The album John Lennon signed for his murderer goes on sale for £1.2m
THE album which John Lennon signed for his killer Mark Chapman hours before he was shot dead outside his home has gone on sale for £1.2million.
Lennon autographed his Double Fantasy album for Chapman as he and Yoko Ono left the Dakota apartment building in New York for a recording session at 5pm on December 8, 1980.
Lennon was photographed autographing the album for Chapman.
The crazed fan stashed the record in a large plant pot at the entrance to the apartments and waited until Lennon and Ono returned at 10.50pm. As the Beatle walked into the building, Chapman fired five shots from a .38 revolver, four of which hit Lennon in the back and left shoulder. He was pronounced dead 10 minutes later on arrival at hospital.
The signed album was found in the plant pot by a passerby that night who handed it in to the police to be used as evidence in Chapman’s trial.
Officials returned the album to the unnamed member of the public a year later with a letter of gratitude from the district attorney. Remarkably, the cover and dust jacket still bear the forensically enhanced fingerprints of Chapman.
A Beatles fan all his life, the man hid the album under his bed for 18 years before selling it to a private collector in 1999.
Now the present owner has decided to put the “morbid” piece of music history on the market for $1.5million (£1.2million).
Gary Zimet, president of US dealer Moments In Time, which is selling the album, said: “It is arguably the most important rock and roll artefact in history, even if it is a little morbid.”