Harrison, 56, kept up a good front, joking with staffers at nearby Royal Berkshire Hospital that the intruder "wasn't a burglar, and he certainly wasn't auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys [the group Harrison formed in 1988 with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne]." But the ordeal deeply affected him, according to hospital personnel. Abram's six-inch blade had punctured Harrison's right lung and missed his vena cava—a vein that carries blood from the upper body to the heart—by a "very, very small distance," says consulting surgeon "William Fountain, who later treated him. Harrison, who underwent treatment for throat cancer in 1997 (it is now in remission), and Olivia, the Mexican-born beauty he married in 1978, canceled their New Year's Eve gathering and instead watched festivities on television at the hospital. Olivia, who was wounded superficially, camped out at Harrison's bedside as flowers and messages poured in from well-wishers, including Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono.
The attack was chillingly similar to the murder of ex-Beatle Lennon, killed in 1980 by deranged fan Mark Chapman, Abram, a former heroin addict with a long history of mental illness, lives in a bleak housing project on the outskirts of Liverpool, the Beatles' hometown. He recently became convinced that the Beatles "are witches," according to his mother, Lynda Abram, 52. "He was always shouting, day and night," a neighbor recalls, adding that Abram sometimes stood naked on his balcony, ranting unintelligibly, or wandered aimlessly singing along to Beatles and Oasis songs on his Walkman: "He's the local nutter. Every neighborhood has one, and he's ours."
Police believe that some time around Christmas, Abram left Liverpool and traveled by rail 200 miles south to Henley-on-Thames to case Harrison's home, a 34-room Gothic mansion on a 32-acre estate known as Friar Park. Returning a week later, he gained access to the heavily secured home by smashing a first-floor kitchen window.
Abram, who bore a black eye and a bloody bruise on his forehead when he was arraigned Dec. 31 for attempted murder, was transferred to a medium-security psychiatric clinic in Liverpool, where he will undergo evaluation. "I am glad he is getting some treatment at last," says Lynda Abram of her son, whose mental disorders, she claims, had gone largely untreated. "I feel guilty because if I had ranted a bit more, maybe I could have got more done for Michael, and maybe this wouldn't have happened."
While doctors believe that Harrison, who was discharged from the hospital Jan. 1, will recover within weeks, he returns home knowing that despite elaborate security precautions, he remains vulnerable. In an unrelated incident on Dec. 23, Cristin Keleher, 27, a suspected Harrison stalker, was arrested inside his uninhabited vacation home on Maui, Hawaii, and charged with burglary and theft. Beatles biographer Ray Connolly, for one, believes that the very private Harrison will be even more wary of celebrity following these terrifying events. "He had the most level take on the Beatles," says Connolly. "He'll be scared, but he's a very cool person. He has spent a lot of time not being happy having to be a Beatle. Now I think he'll distance himself mentally even further from the idea."
Steve Dougherty
Pete Norman in Henley-on-Thames, Esther Leach in Liverpool, Liz Corcoran in London and Jeannie McCabe on Maui
- Contributors:
- Pete Norman,
- Esther Leach,
- Liz Corcoran,
- Jeannie McCabe.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
