kindness and the sacrifice you have always made. peace and may god be with you all. thank you. >> we will never forget, we'll never know their pain and we only wish we could have stopped this to reduce the number of victims. one was world renowned. among the greatest musicians of the 20th century. >> john lennon had charisma. >> he was just special. >> john lennon was my favorite beatle. >> the other was a lenly kid from georgia with no particular talents and no real direction in life. >> everyone said he was a nice person. he wanted to bring attention to himself. >> they were as different as night and day.

two men on intense personal journeys that converged in a single shocking act. >> i took five steps and fired. five shots. >> i literally held john lennon's heart in my hand. >> it was an unthinkable crime that left millions in mourning. the murder of john lennon next. ♪ it's a chilly night at around 10:45 p.m. police respond to a report of a shooting at the dakota.

an exclusive apartment building on manhattan's upper west side. >> when we drove up to the dakota, there's a man standing in the middle of the street, pointing to the archway saying that's the man doing the shooting. we got out of the car, we approached the archway on each side of it. looked in and saw a man with his hands up. >> five shots had been fired. all but one found their target. >> so i grab the guy around the neck. the doorman, jose, said he's the one. he's the only one. he shot john lennon. i was totally shocked. i threw him up against the wall. i said you did what? >> former beatle john lennon has been shot with four hollow ..38 caliber bullets at close range. police rush him to roosevelt hospital but it's too late. shortly after 11:00 p.m., the

emergency room doctor pronounces john lennon dead. >> former beatle john lennon was gunned down as he entered the gate. >> john lennon, shot and killed in the dakota apartment building. >> it was really shocking. 40 years old, john lennon of the beatles. how could he be dead? how could this have happened? the city was in shock, not just people, my generation that grew up listening to their music in the '60s. i think just about everybody felt on so many levels it was wrong. >> it was terrible. i mean, i think the way so many people who didn't even know john felt. it hit me so much more because he befriended me and he didn't have to befriend me. >> in new york, cnn investigative reporter has come up with new facts about john lennon's accused killer.

>> the killer was identified as mark david chapman, a 25-year-old fan and drifter from hawaii. >> nothing from his background set off or would have caused to set off any alarm bells whatsoever. >> chapman apparently was well liked by most people he knew. the most common description was open, friendly, a hard worker with a ready smile. >> i don't think i have seen anybody get mad at him or say anything bad. >> i couldn't believe it. just didn't seem like the type person. >> normal, really. >> i think he was just fine. >> i couldn't have asked for anything better. >> most of those can't believe he's the same person charged with killing john lennon. >> everybody that we interviewed, and there were a lot, every one said he's a nice person. not capable of doing something like this. >> it was a tragic conclusion to an extraordinary life. john lennon, co-founder of the legendary beatles was gone.

♪ during the 1960s, the beatles were the biggest rock group in the world. their influence and popularity were unparalleled. >> i think the beatles spoke to young people in the '60s in a way that no other band did. they influenced so many people, not just musically but socially, politically, culturally. they were the touch stone for everything going on in the '60s. >> among the millions of american kids who worshiped the beatles was a shy, reclusive teenager named mark david chapman. he was an especially fervent fan of john lennon. during their heyday, the beatles were open about they are use of psychedelic drugs. like his idols, chapman begins experimenting. >> the defendant described there was periods of time in his life when he was more of the hippie nature, tried experimental drugs, as many people during

that time did. >> but in 1971, chapman becomes a born again christian, he quits drugs and rejects rock 'n' roll, the beatles and john lennon in particular. >> well, i became a christian when i was 16. and that lasted about a year of genuine walking with him, through my life, off and on, i have struggled with different hinges, as we all do. and at those times, i would turn to the lord. >> chapman's new found faith comes into conflict with his feelings about his former idol. according to friends, chapman was notably bothered by lennon's song "god" in which he states i don't believe in jesus. and his hit "imagine" with lyrics, "imagine there's no countries and no religion, too." chapman wrote his own words "imagine john lennon dead." >> the defendant claimed that

