Topeka ? A man convicted in the 1973 stabbing death of a Topeka woman has been granted parole.

The state Department of Corrections is reviewing a supervised release plan for James Elder, 50, after the Kansas Parole Board agreed last month to place Elder on parole, department spokeswoman Colene Fischli said Tuesday.

Elder is a minimum-security inmate at Lansing Correctional Facility. He was sentenced to 15 years to life after being convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 23-year-old Barbara Butler.

Topeka police said Butler, who had earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology a year earlier and was looking for work, was walking home in the early-morning hours after arguing with her boyfriend and was attacked about a block from her apartment.

Evidence showed she was stabbed 23 times, with one blow piercing her breastbone and injuring her heart. She died at a Topeka hospital.

Police arrested Elder, then 18, and another man three days after the attack. The other man agreed to testify against Elder in return for not being prosecuted. The man said he was with Elder when they saw Butler walking along the street and that he declined Elder’s offer to help him rape her. The man said he walked away and later heard a woman screaming.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that records showed Elder had been denied parole 19 times. Butler’s father, Robert Butler Jr., and brother, Robert Butler III, appeared at several parole board hearings to ask that Elder stay in prison. Robert Butler Jr., 90, died in 2000.