A bullet fired from the gun that killed John Lennon is going up for auction this week.
The New York Police Department gifted the bullet to Northumbria Police officer Brian Taylor after allowing him to shoot the gun after a visit to the station.
Taylor recently passed away, and the morbid memorabilia will be put on the auction block on February 29 via Newcastle auctioneers Anderson & Garland.
“It’s one of those slightly macabre lots you get now and again that draws everyone’s attention,” Fred Wyrley-Birch, director at Anderson & Garland told BBC.
“There is a Beatles fanbase that is fanatical and a market for just about anything Beatles.”
“But very seldomly do you get something so unusual and unique, it’s difficult to know what it’s worth and whether there’s a market for it or not,” he added.
“It’s a really interesting piece of Beatles memorabilia that probably can’t be replicated.”
Mark David Chapman shot and killed Lennon outside his NYC apartment on December 8, 1980.
In 2022, the killer revealed the chilling reason why he assassinated the musician. “I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was evil. I knew it was wrong, but I wanted the fame so much that I was willing to give everything and take a human life. I am not going to blame anything else or anybody else for bringing me there,” he told the parole board after his 12th failed parole attempt.
“This was evil in my heart. I wanted to be somebody, and nothing was going to stop that,” he continued before admitting that killing Lennon was “my big answer to everything. I wasn’t going to be a nobody anymore.”
