Man Who Shot John Lennon Denied Parole Again

Mark David Chapman, the man convicted of shooting and killing former Beatles legend John Lennon in 1980, was denied parole for a seventh time on Thursday.

According to the New York Department of Corrections, Chapman's parole board hearing was held earlier this week at the maximum-security prison Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York.

Chapman was recently transferred to Wende Correctional earlier this year after having spent 31 years at the Attica Correctional Facility.

Chapman, 57, has applied for parole every two years since 2000 and has been turned down each time.

The parole board's deciding member Sally Thompson wrote to Chapman about his latest parole denial, stating, "Despite your positive efforts while incarcerated, your 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."

Chapman now remains in protective custody in a single-person cell and is allowed out three hours per day, according to Corrections spokeswoman Carole Claren-Weaver.

Many fans (including Lennon's widow Yoko Ono) will be happy to hear about Chapman's parole denial - many have been sending letters to New York's Department of Corrections urging for Chapman's continued imprisonment. Ono insisted that Chapmen posed a risk to her, Lennon's two sons, the public, and himself.

Back in 1980 police found Chapman, then 25, at the scene of Lennon's death reading a copy of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." Before being arrested, Chapman tried to commit suicide and soon after received treatment for depression.