John Lennon’s killer denied parole

Pat Reber

Washington (dpa) – Mark David Chapman, the man convicted of shooting the famous ex-Beatle John Lennon in 1980, was denied parole on Tuesday by a New York parole panel.

Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after he shot Lennon four times in the back as he left his apartment building in New York City on December 8, 1980.

A three-member panel of Parole Board Commissioners denied parole after an interview with Chapman Tuesday morning, according to the commission’s media official.

Chapman, an inmate at New York state’s Attica Correctional Facility, is next eligible for a parole interview in August 2012.

Lennon’s widow, the Japanese Happening artist Yoko Ono who was next to him the day he was killed, plans to celebrate Lennon’s would- be 70th birthday in Iceland, location of one of her works of art.

Lennon would have turned 70 on October 9.

Four activists will be awarded the JohnLennon Peace Prize, including author and activist Alice Walker and author and food activist Michael Pollan.

On Lennon’s birthday, Ono will turn on the lights of her “Image Peace Tower” – on Videy Island, outside of Reykjavik – which was unveiled on his 67th birthday in 2007. A concert by the Plastic Ono Band, a group formed with Lennon in 1969 before The Beatles dissolved, will give a concert.