Guy Lochhead, 25/08/10
John Lennon’s murderer. Chapman was a huge fan of The Beatles and ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. He saw himself as Holden Caulfield, protecting children from phonies. He was a successful and popular YMCA summer camp counsellor, among other less successful jobs. He was a born-again Christian, and was angry at Lennon’s anti-religious lyrics. After much deliberation, he shot Lennon outside the Dakota apartment building in New York City where he lived. He stayed at the crime scene, reading ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, which he had signed ‘This is my statement’. He was sentenced to 20 years to life. It could be said that Chapman was more of a naïve media casualty than a stone-cold killer, but the result would still be the same. There is no reason to include this, except to demonstrate the sort of negative influence that cultural items, and Christianity, can have.