John Lennon’s killer denied parole for 8th time
Posted August 23, 2014 7:29 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Mark David Chapman, who shot and killed former Beatle John Lennon in 1980, was denied parole on Friday by the New York state’s Department of Corrections for the eighth time.
Following a hearing on Wednesday (August 20), the three member board said the killing of former Beatles musician Lennon had “devastated a family and those who loved the victim”.
“Your release would be incompatible with the welfare of society and would so deprecate the serious nature of the crime as to undermine respect for the law,” the board concluded.
At Chapman’s previous hearing in 2012, the panel had acknowledged Chapman’s prison record of good conduct and programme achievements but said a “release at this time would greatly undermine respect for the law and tend to trivialize the tragic loss of life which you caused as a result of this heinous, unprovoked, violent, cold and calculated crime”.
The 59-year-old is serving a prison sentence of 20 years to life for shooting Lennon four times in the back outside the musician’s New York City apartment building on December 8, 1980.
He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced in 1981.
Chapman has come up for parole every two years since 2000 and has been turned down each time.
He can re-apply for parole again in two years.