he was offended by the statement that john lennon had made that the beatles had become more popular than jesus christ. it was an off-the-cuff comment made during an interview in 1966, but it caused a lasting furor. >> a number of people in the bible belt -- young and old -- took this comment to be oh, you're bigger than jesus, you're bigger than god, this is blasphemy and how dare you say something like this. he was totally misquoted what he meant to say was more people paid attention to the beatles than paid attention to jesus. and he was only making an observation about that, not putting any context to it. or not saying that was a good thing or a bad thing. >> the beatles weather the storm. but in 1970, the band breaks up and lennon embarks on a solo career with his new wife, yoko ono. a year later, the lennons move

to new york city and take up residence at the fabled dakota apartments. the dakota's gothic facade had been featured in the film "rosemary's baby." it was home to the world's most famous actors and musicians. >> i think they viewed america as being a breath of fresh air for them at that time. little did they know what trouble awaits them. >> in new york, john and yoko adopted a high profile, politically and musically. it drew the attention and ire of the nixon administration. >> in the early '70s, the united states government began a campaign against john lennon to silence him. they were really concerned that he would influence young people voting in the 1972 election. and they didn't want that to happen. >> they were conducting surveillance operations. they were monitoring him. cars would follow him around.

they did the whole intelligence enchilada. >> after nixon was driven from office by the watergate scandal, the pressure on lennon let up and by 1975, he had withdrawn from the public eye. >> he was not in hiding. he was not a recluse. what he was doing was devoting full time to raising his son sean. that was his priority. >> during those days, lennon and ono became familiar figures in their neighborhood. >> he liked the informality of new york, he like the architecture. he liked the ability to walk. >> you you hear stories of john lennon walking down the street and people would walk up to him. like what's it like to walk in manhattan. >> he loved new york because people didn't bother him.

in new york, they respected his privacy and say, hey, john, how's things going, they'd shake his hand and say john, i like your music or something. but they didn't pester him. >> in november 1980, lennon emerged from retirement with an release of double fantasy, an album he recorded with ono. lennon had just turned 40. to many, it seemed john lennon had entered a promising new phase but this image of a happy contented husband and father would only serve to enrage a young man in hawaii. a once-devoted fan -- mark david chapman. >> he was in the house, sitting naked in front of his stereo listening to really loud beatles music and invoking satan to help him have the power to kill john lennon. ♪ ♪

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>> john lennon was gunned down in front of his apartment. >> former beatle -- >> the assailant is mark david chapman waiting with a .38 caliber. >> on the night he shot john lennon, mark david chapman was just 25 years old. it had been 25 years of almost painful anonymity. >> there was nothing that we learned from the extensive interviews and investigation of the defendant's background that suggested that was much different than any other 25-year-old person. >> at least on the surface. chapman grew up in georgia, the older of two children in what seemed like a typical suburban family. >> the defendant claimed in interviews with psychiatrists that he had a rough childhood and had a less than ideal relationship with his father, but there is nothing of his background of such an extreme or extraordinary nature that would suggest some sort of latent insanity or mental disease or defect caused by some childhood trauma. >> after high school, chapman

begins to drift through a series of jobs and half-hearted attempts at college. in 1977, he flies to hawaii where he plans to kill himself, and he reportedly tries twice, but fails. chapman stays in hawaii. over the next three years, he is hospitalized at least once, gets married, takes a job in a print shop, then quits. and goes to work as an unarmed security guard at a luxury, high-rise condo. he is obsessed with jd salinger's "catcher in the rye." chapman identifies closely with the book's protagonist halden caufield who rails against the phonies he encounters. chapman claims that by the summer of 1980, he was coming unhinged. >> j.d. salinger who has been reclusive for years wrote "the catcher in the rye" and read by and admired by millions, and

i wonder what he must be thinking if he is watching this. >> in 1992, larry king interviewed mark henry chapman via remote feed from aica prison. >> mark, why are you blaming a book? >> i am blaming myself for crawling inside of the book. i want to say that j.d. salinger and "catcher in the rye" did not cause me to kill john lennon. in fact, i wrote j.d. salinger i got his box number from someone, and i apologized to him for this. >> in october 1980, chapman turns his resentment against phonies towards john lennon when he reads an article about the upcoming release of double fantasy. >> this thing started with the dakota, i'm angry at seeing him on the dakota.

