Morningside is no stranger to crazy people.  Every once in a while, however, one pops up who can’t just be ignored.

It’s generally accepted (or rather, Wikipedia states firmly) that crazy person Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon in 1980, leading to his death.  Stories like that are never complete without their conspiracy theorists, however.

Steve Lightfoot, native of Montana and resident of California, has long been considered by the blogosphere something of a kook.  Normally, Bwog doesn’t concern itself with kooks unless they wander near campus, which he (or one of his minions) does.  Several times over the last few weeks, Bwog spotted a van sporting the address “lennonmurdertruth.com” by the Earl Hall gates, and a lone man standing beside it with three signs: “Jealous Public Killed John Lennon,” “Jewish Media Pushing Chapman Hoax,” and the best part, “Steven [sic] King Pulled The Trigger.”  An investigation was deemed necessary.


According to his website, Lightfoot’s theory is that Stephen King, horror novelist extraordinaire, was responsible for the murder of John Lennon.  See, King wasn’t famous back then, so he needed to do something to draw attention to himself (Bwog would like to point out that King’s very well-received novel Carrie was published in 1974, six years before Lennon’s death).

It doesn’t end there: “bold print government cryptographic codes” in print magazines and Nixon’s book, The Real War, clearly identify the real killer.  Tricky Dick and Ronald Reagan planned for King to carry out the murder.  These codes were cleverly hidden in newspaper articles in phrases such as “Fizz and Fury,” “Le Monde Under Attack,” and “A Gambler’s Luck Runs Out.”  Confused yet?

It’s quite simple.  The man in the famous picture of Chapman getting Lennon’s autograph shortly before the murder was misidentified: it’s actually Stephen King!  Newsweek was in cahoots with the photographer, who was probably a government operator, and the police who arrested King (posing as Chapman) switched the two men once they arrived at the police station.

If you’re still not convinced, Lightfoot offers proof by linking the names “Chapman” and “David King” with a word “Mark” (as in “mark my words”) in a few Letters to the Editor in an edition of U.S. News & World Report.  King even wrote a letter to Lightfoot, using an alias, of course, admitting his guilt.  Lightfoot’s father was killed in a plane crash two weeks after recieving the letter, thus proving it genuine.

Of course, nothing proves the veracity of his claims like the evidence in King’s writings.  Lightfoot provides numerous examples of graphic, murderous details in the novels, which are totally unheard of in most of King’s writings.  There are even some guilt-ridden references to Newsweek and faked photographs.

All in all, Bwog, like Lightfoot, thinks the public ought to take this matter very seriously. King is clearly a threat to our society, not just for the week of nightmares we started having after reading It, but for the murder of one of the peace movement’s most beloved icons.  Spread the word!

Or not.

— Anish Bramhandkar