerin has been gotten to.
For decades, Dr. Hallerin and the two attending nurses maintained that John was shot from the front 4 times in a close grouping above the heart—three exit wounds with one bullet lodged in John's shoulder.
The killer likely looked John right in the face.
The .38 Special was likely on hairline trigger (hammer back) and placed right against John's chest and fired. This would be the first shot and was probably enough to kill John.
I believe the rush to cremate John (just 36 hours after being shot) was to prevent a 2nd autopsy, which would reveal the fatal shots were fired mere inches away from John's chest. This would prove MDC couldn't possibly be the real shooter.
These two key witnesses are only given less than 30 seconds each to tell their stories - where is the rest of the footage of both interviews? It should be released in the public interest.
It should. Good point.
Interesting to see them talk about the night, some differences between their own words, add those attributed to them. A couple of points, wasn’t John found face down? Did Hastings turn him over and then return him face down for the police to find him? Also why was Hastings covered in blood? According to his other statements John ran past him and collapsed. No physical contact. Is Joe Many being honest, or did Hastings have more involvement in getting John to the back office?
They are both performing, but neither of them is speaking the truth. Joseph Many, in particular, is not convincing. The more I've read the evidence you've unearthed after 40 years, the more I'm convinced that Jay Hastings was the trigger man and Joseph Many was there to handle the gun or guns after John was shot. It's possible that both MDC and Jay Hastings (or whoever the shooter was) had .38 Special snub-nosed revolvers. MDC's was firing blanks, and the other gun was hot. Does anyone else find it highly suspicious that Joseph Many took the gun down to the basement and put it in a drawer? This would be the time to hide one of the weapons and bring the other one up for the police. All safely away from prying eyes. The chain of custody was deliberately broken for a reason. It reeks of cover-up. When was the last time you heard of a shooting where the employees removed the gun from the scene of the crime? The police would be there in minutes. There was no reason to remove the gun(s) unless of course...this was an orchestrated hit and cover-up.
Definitely suspicious taking the gun away. There was absolutely no need for that, even if they were not certain it was empty, it had been kicked away from the 'shooter' and he was clearly not a threat to anyone present.
Everything about the gun(s) is suspicious...Jose Perdomo's story is about taking the gun from MDC and kicking it to the back of the archway. Who does that? Jose is seen a few minutes later by the vestibule nervously standing by a gun...this was probably the gun used inside the vestibule and then dropped just outside the vestibule—the real murder weapon.
Yeah, good points there. I had forgotten about Jose standing by the gun. To pull this off as well as they did there would need to be a conspiracy. Just how many people were part of that, we can only speculate. I'm certainly not one of those people that believes Yoko is innocent. If she was not involved in this particularly conspiracy, she was certainly involved in one with her first husband which involved her stalking, and getting her claws into, Lennon. Alas.
Actually...that was her 2nd husband...the one with FBI ties that supposedly missed her from the NYC art scene and flew to Japan to fetch Yoko from a mental hospital? Who does that? No one...it's like Dana Reeves driving 1,500 miles to pick up MDC...that was a mission with orders...not a friend being nice...MDC says he doesn't remember aiming a gun at John Lennon...he remembers hearing the shots and being relieved that the bullets worked...he also remembers hearing, 'do it do it do it' which was presumably Jose Perdomo. Is it possible that MDC just went into a programmed daze and didn't fire a gun? Had the NYC police performed proper forensics, we'd know whether MDC fired a weapon. They should have performed this on Jay Hastings, Jose Perdomo, and Joseph Manny. Find out who has gunpowder residue on their hands and why. Carrying a freshly fired gun will produce different residue on the hands than firing one. This is especially the case with a revolver.
Oh was it her second husband? Tony something? *EDIT: Tony Cox...a grifter. It's been a while since I've looked into any of that, but yeah VERY weird making a contract with your soon to be ex-husband to pass money to him from any inheritance of the Lennon estate (my details may be off here, as I haven't looked into this for a while, but it was something dodgy like that and it stinks!).
1500 miles is an INSANE car trip.
I guess we will never know just what MDC was programmed to do, but he certainly seemed to bug out a bit. I imagine that David is correct and Mark was supposed to run into Central Park.
Yes, the forensics (or lack thereof) was shocking. As you said on another comment, the hasty cremation was surely to prevent a second autopsy. Absolutely disgusting! Thanks, once again, to David Whelan for being the only person seriously questioning the official narrative.
God Bless David Whelan...I've been waiting for someone of his caliber to look seriously at all the evidence...David has exceeded all expectations in what he has unearthed...
John was not a soldier in a battle or aware he was in danger. He was a skinny rock star causally entering his home at night. He was relaxed and not aware he was about to be shot multiple times. Adrenaline does not come into this scenario. Pumping adrenaline around a body would require a fully working heart. Multiple arteries around John’s heart were either badly damaged or completely severed.
All of the experienced medical personnel who actually saw John’s wounds up close, including the CMO, said John would have died almost instantly from them.
Yoko gave five varying statements to detectives. In none of them does she mention John making it into a back office. Jay Hastings has said that Yoko followed John into his office. Yet a newly uncovered witness statement from Nina Rosen reveals that Yoko was outside in the courtyard screaming moments after gunfire. We could compare the Rosen recollection with Jay Hastings official statement, but Jay was never asked to give an official statement to the NYPD. Despite being a secondary witness to one of the most famous crimes in history, Jay was not asked to give an official statement. Perhaps the NYPD forgot to ask him. The NYPD also did not ask Nina Rosen or Yoko Ono to give an official statement to them. The statements we have from them are in note form from detectives notebooks. In fact, we have no signed official statements from any witness from 8th December. The doorman may have given a signed official statement, but we have never been allowed to see a statement from the alleged all-seeing doorman.
Jay Hastings has greatly embellished his encounter with John over the years. He has also failed to give a believable reason why his shirt was covered in blood. Like Yoko and her varying accounts, Jay is not a reliable witness.
To try and compare an encounter with a fan to John being shot is frankly ridiculous.
You appear to not want to mention the awkward fact that John was discovered face-down in a back-office by the NYPD. But I suspect you are alluding to this when you mention how ‘John collapsed the way he did, if he hadn’t tripped on an edge off a carpet’. Dakota workers have told me that there was no carpet in the back office. Even if there was, it does not explain why Yoko Ono, Jay Hastings and other Dakota workers who subsequently came on the back-office scene before the cops arrived, left John lying face down when he was heavily bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds and obviously dying.
I will leave your comment on this thread, but I have no intention of debating you any further. My Substack is a space for people familiar with the case and my investigation findings, who want to interrogate the official Lennon assassination narrative and discuss more likely scenarios for the event. Whoever you are, I suggest you take your interest in this case and re-direct it to Wikipedia or official Beatles forums. You will almost certainly find a unanimous chorus of approval for your official narrative bolstering there.