John Lennon’s goalkeeper recalls terrifying moment he fainted after being hit: ‘I had blood on my hands’

John LennonThe bouncer from the day he was killed has spoken out about the tragedy in a moving new interview. Jay Hastings I used to work at the Dakota, where… Beatles member lived on December 8, 1980 and told PEOPLE everything about that fateful day, detailing exactly what happened in the moment after the shooting.

“I remember everything like it was yesterday,” he told the station, referring to when John was murdered Mark David Chapman in front of his Upper West Side apartment building at 10:50 p.m. He said he met another doorman named Josephwho was the first to see John after the shooting.

“I could hear José outside, ‘Oh, Mr. Lennon.’ Boom, boom, the doors closed and I could hear the rapid advance of heels down the driveway,” he recalled. “So I went to the counter, where there was a hidden safety button to open the door so I could enter the actual Dakota.”

“Since I was there with my finger on the button, that’s when [John] “He came running, right after he heard the shots, and said, ‘They shot me, they shot me,’ and he ran past me into the back office and passed out,” she continued.

Jay went on to explain that he quickly processed what had happened, but at the time, “you’re not calculating the end result” and didn’t know how serious the injury was. “[I] “I didn’t know the severity of the shooting,” he said. “I went to the administrative office, Yoko [Ono, John’s wife] I was there, right behind him, screaming, “Call an ambulance.” Call an ambulance. “

He also said that José “had already pressed the panic button at the doorman’s booth, and this did nothing but overload the starting line with a constant, pre-recorded message to the police.” In an attempt to get the police’s attention, Jay called 911 from the Dakota building.

After José told him that John’s killer was still outside and unarmed, he “took the truncheon from the safe” and went “downstairs, because he was going to shoot this guy, because he was afraid he would run away.” .

As he approached Chapman, Jay admitted he realized he was “facing the wall, doing something. . . I was reading a book. When the police arrived a short time later, they initially thought Jay was the culprit. “I looked a little crazy, my hands were already covered in blood, I was only wearing a T-shirt, a white shirt without a tie,” he said. He made sure to direct the police to Chapman, who was subsequently arrested and ultimately sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for shooting and killing John.

Juan was 40 years old when he died. The talented musician left behind his wife Yoko and his son. Sean Lennonwho was five years old when he died, like his eldest son, Julian Lenonwho was 17 years old. A new Apple TV+ docuseries called John Lennon: murder without trialpremiered Wednesday and revisits the murder.