19 years after John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman, Lennon’s former bandmate, George Harrison, was the victim of a similar attack that nearly cost him his life. On December 30, 1999, 33-year-old Michael Abram broke into the home that Harrison shared with his wife, Olivia, in Henley-on-Thames, England. Around 3:30 a.m., Olivia awoke to the sound of glass breaking and alerted Harrison, who headed downstairs to investigate. There, he discovered Abram standing in the main hall armed with a knife.
Abram began shouting at Harrison and Harrison responded by chanting the “Hare Krishna” mantra in an attempt to distract Abram. The intruder then approached Harrison and a physical altercation ensued. “My first instinct was to grab for the knife,” Harrison recalled. “We fell to the floor. I was fending off blows with my hands,” he continued. “[Abram] was on top of me and stabbing down at my upper body.”
The Night George Harrison Was Attacked by a Man Who Believed God Wanted Him Dead
Harrison was said to have been stabbed 40 times during the assault, with one blow just barely missing his superior vena cava. Olivia eventually got involved and repeatedly struck Abram with a brass poker. This caused him to set his sights on her and she had to resort to fighting him off with a heavy table lamp. Luckily, by that point, the police had arrived and Abram was taken into custody.
Abram was later revealed to have been a paranoid schizophrenic who believed he was on a mission from God to kill Harrison. His mother also told the press that Abram hated the Beatles and thought that they were “witches.” Abram was charged with attempted murder, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity in November 2000. By 2002, he was declared fit for release and subsequently discharged from a psychiatric facility.
Harrison died from cancer on November 29, 2001.
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