Imagine the doorman on duty, one
Jose Perdomo, supposedly screamed "Leave! Get out of here!" Then he asked Chapman, "Do you know what you've done?" "I just shot John Lennon," Chapman said matter-of-factly. Then we're told, Chapman threw down his gun, took off his coat, folded it at his feet, and calmly started reading a paperback, Catcher in the Rye. Perdomo kicked the gun away. One wonders why Perdomo told him to leave, after reminding him of his crime. Perhaps Perdomo was the shooter and planted the gun.
Imagine, minutes later, Perdomo identified Chapman as the killer as the cops arrived. Patrolman Peter Cullen didn't believe it. He thought Chapman looked too straight. But Perdomo insisted and Officer Steven Spiro arrested Mark. The cops could also see that Lennon was dying. Instead of waiting for an ambulance, they lifted him into a patrol car and rushed him to nearby Roosevelt Hospital. But Lennon died in the emergency room.
Imagine
Jose Joaquin Sanjenis Perdomo. According to Cuban Information Archives and Salvador Austucia, author of Rethinking John Lennon's Assassination, Perdomo was also known as "Joaquin Sanjenis," and "Sam Jenis." He was mostly known as an anti-Castro Cuban exile and a member of Brigade 2506 during the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, a miserably failed CIA operation, which cost Company Head Allan Dulles his job, and maybe John F. Kennedy his life, also by a mythic lone gunman, who turned out to play patsy, too. In fact, during that evening, while Chapman waited hours for Lennon's return, Perdomo had spoken at length with him about the invasion and Cuban American politics. Strange topics for strangers, one waiting for a rock star.
Imagine Officer Cullen remained troubled with Perdomo's claim that Chapman was the killer. Cullen later told reporter James R. Gains of People Magazine in a Feb. 23, 1987, piece,
"The Man Who Shot Lennon" that: "He [Chapman] looked like a guy who worked in a bank, an office. Not a loser or anything, just a guy out there trying to earn a living. I remember taking a look at him and saying, 'Why? What did you do here?' He really had no answer for it. He did say several times, 'I'm sorry I gave you guys so much trouble.'"
Imagine Perdomo had reason to insist Mark was the man. Perdomo, aka Sanjenis, had worked side by side, ah yes, with convicted and now deceased Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis for about a decade on the CIA payroll. Sturgis misleadingly claimed Joaquin Sanjenis died of natural causes in 1974. He claimed it was the Company's way of keeping Sanjenis' anonymity. His family wasn't even notified of his supposed death till after the funeral. In fact, Sanjenis/Perdomo may still be alive, plumbing in some near or far outpost. There's always work for anonymous men who know how to do what needs to be done and vanish. Ole!
Imagine Perdomo was so invisible that he wasn't identified by name for more than six years after Lennon's murder. He was mistakenly referred to first as Jay Hastings, the bearded, burly desk clerk who worked in the lobby, and was on duty the night Lennon was killed. In fact, Lennon ran from the shooter, and collapsed before Hastings and Yoko. This information is mentioned in the book, The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles, written by one of the group's management team, Peter Brown -- along with Steven Gains.
Imagine from the book,
The Fish is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro, by Warren Hinckle and William Turner, these descriptions of Sanjenis/Perdomo:
"Sanjenis was an opportunistic little man who managed to punch a CIA meal ticket the rest of his life. When he met [Frank] Sturgis he was filling a bucket or rotten eggs, which would become Operation 40 -- the secret police of the Cuban invasion force. The ultrasecret Operation 40 included some nonpolitical, conservative exile businessmen, but its hard core was made up of dice players at the foot of the cross -- informers, assassins-for-hire, and mob henchmen whose sworn goal was to make the counterrevolution safe for the comfortable ways of the old Cuba. They were the elite troops of the old guard within the exile movement, who made effective alliance with CIA right-wingers against CIA liberals . . .
"Sanjenis got Sturgis a CIA maildrop and gave him the right phone numbers, and Sturgis agreed to coordinate his own operations with Sanjenis and work on a contract basis on special agency assignments . . .
"Sanjenis had launched scores of ships and planes on clandestine raids against Cuba and had sent hundreds of men on missions from which there had been no return. . . . There were no official missing-in-action reports in the Secret War against Cuba. It was Joaquin Sanjenis' job to keep his troops, as himself, faceless." And so he was, and lived up to his character references.
The Entry Wounds on the Left Side of Lennon's BodyImagine the theory we've been told: that Lennon had walked past Chapman, who was to the right and then rear of him in the dark entryway. If Chapman had called out, "Mr. Lennon," and John stopped and turned, it was possible though difficult for him to hit Lennon in the left shoulder, and then as Lennon turned to flee, to hit him in the upper left back. Yet Chapman told Judge Dennis Edwards at a sentencing hearing that he didn't say anything to Lennon, just that he fired.
Imagine a second theory: Perdomo or another operative fired from the doorway leading to the service elevator, which was at the left of the walkway and in front of Lennon. There are two series of two shots. First, two shots hit the left shoulder. As Lennon runs towards the lobby stairway, two other shots hit his upper left back. Shooting from that doorway seems a more plausible way to make those hits. Since the autopsy was not made public, we don't know if three of the five shots exited, grazed or missed Lennon to hit the glass lobby door.
Imagine crime scene witnesses varied in their accounts of whether or not Chapman called to Lennon. No convincing evidence was presented that Chapman had caused Lennon to turn. Also, this wasn't a trial since Chapman had already confessed. It was simply a sentencing hearing. There was no official testimony or any witnesses. The case was declared closed on the night of the murder, and the police report is lacking in any substantive detail. Yet what it does say is that Chapman was carrying $2,201.76 in cash when arrested and declared himself unemployed. You wonder why eyes didn't open at that, and a complete inquiry wasn't made into the death of a figure like John Lennon. Could it possibly be a cover-up? Had assassinations liked this ever happened before?
Imagine author Salvador Astucia's somewhat offbeat scenario: "As Lennon passes Chapman, a member of the FBI's assassination squad somehow transmits an audible message to Chapman . . . which places him in a semi-hypnotic trance . . ." Perhaps Jose Perdomo simply whispered in his ear something that had been programmed into Chapman's psyche earlier: "Kill Lennon." Chapman had claimed he heard a voice, although Astucia believes he is clearly not psychotic. I don't agree, and will address that point in a moment. The message, however delivered, does trigger Mark's mind to think he is about to kill Lennon. And so for me, we have a classic patsy on autopilot.
Who Was Chapman and How Did He Get to Be a Patsy?Read more:
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