>>> shortly before 11:00 monday night -- >> john lennon was gunned down in front of his apartment. >> former beatle -- >> the assailant is mark david chapmanaiting 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 reported