and i say to myself, that phony, that bastard, i got that mad, i took the book home to my wife and i said, look, he's a phony. >> this is his calendar from december of '79 to december of '80. it leads you through the manic months before his death. >> writer jim gaines spent hundreds of hours between 1984 and 1985 interviewing mark chapman. >> and you can see it becomes crazier and crazier with crossings-out and things to do. >> chapman told gaines, his mind had been like a war zone occupied by opposing forces he described as the big people and the little people. >> he had a whole population of little people living in his head. to whom he gave instructions who had meetings about what his activities should be. i mean, it was extreme. >> seething with anger, chapman

buys a five-shot .38 revolver. >> the gun was traced by new york authorities to jns enterprises, a gun shop a block away from the honolulu police department. a sales receipt shows the gun was purchased by mark chapman october 27th of this year. it shows chapman paid $197 in cash for the gun. >> just before buying the gun, chapman had quit his job as a security guard when he signed out for the last time, he inscribed the name john lennon in the condominium's log book, then crossed it out. six days later on october 29th, mark chapman flies to new york city. armed with the gun he bought in hawaii, he stakes out the dakota, waiting for his chance to take revenge on the hero he believes has betrayed him. but john lennon is not the only

potential victim, chapman, it seems, has backups. >> so he brought the gun with him, came to new york. and had planned at that point to kill someone who was a celebrity in order to bring attention to himself. >> lennon wasn't his only target. he had a list of substitute targets, if you will. if he couldn't get to lennon, he would have attempted to kill walter cronkite, johnny carson, george c. scott, jackie kennedy onassis or marlon brando. any of these people were his potential targets after lennon. lennon was his first choice. >> even so, chapman's agenda included a wild scheme to kill scott while the actor was on stage at a broadway show. >> the defendant said he had front row seats, and his plan was to stand up in the middle of the show, takeis gun, and fire into -- into the body of george

c. scott. >> it wasn't a particularly adroit plan because he was told that in new york, you cannot buy bullets for your gun. >> after two weeks in new york, chapman flies back to hawaii. he reveals to his wife he's obsessed with john lennon and plans to kill him. she convinces chapman to make an appointment with a psychologist but he doesn't keep it. in early december, chapman flies back to new york, stopping over in atlanta to procure five 38 caliber hollow bullets. >> this is not someone who is wanting to assault somebody or cause injury. this is someone intent upon committing a murder. this foundation with hydrating serum is so lightweight it doesn't settle into lines. age perfect serum foundation from l'oreal paris. we're worth it! lisa here, has had many jobs. and all that experience has led her to a job that feels like home.

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on the morning of december 6th, 1980, mark david chapman -- the man who would soon kill john lennon -- arrives in new york city. he goes to the dakota shortly before noon and joins a small group of fans hovering near the entrance. chapman will spend the next two days waiting for john lennon. >> who was mark david chapman? >> on december 8, 1980, mark david chapman was a very confused person. he was literally living inside of a paper back novel.

salinger's "the catcher and the rye." and he was vacillating between suicide and taking a taxi back and forth to hawaii and back and forth between killing an icon. >> around 3:00 a.m. on the morning of december 8th, chapman checks back in with his wife in hawaii. then he takes out the bible from his suitcase and turns to the new testament book of john and writes the name lennon after the words the gospel according to john. around 8:00 a.m., he heads back to the dakota. >> i had some type of premonition this was the last time i would leave my hotel room. i hadn't seen him up to that point, that's what makes it interesting, i wasn't sure he was in the building. and then i left the hotel room, bought a copy of "the catcher and the rye" and i wrote underneath it signed it and wrote "this is my statement." underlining the word this, emphasis on the word this. i planned not to say anything after the shooting. >> that morning, chapman meets

another fan named paul gorish. gorish, an amateur photographer, had come to know lennon personally. one of the photos was later used as the cover of lennon's >> when he was there, he was holding a copy of "double fantasy" in his left arm and this guy approached me and he said are you waiting for lennon? i said yeah. he said, do you work for john? i said no. he said, oh, my name is mark. he said, i'm from hawaii. what struck me strange is when he said that he had a southern accent. so, i said, if you're from hawaii, how come you have a southern accent? and he said, well, originally, i'm from georgia." and i said, oh. so i then said where are you staying while you are in the city? and with that, he turned to me

