The wrong Lennon murder revisited

It has come to our attention that someone is propagating the conspiracy theory known as the "Stephen King Killed John Lennon!" theory. Yes. Again. As the antagonist Steve Lightfoot says himself, he's been hassling King about this for 26 years.

I was at the library in Portland last week, and one of my friends handed me a new and updated version of the handout shown in our old post about this vintage conspiracy theory. She had been given the sheet (see below) by a fellow who had a fresh box of copies from Kinko's in his hand for distribution. In further discussion with other friends, it was also discovered that this conspiracy theory was also mentioned on Coast to Coast radio within the last month or so, apparently giving it a fresh jolt of life.

Now sporting an updated rant, and a website to sell his 24-page booklet, Steve Lightfoot has moved into the technological age, although maintaining ties with his photocopied past. I was kind of loathe to scan and post the new version of the handout here, but I'm sure you intelligent folk will be looking at it more as a piece of curiosity than as a piece of evidence. As when he was in Bangor, Lightfoot has quickly accused the local police of being in on the conspiracy. Part of the new text of the handout includes the following: "Now, the Portland, Maine police are resorting to a phony traffic citation my first day in town. King must be spreading his money around Portland like he's been doing all these years in Bangor to buy their silence with grants, baseball filds etc."

Lightfoot is aiming for a demonstration to occur at an undetermined location on October 9, 2008, on John Lennon's birthday. I only WISH King'd been spreading his money around Portland -- if he had been, our library might not be in such poor financial straits right now (and kudos to the Bangor Public Library for being the regular beneficiary of his book-loving grace).

John Lennon's death and Stephen King

Well, I've heard a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes about Stephen King, but this has got to be the most peculiar. To sum it up, the far-gone conspiracy story originates with Steven Lightfoot, and "Lightfoot is the guy who thinks that there was a conspiracy to kill John Lennon, involving Nixon, Reagan, various police departments, and Stephen King. King, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mark David Chapman, supposedly pulled the trigger."

The information comes from Donna Kossy, author of Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief, and founder of the online Kooks Museum. Her Steve Lightfoot Exhibit is online at http://home.pacifier.com/~dkossy/lightfoot.html. The exhibit consists mostly of rant-and-rave texts produced and distributed by Lightfoot in a campaign to inform the public about the facts of the event as he perceived them.

He stalked King for years, even moving to Bangor (at least according to his far-fetched account of events). Talk about fringe elements...