Reportedly, Levin made her move after the sullen Chambers had more or less brushed off his girlfriend who, for her part, told him in no uncertain terms that they were done. According to the New York Post, Levin was genuinely interested in Chambers and wanted to start a relationship, but unfortunately, events transpired in a radically different way.
A cyclist found Levin’s body at about 6:15, and Chambers stood at the stone wall of the museum, across the drive, as the police arrived. A policeman is said to recall seeing him there. Chambers eventually returned home and reportedly slept for a few hours.
(Later, more scratches were found on Chambers’s chest, and he’s said to have had a minor injury to his right hand.) Chambers went with the police to the Central Park Precinct Detective Unit, where he was questioned without a lawyer until about ten that night.
Robert Chambers was released from prison in 2003, and as Bustle tells us, he went on to become a. prisoner. After the initial barrage of media coverage, he resumed his life as a free man, though this went slightly less well than he may have hoped. According to People, by 2005 he was back in court for possession of heroin and cocaine.
January 23, 2010Jack Litman / Date of death
Chamberlayne Junior CollegeOkay... so who was Jennifer Levin? Jennifer Levin was a popular, bubbly, 18-year-old girl, days away from leaving for her first year at Chamberlayne Junior College in Boston, when she walked into Dorrian's Red Hand, a New York City bar, that August.
Robert Chambers, Sr.Robert Chambers / FatherRobert Chambers, Sr., father of defendant Robert Chambers and Steve Levin, father of victim Jennifer Levin, staring at each other across the aisle in courtroom . New York, 1988. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016647779/.
He is currently incarcerated at Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, NY. If he is granted parole in 2024, Chambers will be 57 years old when he is released, having spent more than half his life behind bars.
Robert Chambers (criminal)Robert Emmet Chambers Jr.Criminal statusIncarceratedConviction(s)First degree manslaughter First degree criminal sale of a controlled substance Second degree assault Second degree burglaryCriminal penalty5 to 15 years imprisonment (1988) 19 years imprisonment (2008)5 more rows
Steve and Ellen Levin, parents of victim Jennifer Levin, and Robert Chambers, Sr., father of defendant Robert Chambers, crying in courtroom . New York, 1988.
The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park, a documentary series starring Pat Reilly, Wally Zeins, and Rosanna Scotto is available to stream now. Watch it on Prime Video, Spectrum TV or The Roku Channel on your Roku device.
Commenting on his new arrest, former Assistant District Attorney Linda Fairstein, who had prosecuted Chambers for Levin's death, said:
Chambers’ girlfriend at the time of the murder was Alex Kapp. Levin and Chambers briefly dated. The day of the murder, both were at Dorrian's Red Hand.
The 1990 Law & Order episode " Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die " was based on the case. Mike Doyle has stated that his character Adam Guenzel on Oz (1997–2003) was based on Chambers. The 2003 Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode " Monster " was based on both the Chambers case and the Central Park Jogger case.
Chambers changed his story during the course of the ensuing investigation, ultimately claiming that Levin's death was the accidental result of him pushing her off of him when she caused him pain as she sexually assaulted him, an account that was characterized by media accounts as one of "rough sex".
Phyllis Chambers ( née Shanley) (mother) Robert Emmet Chambers Jr. (born September 25, 1966) is an American criminal and convicted killer. Chambers was dubbed the Preppy Killer and the Central Park Strangler by the media after the August 26, 1986 strangulation death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in New York City's Central Park, ...
As of March 2021, he is at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, New York State Department of Corrections DIN (Department Identification Number) #08A4763. His earliest release date from prison is January 25, 2024.
McCarrick was close to the Chambers family and had served as Robert's godfather at his baptism. In 2019, he was defrocked for sexual crimes against adults and minors. Chambers had secured bail through his family and the owner of the bar, Jack Dorrian, who put up his townhouse as collateral for a bail bond.
Chambers and Levin met at Dorrian’s Red Hand, an Upper East Side bar on August 25, 1986. They left the bar together at 4:30 am on August 26. Reportedly, Chambers was upset with his then-girlfriend Alex Kapp, who had gotten into an argument with him at the bar. Levin and Chambers went to Central Park, and what went on between them is anybody’s guess, but Levin’s body was found in Central Park itself, near Fifth Avenue and 83rd Street, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Read on to find out the truth behind the life of Robert Chambers, or the Preppy Murderer. As the name suggests, the man came to embody the same degree of menace and entitlement before, during, and after the heinous crime.
