John Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, denied parole for 5th time
John Lennon’s killer was denied parole for the fifth time on Tuesday for early release from a New York prison.
Mark David Chapman has been in New York’s Attica Correctional Facility since being convicted of shooting the former Beatle outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980.
The parole board said Chapman had demonstrated good behavior since 1994, but his release “would not be in the best interest of the community.”
Parole board members said Chapman had told them he planned and conducted Lennon’s killing “with an essentially clear mind.”
He has been eligible for parole since 2000, when he had served 20 years of his life sentence.
Chapman, who went to New York twice in 1980 obsessed with killing Lennon, was assessed as delusional and psychotic after his arrest.
Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, has opposed parole for Chapman at earlier hearings and again wrote to the parole board this year to object to his release.
She has said she does not feel she or her family will be safe if Chapman is at large.
“It’s dangerous for him to come out,” she told the New York Daily News Monday. “Not only for us, but for himself. There are so many people out there who dislike him. It’s safer for him to stay in jail.”
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