The man who killed ex-Beatle John Lennon said in his most recent parole bid that he hoped to live and work with a New York minister if released.

Mark David Chapman was denied parole for the seventh time last week and a transcript of the hearing was released yesterday.

The 57-year-old can try again in two years.

Chapman shot Lennon outside the Manhattan apartment building where the former Beatle lived in December 1980. He was sentenced in 1981 to 20 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

The parole board noted his positive efforts while in jail but said releasing him would trivialise the killing.

The former security guard from Hawaii said his motivation for the killing was instant notoriety.

Chapman also told the parole board he was surprised that more celebrities have not been the targets of violence and said he had thought about someone trying to kill him as a way to gain fame as the person who avenged Lennon.

“To do something like that against another person, it’s something that would keep me alive and boost me,” he said. “That’s ludicrous and I’m actually glad that that’s not done more.

“I thought maybe more people would do that and I’m glad that they have not. I’m surprised that they have not because this society is just geared towards celebrity like crazy.”

Chapman, who has said he considered killing several other celebrities, told the parole board he wanted Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, to know that he felt no anger towards Lennon.

“It wasn’t anything against her husband as a person, only as a famous person,” he said.

“If he was less famous than three or four other people on the list, he would not have been shot. And that’s the truth.”

During an interview after the hearing was released, Ono and the couple’s son, Sean, were reluctant to talk about Chapman or his latest parole denial.

“It’s not the kind of thing you can really answer simply. I mean, it’s complicated,” Sean Lennon said. “But let’s just say that our lives were changed forever by that, so it’s a sensitive sort of thing”.

“Especially for Sean,” Ono added. “Because Sean was so close to John and suddenly John was gone.”

Chapman said during the August 22 parole hearing that he has been offered lodging and a farm job by Stanley Thurber in Medina, a village between Rochester and Buffalo.

“He’s a minister and he’s an older fellow and he has a lot of contacts in the area and he has agreed to refurbish his upstairs apartment for me and offered me two jobs.”

He said his wife, Gloria Hiroko Chapman, met Mr Thurber at a church function and was “impressed by his deep commitment to Christ”.

The gun with which Chapman shot the ex-Beatle.