New York, Dec 9

Hundreds of mourners chanting “All You Need Is Love” and other songs of the Beatles clustered today outside the Dakota apartment building in New York where John Lennon was shot dead last night.

Lennon, aged 40, was writer, singer and guitarist in the fabulously successful Liverpool singing group of the 1960s. He and Paul McCartney composed most of their hit songs.

Mark Chapman, a 25-year-old visitor to New York from Hawaii, was charged today with killing Lennon with a .38 revolver as the singer and his wife, the Japanese artist Yoko Ono, returned from a recording session just before 11pm. Mr Chapman had been lurking round the building for days and earlier in the evening had asked Lennon for his autograph.

Lennon shouted “I’m shot” and staggered into the building’s entrance booth. He was driven to a hospital nearby in a police car, but was dead when he arrived.

“Tell me it isn’t true,” Miss Ono sobbed as the news was broken to her. Mr Chapman made no attempt to flee.

When the doorman asked him whether he knew what he had done, he is alleged to have said: “I just shot John Lennon.”

When Mr Chapman was formally charged this afternoon, Miss Kim Hogrefe, the assistant district attorney, said that he had borrowed money to come to New York specifically to kill Lennon. The judge ordered him held without bail pending a psychiatric examination, which his court-appointed lawyer had requested.

The lawyer said Mr Chapman had twice in the past attempted suicide and had been committed to mental institutions.

Miss Hogrefe said that Mr Chapman had $2,000 (about £800) in cash on him when he was arrested a few minutes after the shooting. Police denied earlier reports that Mr Chapman had a record of arrests, including armed robbery.

Mr Chapman, who has lived in Hawaii for the last few years, grew up in Georgia. A police source suggested that his motive may have been dissatisfaction with the scribbled autograph Lennon had given him a few hours earlier, but this would not tally with Miss Hogrefe’s allegation that the killing was planned in advance.

People who knew Mr Chapman in Georgia said that he has been an amateur guitarist. He became interested in religion at school and had worked since as a security guard.

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