Episode 665: Robert Chambers: The Preppy Killer | Morbid

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Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena.

I'm Ash. And this is morbid.

this is for Beatle!

hi everybody! hello!

what's up? uh not a lot no no no oh i haven't checked on my finch today oh!

oh my god I'm like 30 days into my finch so we're really rocking and rolling Yeah, I'm like 20.

I think today's day 28.

I'm I'm gonna have to have you take the mic for ya.

Let's start today Well, my finch is in Sydney Australia.

So mine is in Thai pie Hey guys in Australia If you see my finch Gatsby walking around there tell miss it I well big Ang my finch said I can't decide is it better to be super strong or super fast?

Whoo, I think super fast. I I mean, whatever you feel super fast. She says, I wish I was fast, that would mean the yellow cat that chases me would never be able to keep up with me.

And she got 6 .1 points for security.

She's a queen bee. This isn't sponsored, I genuinely needed to check in on my Finch's life.

I'm saying. She's all set.

Yeah, you can just - Siri, I'm not talking to you.

Siri's like, I'm sorry.

She's like, I can't check in on your Finch, you have to.

And I'm like, well, I did.

Guys, I hope you, I mean I talked about this like weeks ago the fin chap.

Yeah, I want to know if you guys did it Did you do it?

Did you do it? What's your finches?

Just yell it really loud and all the sin.

Oh, okay Yeah, a lot of you did I heard ya.

Yeah Larry Larry, Larry, thank you for traffic.

Yeah. No. No, they named their Finch. Larry.

Oh, I thought it was Larry who tried it No, I'm sure we have a Larry who might may have tried it as well.

Maybe I don't know I believe you.

We just finished watching, um, season six, the final episode of Buffy.

If you listen to the rewatcher, you know how we feel about season six.

Yeah. I left the room during the season six finale.

So we're feeling some type of way right now.

I faked a walk out.

Yeah, it's true. If you want to, she did a housewives style walkout as a reunion.

I really did. But I came back and that's all that counts.

Um, if you want to hear our extra Thanks for thoughts on all of Buffy because the beginning seasons of Buffy are fantastic to go and we've had so much fun talking about it and we've even had fun talking about this season.

Oh, yeah. Listen to the rewatcher, sure.

We're about to end season six and go into season seven.

So I have a whole new season adventure awaiting me.

All right. I have a bummer of a case today.

We were talking. I think, the last time we got together maybe we were talking about David Carpenter.

David Carpenter, the Trailside Killer.

The Trailside Killer, and that was just like a very, it was riddled with misjustice.

Yes. Injustice, if you will.

Misjustice, I like that.

Misjustice. Misjustice was in here, but she left. Yeah.

She left halfway through that case.

She did. Yeah. Oh, this is another case where justice is interesting.

Oh, okay. Okay? All right.

We're going to be talking about the preppy killer, Robert Chambers, who killed Jennifer Don Levin.

We're going to talk about that entire case.

So Jennifer Don Levin was born May 21st, 1968 in Port Washington, New York.

Her parents were Steven and Ellen Levin, a realtor and a homemaker.

Jennifer and her older sister Danielle were raised on Long Island's North Shore, pretty much a haven for wealthier families who wanted quiet home life kind of vibe, but still have access to the city.

That makes sense. I love Long Island even though she came from a wealthy family and she really didn't want for a lot.

Jennifer insisted on doing things for herself when she wanted anything like if she wanted a new Walkman or new clothes, anything like that.

She didn't go to like, oh, let me go ask my parents.

She figured out how she could get it without their help.

And she... She's like, she's an independent woman.

She is. Yeah. Getting her shit done.