The crime shook everyone to the core mostly because of how it turned into courtroom antics with what most believe to be a grossly wrong deliverance of justice.
Although the crime was well documented when it took place in 1986, and the furor after it kept it alive and in the national spotlight, eventually people began to move on. The latest SundanceTV and AMC documentary ‘ The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park ‘ chooses to bring it back in the limelight, in order to examine the ramifications of this case in a post-#MeToo era.
Although Chambers was around the elite, he was never quite a part of them. He was born in 1966 to Robert Chambers Sr., a hardworking video cassette distributor, and later a credit manager, and Phyllis Chambers, a private duty nurse. Robert had to endure his parents getting divorced and went to live with his mother full-time. She worked hard to put Robert in the finest prep schools, though he received scholarships sometimes.
Signs of struggle suggested that she had been strangled. Reportedly, Chambers watched the law enforcement agents at the scene from a distance but went home when the crowd was thinning out. It did not take the police long to make the connection between Chambers and Levin, once they went to the bar, which had a reputation for serving alcohol to underage kids.
When the police took Chambers in for questioning, he gave a series of contradictory statements which included that his cat had scratched him, but changed it to the fact that his cat was declawed. He even said that Levin was not with him the entire time since she went to buy smokes. It was later proved that Levin did not smoke.
He told investigators that he had killed Levin on accident after she had been trying to force him into unwanted, rough sex that had been hurting him.
You can characterize it however you want, but we were going on what happened that evening. Jennifer Levin’s actions were in fact corroborated by her friends ,” defense attorney Roger Stavis said, adding that Litman “had a job to do.”.
But his freedom would be short-lived — in 2008, he was sentenced to 19 years behind bars for assault and selling drugs from his girlfriend’s apartment, according to Reuters. Ellen Levin went on to become a lobbyist, passing 13 laws in 10 years to protect victims of crime.
Ellen Levin went on to become a lobbyist, passing 13 laws in 10 years to protect victims of crime.
At one point, Litman subpoenaed Levin’s private journal, which he labeled a “sex diary.”. A judge would later rule the journal couldn’t be used and that it did not contain anything about sex — but not before the story had already played out in the media. “It was like choreographed.
Friends and family instead described Levin as an outgoing and friendly teen, who was always trying to help others.
Jennifer Levin and Robert Chambers Photo: Getty Images (2) The case that gripped the city began when Levin’s body was found by a bicyclist on August 26, 1986. She was laying by a tree with her bra and top pulled up.
He said he told Levin he didn’t want to be in a serious relationship, and she reacted violently, scratching his face.
Linda Fairstein, who was head of the sex-crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office at the time, told 48 Hours that Chambers returned home at some point. They initially were looking for his help because he was Levin’s friend, according to Fairstein.
After he was released, Chambers granted one interview to 48 Hours before attempting to live a quiet life. In that interview, he maintained that he did not try to hurt Levin and expressed remorse.
"The Levin family has gone through hell because of my actions, and I am sorry.". He was sentenced to 15 years in prison that April.
Jennifer Levin was a popular, bubbly, 18-year-old girl, days away from leaving for her first year at Chamberlayne Junior College in Boston, when she walked into Dorrian’s Red Hand, a New York City bar, that August. She was voted the best-looking in her class at the Baldwin School, another elite institution in New York City, according to reporting from New York Magazine. The teen was living with her father and stepmother in SoHo after moving out of her mother’s home in Long Island earlier that year, per the publication.
Chambers would later tell police that he stayed behind and hid in a bush while the NYPD investigated.
Facing a second-degree murder charge, Chambers’ trial spanned 13 weeks. He and his modelesque good looks made for compelling cover stories (not unlike infamous serial killer Ted Bundy a decade prior).
Chambers just laughed. Another pretty student, eighteen-year-old Jennifer Levin, may have overheard the exchange. She was high-spirited and popular, and she’d been interested in Chambers for some time.
Less than two hours later, Jennifer Levin was found dead in Central Park. The police said that her clothes were disheveled and that she had been strangled. Later that day, they picked up Chambers, and after hours of questioning, he admitted causing Levin’s death, but he denied intending to hurt her.
Both came from broken homes, and both had embraced a troubling scene—a particular community of private-school students in which drug use, alcohol, casual sex, and chronic underachievement sometimes start when the students are as young as thirteen.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of 25 years to life in prison.
