Back to This Week in Music History: December 2 - 8
December 8: John Lennon and Dimebag Darrell are Shot By "Fans"
Getty | Hulton Archive
On this day in 1980 former Beatles member John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment by nutter fan Mark David Chapman. After committing the shooting Chapman continued to hang around the crime scene reading Catcher in the Rye.
Meanwhile, in 2004 legendary Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott was shot and killed onstage while playing a show with his band Damageplan.
The gunman, Nathan Gray, ended up killing three others before police shot and killed him. Although Gale's motives were never confirmed, the most common theory suggests he was a paranoid schizophrenia who was mad because he believed Pantera could read his mind and were "stealing" his thoughts.
