Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






Bullet holes in lobby door

Figure 1 shows the front entrance of the Dakota from West 72nd Street, Manhattan. The guard booth is on the left. A doorman (guard) is shown standing beside the guard booth, under the archway. This is roughly where Jose Perdomo stood on Dec. 8, 1980, around 10:50 pm, when Lennon was killed. Chapman reportedly stood on the right side, under the archway, on the opposite curb from where the doorman is standing in Figure 1. After Lennon was shot, he ran up some stairs, on the right, and collapsed in a lobby. The stairs leading to the lobby are about 25-to-30 feet inside the walkway on the right side. Lennon collapsed in the lobby, about 10 feet beyond the stairs. Directly across from the lobby stairs, on the left side of the entryway, is a door leading to a service elevator. This is where once believed the true gunman fired the shots that killed Lennon; however, I have since concluded that the actual shooter was doorman Jose Perdomo. (See article.) Nevertheless, it is possible that support people may have exited the crime scene by way of the doorway across from the lobby stairs. The stated doorway also leads to a side exit. Across the alley from the side exist is a parking garage. (See photos of Dakota's side exitin an alley directly across from a parking garage.)

 

(Also see article: "Where was Mark David Chapman Standing?")


Figure 4(c): Close-up/cropped version of photo in Figure 4(b).

 

 

Figure 5: Dakota Entrance in 1967/68 as it appeared in Rosemary's Baby was filmed.

 

 

Figure 6: Crime scene witness, Sean Strub (right)

interviewed live by Jeanne Downey, Channel 2, CBS.

 

 

Figure 7: Subtitles on screen reveal Jeanne Downey interviewed Sean Strub at the Roosevelt Hospital where Lennon was pronounced dead.

 

 

Figure 8: Unidentified witness at the Dakota does not mention a verbal exchange between Lennon and Chapman. (Broadcast on Channel 7 Eyewitness News, NYC, Dec. 9, 1980)


 

The film footage definitely shows multiple bullet holes in the glass lobby door (see Figures 2a through 2c); however, the film also shows the lobby door was open, but the picture is not clear. At any rate, the door is facing the archway, which would be within Chapman's view. How the door got in that position remains an open question. Was the door merely in an open position, or was it attached to a structure that no longer exists? Figure 3 is a cropped aerial sketch of the lobby area which appeared in the New York Times, on Dec. 10, 1980. The sketch indicates there was an enclosure surrounding the entrance to the lobby stairs, suggesting that the door shown in Figure 2 was facing Chapman, who stood under the archway entrance. If such an enclosure was present on Dec. 8, 1980, then Chapman could have easily created the bullet holes while shooting from his location under the archway entrance.

 

(Note: Since this article was first published in Aug. 2004, it has been learned that a temporary lobby door fixture was in place when Lennon was killed. A photograph of the door fixture was displayed on MSNB's website for a few days in November 2005, but quickly taken down.



Apparently the photo was shown by accident. See Follow-up.

-- S.A., Jan. 16, 2006)

 

But if the lobby door was closed, and no additional structure existed, there is no way Chapman could have created the bullet holes in the door because the door itself would be outside his field of vision. A bullet would have to turn 90 degrees to the right to create such a hole. But if the shots were fired from the area of Jose Perdomo's booth (on the left side of the Dakota's entrance), that would explain the holes completely. (See article: "Where was Mark David Chapman Standing?")


 

The big question is this: Was there a structure around the entrance to the lobby stairs as Figure 3 indicates? If there was, it was torn down later because Figure 4(a)--a photograph I took of the entrance to the lobby, taken around June 2003-- does not show such a structure. In addition, I found a photograph on the Internet of what appears to be a fairly recent photo of the Dakota


entrance where the lobby door is open. (See Figure 4b, plus a close-up/cropped version of same photo is shown in Figure 4c.) Although the source of the photo is unknown, I have been to the Dakota four times in the past year, and believe photograph in Figures 4(b) and 4(c) looks authentic, except I've never seen the lobby door open as shown in those photos. Whenever I visited the Dakota, the lobby door was out of my line of vision, as shown in Figure 4(a), presumably closed. On two occasions, I asked the doorman if I could walk inside the entryway and take photos of the lobby door, but both times I was refused.

 

So it appears that the door shown in Figure 2(a)-

-which is from film footage taken at the time of Lennon's murder--is showing the lobby door in the open position. The only other possibility is there was a small structure surrounding the lobby door, as Figure 3 suggests.

 

If such a structure was in place when Lennon was killed, then it was built between 1967 or 1968 and 1980, because Figure 5 shows the Dakota entrance during the filming of Rosemary's Baby, which was released in June of 1968. As you can see, there is no doorway structure attached to the entrance, so if it existed, it was built later, then torn down after Lennon was shot.

 

More research is needed in order to determine whether a doorway structure similar to the one shown in Figure 3 was in place on Dec. 8, 1980, or if the New York Times sketch was a fabrication drawn to divert attention from bullet holes in the glass door that could not have been created by Chapman, if he had shot Lennon under the conditions described.

 


Date: 2015-12-11; view: 771


<== previous page | next page ==>
Analysis of film footage, from Dec. 9, 1980, NYC, suggests bullet holes in Dakota's lobby door were likely not caused by Chapman. | Jose Perdomo claimed Chapman called to Lennon
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.008 sec.)