and said why do you want to know? >> sometime before 5:00 p.m., lennon and ono leave the apartment to go to his last recording session. chapman and gorish are on the sidewalk out front. chapman silently hands lennon his copy of double fantasy. >> guy came on john's left and held out the album and john turned and look theed at him and said do you want me to sign that? he nodded, john took the album. john said do you have a pen?" he handed him a pen. john started to sign the album, and i had my camera on my neck, and it looked like a good picture, so i looked through the view finder, and i took the photo. that is the photo of john signing the album for his killer. >> and he looked at me, and he said, is that all? do you want anything else? and i felt then and now that he

knew something subconsciously that he was looking into the eyes of the person that was going to kill him. >> once lennon and ono leave for the recording studio, only chapman, gorish and the dakota doorman remain. around 8:00 p.m., gorish calls it a night. the guy mark came over to me and said, are you leaving? and i said yes. and he says i don't know if i would leave, you might not see him again. what are you talking about? i see him all the time. he says you never know, he might go to spain or something and you never see him again. >> i wanted him to stay because i wanted out of there. there was a great part of me that didn't want to be there. >> you would have killed him the next day? >> oh, yes, i probably would have come back. >> after gorish leaves chapman remains in front of the dakota. he waits patiently for some 2 1/2 hours. >> i was sitting inside of the arch of the dakota building, and it was dark and it was windy. jose, the doorman, was out along

the sidewalk. and i see this limousine pull up. and i said this is it. i stood up, and yoko got out and john was far behind, say 20 feet, and he got out and i nodded to yoko when she walked by me, and john came out, and he looked at me and i think that he recognized that here's the fellow that i signed the album earlier. and he walked past me. i took five steps towards the street, turned, withdrew my charter arms .38, and fired five shots into his back. it fits y. why have over two million people welcomed bath fitter into their homes? it just fits. call now or visit bathfitter.com to book your free consultation.

i didn't even know if the bullets were going to work. and when they worked, i remember thinking, they're working, they're working. >> five bullets. the first misses hitting the window of the dakota, and the next two strike lennon in the left side of his back, and two more hit his left shoulder, and mortally wounded lennon staggers

up five steps to the reception area, and collapses. >> i stood there with the gun hanging limply down on my right side, and jose the doorman came over, and he's crying. and he is grabbing my arm and shaking my arm, and he shook the gun right out of my hand and he kicked the gun across the pavement and had somebody take it away. and i was just -- i was stunned. i didn't know what to do. i took the "catcher in the rye" out of my pocket, i paced. i tried to read it, i just couldn't wait until those police got there. i was just devastated. >> the first police are on the scene within two minutes and take control of chapman. just after two more officers arrive, and immediately rush to aid lennon. >> officers frownberger and palmer carried him out to a radio car to take him to the hospital. of course, there was no ambulance on the way at that time. and my partner and i took chapman and put him in the radio car to the station house to read

him his rights. >> dr. steven lin is on call at roosevelt hospital. two police officers came rushing through the front door of the emergency department and literally carrying over their shoulders a limp body and they said, dr. lynn, we can't get any vital signs. also in the emergency room, alan weiss, a young news producer for abc in new york who had been in a motorcycle accident. >> gunshot in the chest. i am almost positive. it's hitting the door now was the answer. at that moment, a stretcher was wheeled in. >> we rushed into the trauma room. there was no pulse. there was no blood pressure. we had an unresponsive patient. >> they brought him in literally to their room that i am lying outside of. >> the doctor ran in, other medical people ran in, they pulled the curtain.

>> we didn't know what a patient was at that point in time. it wasn't until the nurses took his wallet out of his pocket in the process of identifying and somebody said this is john lennon. >> one police officer stood next to another police officer and whispered it's john lennon. >> we looked at the body in front of us and all of us said this can't possibly be john lennon but, in fact, it was. >> so i hear sobbing behind me and i look behind me and i can see this woman is being brought in by a police officer. i asked the police officer who is that? and he said it was yoko ono. >> the only option, the only way that we could give him any possibility of surviving was to make an incision in his chest and to see if there was some way to stop the bleeding. and the most vivid memory that i have is john's chest is being -- is just open. and it's just blood. literally, saw the doctor's hands inside his chest. >> we open the chest. we found a chest full of blood. all of the blood vessels leaving the heart were completely