She did. And like at an early age too, yeah, her stepmother Arlene Levin said her first thought was how can I make the money to get it not buy it for me which I love I love that it's fantastic that's honestly such a rare like viewpoint for such a young person yeah you know to be like well I'll figure out how to get it myself usually it's just like well mom and dad won't do it wasn't my view point but in 1973 when Jennifer was five years old her parents did end up divorcing Stephen her father moved to an apartment in Manhattan and Ellen stayed on Long Island with Janiel Jennifer and despite the separation Jennifer

and her sister managed to remain close to both their parents and they even developed a good relationship with a few years later with Steven's new wife Arlene.

Ellen, Jennifer's mom, said about Jennifer, she just made people smile by just walking into a room which is like you could feel that yeah and her charm and affection wasn't just limited to friends just not limited only to family.

Once just before she was scheduled to take her driving test She talked to Manhattan cab driver into teaching her out a parallel park fucking iconic as savvy savvy person that is wild and like picture Manhattan cab driver Yeah, they didn't have time for your shit.

No, they're always like on to the next somehow She had the charm to be like, listen, I got it.

I got a test coming up and I need help Yeah, help me man.

I love that So after finishing junior high on Long Island, she moved in with her father and her stepmother in Manhattan Mostly so that she could attend the Baldwin school which was a private high school on New York's Upper West Side.

According to Arlene Levin, Jennifer's desire to attend private school was as much a matter of fear as it was anything else.

She actually believed all urban public schools were dangerous places.

She was very afraid to go to public school.

Which I don't, maybe at the time, it was like a little bit rough.

I'm not positive. Yeah, I don't know how, like in that area, how they are now.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Yeah. But anyway, she thrived at Baldwin school and quickly developed her own really independent personality.

She wasn't really your typical teenager.

Her friends and classmates mostly kind of gravitated toward pop music and television, but Jennifer herself preferred adult, contemporary music.

And she said that she'd rather work out than watch TV.

And she also became a vegetarian at a pretty young age, just for the health benefits.

Damn. She sounds cool as hell.

She unlike her peers who relied mostly on their parents for money as soon as she was able to.

Jennifer got a part time job as a hostess at Flutee's, a bar in Lower Manhattan.

I feel like, I don't know if I've been there, but I've definitely heard of it.

It sounds so familiar.

Yeah, right. It really does.

I don't know if it's like from something, uh, but her manager said never once did I see her come to work with anything but a smile.

More on her job at Flutee's later.

There's like another anecdote in my tale here.

But when Then it came to romance and relationships.

Jennifer, who had been voted best looking in her senior class.

Oh, Jennifer. Snap, snap.

She was pretty noncommittal.

You're in high school, you don't need to be committal.

Exactly. So when she started dating in her junior year.

She spent a lot of time with Brock Purneese, a student at York Prep, which is an elite prep school, pretty similar to Baldwin.

That sounds fancy as hell.

Pretty much all of them are fancy as hell.

Anything prep sounds like, whoa.

I always think that.

Now Brock said Jennifer was a really cute girl, fun, happy -go -lucky she loved the club scene and she was very innocent.

I took her to a Billy Idol concert on her first date.

What a fucking sick ass first date.

And he said, but it wasn't until weeks later that I first kissed her at the Peppermint Lounge and then I couldn't leave her.

Oh it sounds like he really really liked her a lot.

Brock! It gives me butterflies.

Wow. Yeah, it's very young love.

Brock surprised me because to be honest the name Brock it gives me pause sometimes.

We're conditioned. For certain television shows.

I was gonna say, I've been conditioned, but.

Actually two television shows.

Where my Reba fans at. I love that, I love that about Brock.

I do too. Now around that same time, Jennifer and her friends all managed to get fake IDs.

Whoa. You gotta, you are a New York upper East side.

Don't do that. I'm not telling you to but I'm just saying retroactively, you had to.

Retroactively, yeah.

Of course so they became regulars at Dorian's Red Hand great name for it.

Wow. I love that. Yeah it was a Manhattan bar popular with college students.

Now even though she was dating Brock Pernice at the time Jennifer also started casually dating a couple of the guys that she met at Dorian's because remember you can do whatever the fuck you want to do.

Yeah. And she's casually dating she's in high school.

