BUFFALO, N.Y. » John Lennon’s killer could recall at his parole hearing this month that he had considered shooting Johnny Carson or Elizabeth Taylor instead, but he couldn’t remember that he also thought about targeting Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and others.

The Sept. 7 interview at Attica prison in western New York, transcripts of which were released yesterday, was 55-year-old Mark David Chapman’s sixth appearance before parole officials since he became eligible for release in 2000.

He was again denied parole.

In rare media interviews, Chapman ( a Hawaii resident at the time he shot Lennon in New York ) has listed Onassis among potential targets but said in the parole interview he could recall only Carson and Taylor.

Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after firing five shots outside the Dakota apartment house in Manhattan on Dec. 8, 1980, hitting Lennon four times. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

"I had a list of people and (Lennon) was at the top of the list, and he seemed more accessible to me. It wasn’t about them, necessarily, it was just about me," Chapman told the parole board.

According to an interview printed in People magazine in 1987, other potential targets included Lennon’s former bandmate Paul McCartney, actor George C. Scott, then-Hawaii Gov. George Ariyoshi and then-President Ronald Reagan.

He said that his motivation was notoriety but that he now realizes he "made a horrible decision to end another human being’s life for reasons of selfishness."

Chapman also told the board he is in good health and works as a porter and a law library clerk.