destroyed. we pumped fluid into the heart. i literally held john lennon's heart in my hand. we massaged the heart. we tried to restore flow. but there was absolutely nothing that we could do. we pronounced john lennon dead on arrival at the time roosevelt hospital that evening. silence fell over the emergency department. staff began to cry. we didn't quite know how to respond or how to react. and it became my job to walk down to the end of the hall to talk to yoko ono. i walked into the room, i think she knew as soon as i entered the door what i was going to say. >> there is music playing and it must have been about ten after 11:00. the song "all my loving" starts to play. the song ends. a minute, two minutes later, there is a scream. a shrill woman's voice screaming, no, no, no, oh, no. it went on for about a minute,

minute and a half. it was it was constantly repeated. >> silence. >> and final ly the head nurse brought in her husband's ring and gave it to her and she understood the finality of the about that occurred. and the first thing she said to me was please delay making the announcement. my son sean is probably at home sitting in front of the tv. i don't want him to find out about his father's death while watching a tv program. >> i don't think it really hit me until i heard the song all my loving. i called wabc, the newsroom. told them what i knew, that john lennon had been shot. as i understand it. they passed it on to abc network and abc network, um, made the decision to pass it on to howard and frank gifford and howard cosel made the -- broke news doing monday night football. >> by 11:35 p.m., the word was out. almost immediately, mourners

began gathering outside the dakota for a candlelight vigil. they sang beatles songs and chanted "give peace a chance." >> i just felt like, you know, incredible weight was just pressing down on me. it was just extraordinarily, extraordinarily sad. >> it impacted all of us so severely. it was as if a friend or a family member had passed away. >> i think that one of the reasons that we felt that way about him is because we had embraced him as our own. >> on december 10th, john hennen w lennon was cremated in a private ceremony. four days later, on december 14th, millions of people around the world responded to yoko ono's request to pause for ten minutes of silence to remember john lennon.

over 225,000 people converged on new york's central park. for those ten minutes, every radio station in new york city went off the air. ♪ pepto bismol coats and soothes your stomach for fast relief and get the same fast relief in a delightful chew with pepto bismol chews. well, well, well. look at you. you mastered the master bath. you created your own style. and you - yes, you! turned a sourdough starter into a sourdough finisher. so when you learyour chronic dry eye is actually caused by reduced tear production due to inflammation you take it on, by talking to your eyecare professional about restasis®... which may help you make more of your own tears with continued use twice a day, every day. restasis® helps increase your eye's natural ability to produce tears, which may be reduced by inflammation due to chronic dry eye. restasis® did not increase tear production in patients using

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♪ (delivery man) that's for you. (mail recipient 1) these are opened. (mail recipient 2) and it came like this? (delivery man) i don't know they're all open. this one's open too. privacy is important to you? (mail recipient 4) yeah. privacy is really important to me. (mail recipient 5) it is! to everybody! (mail recipient 6) privacy is everything! (mail recipient 7) whose been reading our mail? (delivery man) i don't know whose been reading it, i just deliver it. (mail recipient 5) this is my family here!

(mail recipient 8) this is a picture of me and my wife. (mail recipient 4) this has all my information on it! (delivery man) i know. i saw them. (mail recipient 1) do you wanna pay a bill since you went through them? on the morning of december 9th, mark chapman -- the man who killed john lennon -- was put in a bulletproof vest and taken by van to the new york city criminal courts building. while chapman was awaiting arraignment, police were searching his hotel room looking foclues that might reveal his motive. >> in the hotel room, we found

part of a display of all his stuff and we had a bible, a passport, photos, and a tape by todd rundgren, airline tickets, a letter of introduction from the young men's christian association, place mat with picture of the wizard of oz and receipt from the ymca there that he stayepreviously to the sheraton. >> the stuff was laying there, and laid out in such a way that he had intended for somebody to find it. exactly the way it was laid out. >> how do you feel about taking this case? >> i feel good about it. >> jonathan marks, a former u.s. assistant attorney, is appointed to defend chapman. >> jonathan marks is asked about whether or not he might ask for a change of venue for the trial, and his response was certainly not at this point, and he said even if we held the trial in paris, people would know about it. the fact that a lot of people are angry with mr. chapman and the fact that you're going to represent him, how do you feel about that?

