The Troubling Testimony of Robert Morgan – Borrowed Time Update

How an artist living across the street from the Dakota building in December 1980, decided not to take what would have been the world’s most (in)famous photograph.

A new John Lennon documentary called “Borrowed Time’ is due to be released shortly on 2^nd May 2025. It focuses on the last ten years of John’s life and is an unofficial film, unsanctioned and therefore not sanitised by the Lennon estate or its usual sycophants. From the trailer, it appears to have lots of fascinating archive and interviews with people who knew John. The director Alan G Parker is a nice guy. A working-class lad who is an independent film-maker. My kind of guy. I’m sure John would have liked him. I first contacted and spoke to Alan in January 2024, when I heard that his film crew interviewed an artist called Robert Morgan. Back in December 1980, Morgan lived across the road from the Dakota and allegedly saw John’s murder. I told Alan that I interviewed Morgan a couple of times and his recollections about the murder were provably bogus. I was hoping that Parker would re-think including Morgan in his film but from recent pre-release Parker interviews, it appears ‘the artist’ will probably be featured in his film. I haven’t seen the film yet and I will comprehensively review it once I get to see it, but for now, I feel it is important that people get to understand what Morgan is claiming and how his claims are not backed-up by countless other witnesses and the provable facts about John’s murder that we have to hand.

The below article was first published back in October 2023, but it is now no longer behind a paywall and has been updated.

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I would like to think that my followers and subscribers now have a pretty clear idea about who was involved as a witness or unwitting participant, in John Lennon’s assassination, on the night of the murder and shortly subsequently thereafter.

As a quick refresher, here is the list:

· Yoko Ono

· Jose Perdomo – Dakota Doorman

· Jay Hastings – Dakota Concierge

· Joseph Many – Dakota Lift Operator/Basement Crew and Doorman

· Joe Grezik – Dakota Basement Crew

· Victor Cruz – Dakota Basement Crew

· Jack Henderson – Dakota Resident

· Maury Solomon – Dakota Resident

· Ellen Chesler – Dakota Resident

· Nina Rosen (Local Dog-Walker) – Eye Witness

· Guy Louthan (Local Resident) – Eye Witness

· Richard Peterson (Cab Driver) – Eye Witness

· Franklyn Welsh – (Cab Passenger) Eye Witness

· Officer Stephen Spiro – Police Officer

· Officer Peter Cullen – Police Officer

· Officer Herb Frauenberger – Police Officer

· Officer Tony Palma – Police Officer

· Officer James Moran – Police Officer

This list is fairly comprehensive, or at least I thought it was. But eight years ago, in December 2015, a new alleged eye-witness emerged from the shadows. This emergence occurred in all places on the ‘Princeton Alumni Weekly’ blog.

A 65 year old artist called Robert Morgan explained that he lived in an apartment at the Majestic building, opposite the Dakota in December 1980. From his privileged window, Morgan revealed that he could see parts of Central Park and the entire southern facade of the Dakota building. Morgan was apparently on nodding terms with local neighbours, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Morgan, like so many other people I have spoken to, said he also remembered seeing Chapman ‘hanging around’ by the railings outside the Dakota. It’s very interesting to note how many people subsequently remembered seeing this non-descript man hanging around outside the Dakota. Morgan then stated that just after the 11pm News started, (Lennon was shot at roughly 10.50pm), he and his wife at the time (now deceased), heard a ‘succession of loud detonations’. They both ran to their window and looked out onto the Dakota entrance that was below across the street. They apparently saw a black limousine, that had pulled up into the mouth of the Dakota driveway. The cars lights were on and a man was lying on the ground, face-up, next to the open rear door of the limousine. Morgan identified John Lennon due to his cowboy boots and round glasses. Morgan dramatically observed that Lennon’s glasses reflected the bright lights of the entrance (The Dakota driveway lighting back then were very dim). Lennon was laid apparently face-up and was slightly crumpled, with his feet pointing towards the street. They had now deduced that the crashing sound must have been four or five gunshots. As Morgan and his wife looked on helplessly, sinisterly, the rear door of the limo closed and the car backed out of the driveway. The limo then allegedly sped westward up 72^nd street.

What Morgan was inferring and subsequently confirmed to me, was that Ono delivered her husband to his killer, and after Lennon was fatally shot, Ono and her complicit limo driver sped off away from the murder scene. All very creepy and sensational. All very untrue.

