One of the more tantalizing and persistent myths in rock lore contends that “ Paul is dead”—that Paul McCartney died in a 1966 car accident and was secretly replaced with a lookalike. There are countless sites and rambling YouTube videos attempting to support this claim—based not just on the well-known middle-school myths about the cover of Abbey Road but on arcane evidence surfaced from the depths of pop-culture obscurity.

In February of 2009, a man waving signs interrupted a meeting of the Sarasota City Commission to stand before the microphone and make a remarkable claim: John Lennon—shot and killed on December 8, 1980—had not been murdered by deranged Catcher in the Rye fan Mark David Chapman, but by none other than popular author Stephen King.