Yeah. It's high school.

It's high school it doesn't matter at all.

But that included a short period where she dated Robert Chambers a guy who had attended York Prep with Brock himself.

Whoa. Now, I also feel like guys date multiple women all the time and it's never ...

You don't even need to feel like that.

That's reality. That's just a fact.

It's never a part of the story, but as soon as a girl dates multiple guys, it becomes part of the story.

Well it becomes part of her personality, part of her character, part of - Every facet.

DNA that goes on her resume.

It's normal to date around and find out what you like and who you want to hang out with.

Like, you're not dating to marry in high school.

And if, I mean maybe you got so lucky that you meet that person that you're gonna marry, but.

Yeah I wish I had dated like more different people in high school.

I wish I had dated less people in high school.

Than the same person that I dated for all of high school.

Yeah, you heard. Yeah.

But. With perd. You know?

Yeah, but I support this and it, I'm harping on it because it becomes a major aspect of this case and it pisses me off.

Yeah, I get it. gets very much sludged.

She gets railroaded for it.

Yeah, so let's talk about Robert a little bit, Robert Chambers.

Sure. Robert Emmett Chambers Jr was born September 25, 1966 in Queens, New York.

He was the only child born to Phyllis and Robert Chambers Sr, a nurse and an employee for MCA.

For the first few years of his life, the family lived in the working class neighborhood of Jackson Heights, and then they actually moved to a more upscale neighborhood in the Upper East Side.

I just can't like hear the Upper East Side without thinking of Gossip Girl.

Hey Upper East Siders.

I think of cruel intentions.

I'm the Marsha fucking Brady of the Upper East Side and sometimes I wanna kill myself.

That's a direct quote, not me.

Movie, yeah, I love that movie.

I'm gonna go watch that later.

She's a fucking icon in that movie.

She's so good in that movie.

So scary, so scary.

Honestly, everyone is so good in that movie.

Everyone's A plus in that, that movie is A fucking plus.

Just the fact that they tried to remake it don't get me started.

I think they're actively remaking it into a TV show right now.

Yeah, stop because you can't remake that.

You can't bottle that time.

No you can't. And that it cast, you cannot bottle that.

So good. Like you just can't.

It's got Tara Reed in it.

You can't. What are you doing trying to make that again?

I always forget that Tara Reed isn't that.

She starts the whole damn thing.

She sure does. Hell yeah.

Oh my God. Her crying scenes are always the best. That movie is in my DNA.

It's a retweet. Me too.

I cry every time. Oh my God, when she's going up the escalator?

Yeah. Oh, and the end where she drives across the bridge.

Coffee black and egg white.

Oh my God. We've gone on too long.

So the upper east side, period.

Sorry. That's what we think of that.

By a lot of accounts, Robert's parents were in a lot of ways, pretty hands -off and they were kind of emotionally unavailable.

Like they struggled to provide the best education for him.

That was a drive that they had, but they didn't really support him like emotionally and like they didn't support his social development.

They just wanted the best education but they weren't thinking of like making him a well -rounded individual.

Exactly, they were very focused on education, which is great.

But there's more aspects to the child's upbringing.

There's definitely more to life.

More to a human. Now, he would be betrayed by the press interestingly in his later years, but Robert Chambers background was a lot more modest actually than it appeared.

Throughout a lot of his life, he attended elite prep schools, but his mom worked nights as a nurse in order to pay for his tuition, and her income rarely covered the entire tuition, so the fees were covered by a scholarship.

He was there on scholarship and by his mom's hard work.

Mom sounds like a badass in that respect.

She does, definitely.

Really working her ass off for her kid.

She was, yeah. And his status as one of the least wealthy kids in school usually made him feel kind of inferior, socially isolated.

Thank Dan Humphries.

I was just going to say this sounds very like, written by a showrunner.

It does. It's very that.

But the thing was, even though he felt that way, like internally, outwardly he seemed pretty popular.

