>>> shortly before 11:00 monday night -- >> john lennon was gunned down in front of his apartment. >> former beatle -- >> the assailant is mark david chapmanting with a .38 caliber. >> on the night he shot john lennon mark david chapman was only 25 years old, and it has been 25 years of almost painful anonymity. >> it was nothing that we learned from the extensive interviews and the investigation of the defendant's background that suggested that he 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

john lennon shot and killed in the dakota apartment building where he lived. >> the suspect is identified as mark david chapman hinckley idolized lennon. that new year's eve he locks himself in his room at his parents' house. drinks peach brandy. plays his guitar and wallows in his own misery. ♪ sometime during the night, hinckley writes in his diary, john lennon is dead. forget it. it's just going to be insanity. i still think about jodie all the time. anything i might do in 1981 would be solely for jodie foster's sake. i want to tell the world that i love her. >>> valentine's day, 1981, john hinckley is leaving more notes for jodie foster. on one postcard he writes, one day you and i will occupy the white house. please, do your best to remain a virgin. you are a virgin. aren't you? >> but this time hinckley is not just leaving her notes. he's contemplating a violent act. >> he had guns with him when he was in new haven stalking jodie foster and just unsure what he was doing with it. >> spurned once more by foster and feeling suicidal, hinckley goes to new york city, still carrying the guns he bought in dalla