He continued to do well in school. With its small classes and emphasis on personal development, Saint David’s fosters a sense of family among its students. (Chambers’s first visitors in jail included three of his former teachers.) He won an award for public speaking, reciting the gallows speech of the Irish rebel Robert Emmet, for whom he was named. He gained admission to Choate, in Wallingford, Connecticut. And during the summer, he worked as a teacher’s aide at Saint David’s, instructing underprivileged youngsters in photography. Chambers befriended Ed Crespo, a shy Puerto Rican student from East Harlem who was in the program.
He did well at Saint David’s, where classmates remember him as a top athlete. He rose to lieutenant colonel in the Greys, the company’s penultimate rank . And he was well thought of as an altar boy at St. Thomas More. “He was very faithful, very honest in his duties,” Monsignor James Wilders recalls.
Chambers graduated from York in June and was accepted by the College of Basic Studies at Boston University, in part, according to Stewart, because of his high test scores. The Basic Studies Program is designed to help students who’ve had problems in high school. After just one semester, however, BU kicked him out for academic reasons. Friends say he did little work and used the school as an excuse to party and hang out.
Robert Chambers and Jennifer Levin's fateful chance meeting in Dorrian's Red Hand on August 26,1986 happened after Chambers had an argument with his girlfriend, who was infuriated by the way he ignored her (per NY Mag ). According to People, Chambers' legal aid would later insinuate that the killer and Levin had been an item, but the reality of their relationship was quite different. Both youths were popular and attractive, and knew each other well enough to have dated a few times in the past, but that was just about the extent of their relationship.
On the fateful night of August 26, 1986, Robert Chambers met Jennifer Levin in a drinking establishment called Dorrian's Red Hand , and as People tells us, some context of the place is necessary to understand the full situation.
As Robert Chambers slowly moved from preppy world into party world in all but outward appearances, NY Mag reports that drugs and drink started to feature more and more in the young man's life. His father struggled with alcohol addiction, and despite his young age, Chambers was no stranger to beer and liquor himself. Still, a bigger issue was his use of narcotics, from his reportedly heavy marijuana use to his penchant for cocaine. In fact, People notes that this got so bad that in the spring of 1986, he did a stint in rehab for cocaine use.
According to NY Mag, Chambers said that he was initially dismissive of Levin in the park, which angered her. However, he said she soon attempted to instigate a closer contact, but when things didn't proceed as planned, things took a turn for the worse and she squeezed things that aren't meant to be squeezed.
According to The New York Times, she had been strangled to death, with visible marks on her neck. There were also a number of bite marks and bruises, and she was partially undressed. As the New York Post reports, it appeared that she had been killed with her own denim jacket , though it was clear that she had put up a fight.
As such, in 2008 the Preppy Killer was sent back to prison after yet another plea deal — and this time, he received a sentence of 19 years and four months.
As Robert Chambers' issues with drugs increased, so did his need for money — and, as NY Mag tells us, persistent whispers insist that he took up petty theft from his friends' families to pad his pockets. One source has even insinuated that though his drug use was also a factor in getting expelled from Browning private school, part of the reason was that he stole from one of the teachers. "Getting kicked out of Browning was a big shock for Rob," a friend of Chambers' has said. "For the first time, he felt he'd been expelled from the clique. I mean, if you get kicked out of Choate, you can still go to Browning. But when you get kicked out of Browning, then where do you go?"
In light of AMC's new documentary series, The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park, we're republishing this story about Jennifer Levin's death at the hands of Robert Chambers —a case nicknamed "the preppy murder" by the press.
Read the original story, published on August 26, 2016, below. It's the first crime I remember. Thirty years ago today, on August 26, 1986, Jennifer Levin was strangled in Central Park by Robert Chambers. I can't remember now exactly how I learned the details of her death, they were just everywhere that year—on the cover ...
He had no explanation, it seemed, for why he'd left her body there and drifted back home to his parents' apartment. They had engaged in consensual rough sex, and as Chambers told it, Levin had started to hurt him and he'd pushed her off him, killing her in the process. At 18, Levin was seven years older than I was.
The nickname the 'Preppy Killer' perfectly captured the blend of menace and privilege that Chambers came to embody. It was a genius sobriquet, like so many of those tabloid monikers. It captured exactly the blend of menace and privilege that Chambers came to embody. And of course his privilege had abetted his menace.