>> i am simply a lawyer representing a client. >> this is not a whodunit. there were witnesses who saw him do the shooting and he made no effort to flee the scene. it was clear from the initial investigation that the defendant was going to lodge an insanity defense. >> and the first order of business was to have chapman mental state evaluated. >> the only issue will be whether or not he was ip sane at the time of the shooting. >> this is the front entrance of the bellevue hospital where the killer of john lennon mark chapman is being held by extraordinary security precautions by the department of corrections. >> and asked if i would help on the chapman case. i agreed. >> forensic psychiatrist dr. daniel schwartz interviewed mark david chapman on eight separate occasions for the defense. >> clearly, mr. chapman knew what he was doing, he used a gun

in an all too accurate way. he knew it was a gun. he knew it could kill. and he pointed it at the intended victim, and unfortunately, it worked. >> the serious question in this case is whether or not his mental illness impaired his ability to appreciate that what he was doing was wrong. >> simply being meant hi ill does not acquit somebody, it's only if this mental illness impairs his ability to know and appreciate the nature and the consequence of his conduct, or that it's wrong. >> dr. schwartz believes that chapman's mental illness began in childhood. >> mr. chapman became seriously withdrawn at about the age of 9 or 10. it was about that age that he began imagining a whole world of people, little people. in the living room. in the walls of his living room, and he was their emperor, their

commander. and it was my clinical assessment that he was both a paranoid schizophrenic as we understood the definition in those days, and suffering from bipolar disorder. i truly believe that when he went after john lennon, he was suicidal. john lennon was himself, had become himself. he believed that if he would kill himself, he would be reborn, in killing lennon, he was killing himself. >> mark david chapman at that point was a walking shell who didn't ever learn how to let out his feelings of anger, of rage, or disappointment. mark david chapman was a failure in his own mind. he wanted to become somebody important, larry. he didn't know how to handle being a nobody. mark david chapman struck out at something he perceived to be phony, something he was angry

at, to become something he wasn't, to become somebody. >> former assistant district attorney kim hogrefe did not buy it for a minute. >> left the courthouse with no comment. >> if he was obsessed with anything, it was bringing attention to himself. he was narcissistic, he was grandiose, he wanted to bring attention to himself. the fact that john lennon was the victim here is simply because john lennon was publicly available, and others were not. he was not crazed. he was not obsessed and he was not entitled to the insanity defense, and we felt that he was criminally responsible, and he did not have a mental disease or defect, and that whatever his mental state was, it did not prevent him from knowing the nature of his conduct and that it was wrong. >> with the evidence at hand, a grand jury indictment is expected. >> on june 22nd, 1981, just six months after the murder and the day his trial is set to begin, chapman changes his plea to guilty, against the advice of his defense team.

>> when the defendant entered the guilty plea, i was disappointed by that fact, i was looking forward to the opportunity to prove the facts that we had assembled in a public trial. >> mark david chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life, and sent to the new york state penitentiary at attica. in his interview with larry king, chapman claimed to have recovered from the mental illness that had led to his crime. >> it was me, larry. and i accept full responsibility for what i did. i have seen places where i am blaming the devil, and i hope that isn't kept going after this interview. i'm not blaming the devil. i'm blaming myself, but in a major sense, it wasn't me because i'm better now. i'm sorry for what i did. i realize now that i really ended a man's life. i just saw him as a two-dimensional celebrity with no real feelings. he was an album cover to me.

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after my car accident, i wondered what my case was worth. so i called the barnes firm. when that car hit my motorcycle, insurance wasn't fair. so i called the barnes firm. it was the best call i could've made. atat t bararnefirmrm, our r inry a attneysys wk hahard i could've made. atat t bararnefirmrm, to get you the best result possible. call us now and find out what your case could be worth. you u mit bebe sprisised ♪ the barnes firm injury attorneys ♪ ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ in the years since john lennon's death, many people have tried to make sense of his murder. in the early 1990s, journalist and author jack jones interviewed chapman at length for his book "let me take you down: inside the mind of mark david chapman."

