Nearly 36 years after he shot John Lennon dead, Mark David Chapman is still trying to get out of prison—and an upstate New York parole board is still denying him that chance, per the Hollywood Reporter. The 61-year-old, who's said to have learned how to fix wheelchairs during his prison stint, was denied parole for the ninth time by a three-person panel, an official from the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision tells the New York Daily News, declining to elaborate on what factors led to the decision.
That means Chapman, who killed Lennon in NYC on Dec. 8, 1980, will have to spend at least two more years in the Wende Correctional Facility before he's up for parole again. Per previous reports in the Daily News, five people since his last parole hearing (2014) are said to have sent letters supporting his release, while two letters—including one from Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, who has said, "He did it once, he could do it again"—reportedly asked for the parole board to keep him behind bars. (More Mark David Chapman stories.)