On December 30, 1999, former Beatle George Harrison and his wife, Olivia, were attacked by a knife-wielding intruder inside their Henley-on-Thames, England home. George sustained several serious stab wounds and a collapsed lung, but Olivia was able to fight off the assailant until the police arrived.

The attacker turned out to be Michael Abrams, an obsessed Beatles fan from Liverpool who believed that God had ordered him to kill Harrison. He had been planning the attack for some time, and aside from having a history of drug addiction, he also showed signs of having paranoid schizophrenia and a psychotic condition.

Abrams was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a mental health facility in November 2000, but he was given a preliminary release after spending only 19 months there. This proved to be an additional burden on Harrison’s family after the musician died from lung cancer in 2001.