John Lennon’s Killer, Mark David Chapman, Denied Parole For 10th Time

Instant karma got John Lennon’s murderer once again.

Mark David Chapman on Wednesday was denied parole for a 10th time, The Associated Press reports. Chapman, 63, fatally shot the iconic Beatles’ singer and songwriter in front of Lennon’s New York City apartment on Dec. 8, 1980. He will be up for parole again in August 2020.

In a denial decision obtained by the AP, New York’s parole board determined that releasing Chapman “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.”

The panel told Chapman:

You admittedly carefully planned and executed the murder of a world-famous person for no reason other than to gain notoriety. While no one person’s life is any more valuable than another’s life, the fact that you chose someone who was not only a world renown 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 pain and suffering of others.

Chapman, is currently serving a 20-year-to-life prison sentence at Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York.

In March, former Beatle Paul McCartney paid tribute to Lennon, his friend and bandmate, at a March for Our Lives rally in New York City.

At the rally in support of gun control, McCartney showed off his “We can end gun violence” T-shirt. The 76-year-old musician told CNN, “One of my best friends was killed in gun violence right around here, so it’s important to me.”

The parole board also noted in its decision that releasing Chapman would “tend to mitigate the seriousness of your crime” and could potentially put him and the public in harm’s way if someone wanted to seek retribution against him — or gain the same kind of notoriety.