>> mark is an unusual individual. he's a sociopath, but he is much more intelligent than i think most of these people. i think his mind is capable of almost infinite self-deception. i believe unlike a lot of people he tries very hard to empathize with other people, he tries to sense that other people have pain also. but it's mostly intellectual knowledge, he doesn't really feel it. he wanted to hurt the world. chapman told me he fantasized in getting hold of a nuclear bomb and maybe blow up a small city, injuring or killing thousands if not millions of people. >> chapman shot john lennon because he wanted his moment of glory in the sun. that's it. that's the conclusion that we came to. i stand by it to this day. >> we're back with jack jones, how do you react to those who say we shouldn't interview the mark david chapmans?

there shouldn't be television shows or books, that we focus attention on the wrong area? >> probably these are the same kind of people who say we shouldn't be writing about or studying aids because it's a very unpleasant, deadly topic. we have an opportunity, particularly with a guy like mark chapman, who has agreed to open himself up for exploration and study in hopes of preventing other mark david chapmans from coming along. people who criticize journalists for exploring people like that i think miss the point. >> it gives him publicity for this horrendous act he committed. the killers become as famous as the people they killed. and it's really unfortunate. >> as with almost any famous tragic event, conspiracy theories have sprouted up regarding the shooting. of john lennon. the prevailing scenario has mark david chapman as a patsy, programmed by mysterious government operatives to kill lennon.

>> there was absolutely no evidence suggesting he was assisted or aided by another person. he was simply someone who acted alone without assistance of other people. >> i've been through every fbi document in john's file. there is not one shred of evidence to suggest that the u.s. government had the least interest in john after 1972. >> what do you make of all the conspiracy theories that have come up in the last 12 years? cia, mind control, et cetera? >> against john lennon? >> yeah. >> hog wash. >> no one asked you to do it. no one prompted you to do it, no cabal, nothing? >> no, they probably wish they would have had me, larry, but they didn't. this was me doing it. >> more than 30 years after killing john lennon, mark chapman remains in prison. he first became eligible for parole in the year 2000. he has been denied at least seven times since then. >> i think it's best for mark chapman to stay in psychiatric

care as he is. he committed a heinous act. whether or not he's been treated or cured, i can't tell you. i don't know. he did something that was horribly wrong. he changed the track and the life of the world, in my opinion. i think he needs to stay where he is. >> this guy murdered him. he shot him in the back which is what people don't realize, he shot him in the back. he's a coward. >> i don't think the killer of john lennon should ever been paroled. the damage that he wreaked on a wife, two sons, beatles fans around the world. i can't imagine there's anything he could do or say that would warrant parole. >> john lennon's widow yoko ono has repeatedly opposed chapman's release from prison. >> my husband john lennon was a very special man. a man of humble origin. he both liked and helped the whole world with his words and

music. he tried to be a good power for the world, and he was. he gave encouragement, inspiration, and dreams to people, regardless of their race, creed, and gender. for me, he was the other half of the sky. we were in love with each other at the most deepest of love at the last moment. for our son sean, he was the world. that world shattered when the subject pulled the trigger. for julian, it was losing his father twice. for the people of the world, it was as though the light went out for a moment and darkness prevailed. with this one act of violence, in those few seconds, the subject managed to change my

whole life, devastate his sons, and bring deep sorrow and tears to the world. >> in 1985, new york city dedicated an area of central park, directly across from the dakota, as strawberry fields, for one of lennon's most famous songs. countries from around the world donated trees. and the imagine mosaic centerpiece was a gift from the city of naples. tangible proof that the legacy of john lennon transcends borders and generations. >> i was walking down the street the other day, and i saw a kid probably no older than 16 or 17 wearing a t-shirt with john lennon's face on it. and i thought, this is really interesting. here it is, he died more than 30 years ago. and for this young person, he

still had resonance. >> the best way to remember john lennon is to be inspired by his optimism, his integrity, his clarity, and his love for his family. he was the real deal. ♪ live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, welcome to all of you watching us here in the united states, canada, and around the world. i'm kim brunhuber. this is "cnn newsroom." signs that russia is building up its forces near ukraine's border as one european leader prepares to push for a diplomatic solution. live in kyiv with the latest. plus now two years into the pandemic, one group is being overlooked when it comes to treatment. look at efforts to battle long-haul covid. and the queen of england