Parole board turns down freedom bid by Lennon’s killer
JOHN LENNON’S killer Mark Chapman has been denied parole for the 10th time.
The 63-year-old is serving a life sentence for the murder of the former Beatle in New York in December 1980. He shot Lennon, 40, four times in front of the musician’s wife, Yoko Ono.
The killer appeared before a parole board in New York, who denied his request for release and told him he must wait another two years to apply again.
It found his release “would be incompatible with the welfare and safety of society and would so deprecate the serious nature of the crime as to undermine respect for the law”.
Ono, 85, said she feared for the safety of her and Lennon’s two sons, Julian and Sean, should
Chapman be released.
Chapman was deemed by the board to be a low risk for offending again, but it said: “You admittedly carefully planned and executed the murder of a world-famous person for no reason other than to gain notoriety and while no-one person’s life is any more valuable than another’s life, the fact you chose someone who was not only a world-renowned person and beloved by millions regardless of the pain and suffering you would cause to his family, friends and so many others, you demonstrated a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life and the suffering of others. This fact remains a concern.”