He had a lot of friends, his classmates liked him.

So this was very much an internal struggle that he was going through.

But outside of school, he was an altar boy at the Family's Church. He was a member of the Children of the American Revolution, which is always interesting.

It always makes me think of Gilmore Girls.

It always makes me think of that.

And he was an officer in something I've never heard of before, but gives very American Revolutiony vibes.

And he was an officer in the Knickerbocker Grace, which is a drill team for children of wealthy New York families.

That doesn't even sound real.

I know. That sounds like something somebody made up.

It does. To make me feel stupid.

Maybe they did. By being like, this is a real thing.

Maybe they did. Wow.

Well, Phyllis, his mom, served as the board president of the Grays at the time.

Wow. And she told a reporter, it's a very tough world out there.

A boy who receives this training is less likely to fall by the wayside later on.

The Grays teaches what society should be about, the niceties of life.

Wow. I'm psyched about my kids knowing karate and how to, you know, chop someone in the throat.

I guess yeah. Different strokes for different folks.

Different vibes for what's important.

I think you should go be the president of the Knickerbocker Grays personally.

It sounds wild. I'm looking it up right now because I've just never heard of it before.

I had never heard of it before either.

I mean, the good news is their 142nd season is starting.

A lot of seasons I didn't realize they had seasons.

Yeah apparently. It's like a team.

This is very interesting.

It is. Well like I said, Robert might have felt like an outsider, but the messages he got from his peers pretty much contradicted his self image entirely, like I was just saying.

Yeah. He was 6 '4". He weighed 220 pounds.

He's a sturdy guy. He was very popular with the girls and they were all drawn to his quote, shy and secretive charm.

Oh yeah. Secretive charm?

I don't know. It was a different time.

So the combination of his sense of inferiority and the overwhelmingly positive encouragement that he got from his classmates resulted in him becoming the kind of guy with a chip on his shoulder.

Ah. Like a hundred percent.

Very huge sense of entitlement also.

Oh yeah. I could feel that vibe starting to come.

He's giving like tortured poet.

Oh yeah. Without writing poetry.

See and let just like quick little thing secretive charm is never charming unless his secret is he's like a vampire like that's the only and even then that's a little messy only like a real nip it's legit legit yeah he never wants secrets sonica it's good thing to go after yeah no no secret of charm isn't really like a descriptor secret secrets are no fun secret secrets hurt someone.

But he started to deal with his insecurities by engaging in some casual drug use...

Casual. And other illegal activities like petty theft and vandalism.

You have to deal with your Secret of Charm in a certain way.

Soon as grades began to slip, he lost his scholarship, which is real shitty because his mom worked her ass off.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

And he was also kicked out of school.

Yeah. Damn. You buried that lead.

So your secret of charm didn't get you anywhere, bud.

This increasingly destructive behavior even took a toll on his relationship with his oldest friends.

His closest friend at the time, John Tolinko said, ""I just realized it was a dead end.

One night, a group of us were hanging out at this bar in East 85th Street.

I remember thinking how pathetic the conversation was, we were just joking around in this cynical manner that we have, but I had stopped drinking a few weeks before and I couldn't relate to it at all.

I stood up and told them to go to hell and walked out." whoa, this whole thing is like a TV show slash movie.

It's very dramatic.

Yeah looking back, John Telenco said that you know, he wished he'd been more honest with Robert and tried to help him make some kind of positive change before it was too late, but hindsight's 20, 20.

Yeah and that's not totally up to everybody else.

No and also he's a teenager so he doesn't have all the resources that he needs to make Robert better.

Exactly. But thankfully Robert was able to enroll at York Prep, a new school.

But it was with the understanding that he would get his life together, work hard to graduate, and get into a good college.

It's unknown whether he maintained good grades during his senior year at York, but what is clear is that his drug use unfortunately did not stop.

Actually, if anything, it got worse.

Throughout that year, he got in trouble for alcohol abuse.

He developed a very serious cocaine habit.

