Nurse remembers telling Yoko John Lennon was dead
Thirty-five years after John Lennon was shot dead, nurse Barbara Kemerer remembers delivering the news of his death to Yoko Ono.
On December 8th 1980 John Lennon was shot dead outside his apartment in New York.
It was ten years since the Beatles had split up, and all of the Fab Four were now pursuing solo careers. Lennon had recently turned forty, and had been working on new material after a break.
On the morning of the 8th December, Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono did a photo shoot at their apartment in the Dakota for Rolling Stone Magazine.
Hanging around outside their apartment was 25-year-old Mark Chapman. He got the singer to sign his 'Double Fantasy' album later in the day.
At lunchtime, a team from RKO Radio in San Francisco arrived at the Dakota for what would be Lennon's last ever interview. In the afternoon, Lennon and Yoko headed to a recording studio to work on a new song.
They arrived home late in the evening. As their limo pulled up outside the Dakota, Chapman emerged. He called out to Lennon, produced a gun, and shot at him several times. Chapman is now serving life in prison.
35 years on, a nurse who tried to save Lennon’s life at the Roosevelt hospital recalls how the night unfolded. In her first British interview, she tells 5 live how she had to deliver the news of Lennon’s death to Yoko and console her after doing so.
This clip is originally from 5 live Daily on 11th December 2015
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