Morgan then said that he grabbed a Nikon camera with a tele-photo lens. He zoomed the camera onto John’s face which he described as a ‘face of a dying man’. With what would have been one of the most famous photographs of all time about to be taken by Morgan, he decided to take the virtuous and frankly supernaturally honourable step, of putting his camera down, declaring to himself that ‘this isn’t my work’. Morgan decided that the dying Lennon ‘deserved a final moment of privacy’. Morgan though, as a painter, felt compelled to ‘commemorate’ what was clearly a ‘historic moment’. He quickly started sketching the scene. Shortly thereafter, the police arrived and ‘neutralized’ the gunman before rushing to Lennon’s aid. Morgan then finally saw five policemen carry John’s body to a police car (Only two officers carried Lennon out), before a police car raced off to the hospital. Oddly, the final painting Morgan produced, only showed some people carrying a man’s body. A scene Morgan possibly saw.

I contacted Morgan in 2023 and he graciously granted me numerous interviews. After listening to his fantastical tale a couple of times, I politely informed Morgan that multiple witnesses confirmed that the Lennon’s limousine pulled up alongside the Dakota entrance and not into it. They then saw the limo pull away with John and Yoko not inside it. John and Yoko were then seen walking into the Dakota driveway and other witnesses saw Ono in the driveway immediately after gun-fire was heard. Multiple witnesses also placed John’s mortally wounded body inside the Dakota and not outside in the driveway by the pavement, by the time the NYPD arrived.

Morgan said he did not see the Doorman Jose Perdomo or Mark Chapman. He assumed Chapman must have been ‘lurking in the shadows’. Morgan then claimed that Chapman must have gone inside the Dakota and gave himself up after the shooting. At this point I politely reminded Morgan again about all the conflicting witness statements to his story. Morgan predictably doubled-down and further claimed that Yoko Ono must have come back with the cops. Cops that Morgan thought she must have met up with at the bottom of 72^nd street.

Morgan’s bogus story simply did not stack-up with all the evidence and testimony we now have to hand. To believe Morgan, you have to discount all the corroborating evidence of the long list of name I’ve listed above and surmise that police officers, dog walkers, cab drivers, Dakota workers, Mark Chapman and Yoko Ono, were all conspiring to lie together about where exactly John was shot and died – for no discernible benefit.

In a way, I can see how Morgan deduced his story. When Morgan wrote his blog in 2015, he probably would have not known about cab driver Richard Peterson, cab passenger Franklyn Welsh and dog-walker Nina Rosen. Three people who all placed the Lennon limo by the sidewalk and not in the driveway and three people who all confirmed Lennon and Ono exited the Limo before it drove away. Morgan also would not have known about the multiple police officer and Dakota resident statements, placing Lennon’s dead body in the concierge area’s back-office. Finally, Morgan would not have known about his fellow Majestic resident Guy Louthan and his girlfriend, who both saw Chapman and Perdomo by the sidewalk, immediately after hearing gun-fire. Neither Louthan or his girlfriend saw Lennon or his limo.

I very nearly didn’t post this piece, due to the fact Morgan’s recollections were so ridiculous. But, I feel it is very important to reiterate that Ono was very much there or thereabouts in the kill-zone of the Dakota driveway, when Lennon was assassinated. I also feel it is very important to recognise that Lennon’s dead body was found by the NYPD in a Dakota back-office, lying face-down on a rug according to multiple accounts. Lennon’s body was not on West 72^nd street when the NYPD arrived. These two vital truths are crucial to understanding how John Lennon was assassinated and what happened after he was shot.

As Morgan is now due to be featured in an upcoming Lennon documentary, his recollections will no doubt gain Morgan and the film lots of attention. Apparently, Alan Parker’s film crew gained access to Morgan’s old 12^th floor apartment in the Majestic building and they filmed his viewpoint into the Dakota driveway. It will be interesting to see how far into the driveway Morgan could have seen. I believe John did collapse in the driveway after being shot and I believe he was moved into a back-office shortly thereafter, so Morgan is partly right about what happened to John. As for Yoko driving off in a limo to hook up with some cops down the end of the street and John lying by the sidewalk bleeding out until the cops arrived, this is unquestionably not true.

When I interviewed Morgan back in 2023, he told me that he had not yet managed to sell his commemorative painting of John. Now Morgan is due to be featured in an upcoming Lennon documentary, I suspect he may finally get paid for his tainted work.