Taxi Driver Who Witnessed John Lennon's Murder Recalls Thinking Someone Was 'Making a Movie' After Hearing Shots

Richard Peterson recalls the fateful 1980 day in 'John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial'

When taxi driver Richard Peterson pulled up to the Dakota the night of Dec. 8, 1980, he thought perhaps he’d get a glimpse of John Lennon, the New York City apartment building’s most famous resident.

Instead, he inadvertently bore witness to one of the most shocking moments in pop culture history: Lennon’s murder.

For the first time since that tragic night more than 40 years ago, Peterson is opening up about what he saw — and how he assumed they were filming a movie when he first heard gunshots — in John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial, a three-part Apple TV+ docuseries streaming now.

In the series, Peterson explains that he picked up two passengers that night and drove them to the Dakota, where they were going to a party. As he arrived in his cab, he pulled up behind a limo, and soon saw Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono step out and head toward the building.

“‘Oh! John Lennon must be coming out next,’” Peterson recalls thinking. “I had never seen him in person. It was sort of like, oh, I can say I saw John Lennon.”

Related: John Lennon Was 'So Happy' in His Final Days, Says Friend — but Faced Unsettling Premonitions (Exclusive)

At that point, though, it wasn’t the 40-year-old musician that Peterson saw but Mark David Chapman whom he recalls as a “heavyset, chunky guy.”

“I’m looking at him, looking through the front window of my cab. I’m looking at him shoot him. Five shots. This guy just shot John Lennon. He shot him,” he says. “I thought they were making a movie. That’s what I thought, I thought they were making a movie. But I didn’t see no lights or cameras or anything, so I just realized, ‘Hey, this ain’t no movie.’”

Peterson recalls that Lennon’s killer – who remains behind bars after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in 1981 — remained on the scene after the shooting, and acted “calm as a cucumber.”

The driver is one of several people interviewed in the new docuseries, which is directed by Nick Holt and Rob Coldstream and narrated by Kiefer Sutherland (Executive producers include David Glover, Mark Raphael and Coldstream, plus producers Simon Bunney and Louis Lee Ray).

Others include Dakota doorman Jay Hastings — who speaks to PEOPLE about his memories in this week’s issue — as well as Chapman’s defense lawyer David Suggs and Dr. Naomi Goldstein, the psychiatrist who first assessed Chapman.

The series dives deep on the investigation and conviction of Chapman, as his attorneys and prosecutors debated his mental state. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison, and was denied parole for the 12th time in 2022. He has since said that he killed Lennon for fame, and called his actions “selfish.”

For more on John Lennon, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere now.

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