In the age of the internet, it is easy to create a conspiracy. Celebrities who have been body swapped, death caused by one thing, but in reality, it turns out to be something totally different, or (insert flamboyant musician here depending on your generation), removed ribs to give themselves some er self-love.
Most of these are untrue and totally bonkers, but it raises interest in the individual. The believers get sucked into the belief of the situation, and the non-believers laugh at how silly the rumours are. The one I am going to talk about today is one of the most ridiculous theories going around the whole of the music industry. This week The Beat Marches On to 8th December 1980 the day John Lennon was shot, not by Mark David Chapman but by Stephen King?
This isn’t the first wild Beatles-related conspiracy theory I have written about. Last year I wrote about the conspiracy of Paul McCartney dying in 1966 (see here https://beatmarcheson.co.uk/index.php/2023/09/21/51-car-crashes-rumours-and-subliminal-clues/ ) and how preposterous the actual idea of it was. This particular conspiracy is equally, if not more preposterous than the McCartney story.
Most of us know what happened that fateful winter night in 1980. Mark David Chapman waited outside the Dakota Hotel in New York for Lennon and shot him in the back five times. The murderer then waited for the police to come and arrest him whilst reading JD Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye on a park bench opposite the hotel. The former Beatle then died later in hospital aged just 40 years old.
However Steve Lightfoot who has been documenting this since the unfortunate night, believes Chapman was innocent and the actual shooter was arguably one of the most famous of modern writers Stephen King. It wasn’t just the author though; this request went through to the government. In fact, it went right to the top, the then-freshly elected US president Ronald Reagan and previously disgraced ex-president Richard Nixon.
Lightfoot has been taking in messages from magazine headlines such as Time and Newsweek, to unveil the real message about what happened on the fateful night. He is the only person so far to find the connections, but don’t let that get in the way of the truth. In fact, all the information he has researched and found has been assembled in a 24-page booklet and can be purchased from his website lennonmurdertruth.com. He advertises his website on his van too, driving around America with the website on the side. You definitely could tell if it drove past you. He also reckons that the writer and the actual murderer look like one another, they don’t. The only similarity is that they wear glasses.
At the time, King was not as famous as he is now. He had some moderate success but even though he had written a few that would eventually be turned into films, like Carrie and The Shining, but that was still to come. There are rumours that the inspiration for the title of The Shining was taken from the Lennon single Instant Karma (We All Shine On)
We can understand that Nixon wanted to get rid of Lennon due to the early 1970s war protests he was involved in. The singer even coined the term ‘Tricky Dicky’ to describe the former leader of the free world. But Reagan’s link? There isn’t any link between them other than the two presidents both of whom were Republicans.
In 1999 King was hit by a car in Maine, and of course, Lightfoot used this as the government trying to tie up the loose ends. It wasn’t of course, a driver, Bryan Smith, got distracted by his pet dog getting into a cooler and swerved off the road hitting the author. He was seriously injured but not dead and ended up in the hospital for almost a month. If he wasn’t killed in the initial accident, and the government wanted to keep his mouth shut, then surely, they would have finished the job, wouldn’t they?
In the last decade or so, Lightfoot has parked his van in Maine where King still resides. The theorist is now bordering on the edge of harassment towards the author, who has always denied anything to do with Lennon’s death. He has ignored the situation as best as he can but it’s now getting difficult when the accuser is right on your doorstep. Lightfoot even tried to coerce King into suing him if he was wrong and accused the author’s hometown in Portland of all being in on the conspiracy, protecting the town’s favourite son.
Unlike most conspiracies, this one is a one-man operation. Think of the other big conspiracies the JFK assassination, 9/11 was an inside job and even the previously mentioned Paul is Dead theories, there was a group of people with multiple different stories, where this one is a single person with a theory. A lone gunman if you will. It doesn’t make the theory any less plausible than, the others but with all these conspiracies there is one thing that makes all of these cast doubt. Evidence. Or the lack thereof. All of these theories are based on weak evidence and despite all of the strong arguments by the theorists without the evidence being concrete, no one will believe them. Even if they ever were in fact true.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
The Beat Marches On has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/The-Beat-Goes-On-Blog-107727714415791 and an X page: @TheBeatGoesOnB1
The websites used for research were:
The man behind the Lennon conspiracy van | San Diego Reader
The truth about John Lennon’s murder. By Steve Lightfoot – Home Lennon Murder Truth
A ludicrous theory says Stephen King killed John Lennon (faroutmagazine.co.uk)
The YouTube videos by the channels Lousy Larry and Weird Reads with Emily Louise were also used in research.
If you want to request a story for The Beat Marches On blog, you can contact jwhiteheadjournalism@gmail.com. We cannot guarantee that the story will be published but will be considered