Chambers had admitted to police that he killed Levin and plead guilty to manslaughter, with a sentence of five to 15 years in prison. (Prosecutors apparently had a hard time proving premeditation, and the jury deadlocked, which lead to the plea deal.)
In all the stories about the murder, Chambers was always described as handsome: Ruggedly so, or square-jawed or patrician. Plenty was also said about his checkered past, the fact that he'd been kicked out of several prestigious schools, that he had a history with drugs and had been to rehab.
Five months before he killed Levin, according to the New York Post, Chambers had stolen a friend's credit card and used it fraudulently. Chambers's mother talked the friend out of pressing charges, and promised Chambers would go rehab instead.
Chambers, the epitome of white privilege, youth and beauty, was able to use the press to his advantage -- he even appeared on the cover of New York magazine -- while Levin’s reputation was dragged through the mud. She was largely portrayed as a sexually promiscuous woman who “had it coming.” And when the jury became deadlocked, Chambers was able to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and was only sentenced to five to 15 years in prison.
Kendall Jenner Kisses Devin Booker Courtside in Rare Display of …
McCarrick, as the documentary points out, has since been laicized by the Vatican after he was found guilty of “solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” While the film doesn’t jump to any conclusions, Friedman says this revelation certainly brings up a lot of questions about Chambers’ past.
Thirty-three years later, the case is still a vivid memory for those who lived through it, including executive producer and CEO of Bungalow Media + Entertainment Robert Friedman, who grew up in New York City and used to hang out at Dorrian's -- the same bar where Chambers and Levin met -- as a teenager before going on to produce documentaries like The Panama Papers and the upcoming Surviving Jeffrey Epstein on Lifetime.
In addition to Zeins, Levin’s memory is restored by her family and friends who provide detailed accounts of who she was as a person leading up to her murder. The documentary also takes advantage of the context added by the #MeToo movement and subsequent Time’s Up initiative.
While wanting to tell Levin’s story, Friedman says the production did reach out to Chambers for an interview . “He did not want to participate, but we would have included him in the series,” he says.
Chambers’ girlfriend at the time of the murder was Alex Kapp. Levin and Chambers briefly dated. The day of the murder, both were at Dorrian's Red Hand.
A bicyclist found Levin's half-naked corpse on August 26, at about 6:15 a.m., in Central Park near Fifth Avenue and 83rd Street, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her body was lying twisted by a tree, with her bra and top pulled up. Her body and face were covered in scratches and bite …
Robert Chambers was born September 25, 1966. Though not affluent, his mother worked to pay for his childhood attendance at prestigious prep schools in New York City's wealthy Upper East Side, though scholarships assisted in this luxury. The fact that his family had far less money than his classmates created social problems including difficulty socializing with his peers. By the time he reached college age, he had descended into a life of petty theft, alcoholism, and drug use.
In 1997, Chambers sent an untitled essay he wrote to prison anthologist Jeff Evans. The piece, subsequently titled "Christmas: Present", appeared in the book Undoing Time: American Prisoners in Their Own Words. Written while Chambers was incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, New York, the essay is an entry from one of his journals, which he calls "a record of the meaningless hope and frightening losses of a person I don't even know".
In July 2005, Chambers pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drug charge and on August 29 was given a reduced sentence of 90 days in jail and fined $200 for a license violation. The judge added 10 days to the time prosecutors and Chambers' lawyer had agreed on because Chambers was an hour late for the hearing. He would have faced up to a year in jail if he had been convicted after trial.
• The Hole song "Jennifer’s Body", from their 1994 album Live Through This (1994) is about the Chambers case.
• The Sonic Youth song "Eliminator Jr.", from their 1988 album Daydream Nation (1988) is about the Chambers case.
• The song "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" in The Killers' album Hot Fuss (2004) was inspired by Chambers' defense of the Jennifer Levin murder charges, in which Chambers claime…
• Benedict, Helen. Virgin or Vamp. Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-19-506680-4.
• Carr, C. "Who's on Trial?" Village Voice, October 27, 1987.
• Freedman, Samuel J. "Sexual Politics and a Slaying: Anger at Chambers' Defense." New York Times, December 4, 1986.
• Crime Library article (detailed coverage)
• A Current Affair video
• Interview with Levin's mother on CNN's Larry King Live
• Excerpt from Wasted: The Preppie Murder by Linda Wolfe (a true crime book about the case)