That cocaine habit affected almost every part of his life, of course.

As it does. But somehow, even with all that going on, he did manage to get accepted to Boston University.

Shit. Yeah. In large part, according to one former friend, because of his high test scores, which is - That's a good school, man.

That's a great school.

It's very impressive.

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So after his graduation from York in 1985, so he did graduate, he moved to Boston.

Whoop -Whooping Boston.

I was going to say.

Yeah. And he started the year in Boston universities, basic studies program, uh, which basically it was established by the school to help students who struggled social or emotionally during high school, which is really cool.

I didn't even know that was the thing.

Yeah. So the new city and the supportive program work.

This big chance for Robert to start over and establish some new more responsible habits.

Get his life back on track.

For sure. And that's a big chance.

You get into Boston University and you get this like kind of like, I don't want to say handholding, but for lack of a better term and you like, you got to do the most with that.

You do the most with that.

Unfortunately he did not.

He fell back on old habits and according to his friends, he quote, use the school as an excuse to party and hang out.

What? That's such bullshit.

And it's like, why bother?

I'm sure that program was beneficial for so many other people.

That's the thing who didn't get to use it because you took their spot.

Yeah. Like, and exactly.

But like that pisses me off.

Yeah. Who would have actually used it?

Yeah. Like some may be somebody who didn't get into it or even there was people there that probably like, yeah, exactly.

So after just one semester at Boston University, he was kicked out of the program for academic reasons and just returned back to his parents in New York where it seemed like he's picked up on.

Yeah. I seemed like he picked up right where he left off there.

His father was away on business trips a lot and his mom was still working nights at the hospital.

So he spent a lot of his nights at the bars, at the clubs in Manhattan, just acting basically like he was still in high school with no responsibilities whatsoever.

Awesome. Yeah, fantastic.

Now, Jennifer, on the contrary, by the time she had reached her senior year at Baldwin, she started having difficulties with her parents.

According to friends, Jennifer had moved in with her father and her stepmother, not only to attend Baldwin, like I was saying.

But also for the added discipline that she felt that environment would offer.

One journalist wrote, though she was close to her mother, she told friends that her mother was more of a friend than a parent.

Which that can be difficult.

And that relationship might not have provided the structure that she was looking for.

But it seems like life with her father and her stepmother in Manhattan also left a lot to be desired in a different way.

Friends remembered that she constantly resented her stepmother.

And that often led to fights with her father or with her father and stepmother.

Yeah. One of her close friends said she used to call me in tears and come sleep over at my house because of fights with her dad.

They were just about the usual things, coming home late, cleaning her room, getting her priorities straight, but she never really felt comfortable living there.

Aww, that's sad. Which is sad.

It's also, I think a very common problem amongst teenagers.

Well I was gonna say, it's also very teenager.

Yeah. Like angsty teenager.

Yeah. And also I think like having divorced parents, like you leave one house because it's not super desirable and you think the other house is going to be this great place where nowhere's perfect.

Yeah, nowhere's perfect.

Exactly. Yeah. But like Robert Chambers, Jennifer did also turn to substance use and partying as a kind of escape from the pressures that she felt at home.

It doesn't seem like she developed the same addiction problems that Robert was going through, but her desire to party oftentimes outweighed her responsibilities like school and work, Which again, very typical of a lot of teenagers.

Yeah this is exactly what it was like a hundred percent.

And obviously the fact that she's prioritizing partying over school, over her responsibilities at work and home it's resulting in bad grades and probably some more tension at home.

According to Daniel Kimball the principal at Baldwin, Jennifer was a quote good average student.

She probably wasn't expecting to get into Harvard or Yale but she was studious and responsible enough to get accepted to some very reasonable schools.

excuse me respectable schools.

Now, for her friends who knew her best, the change in her personality started right around the summer of 1985.

At that time she was working actually at a boutique in the Hampton.

She wasn't actually working at Flutie's yet.

Um, and she was spending more and more time with some new friends that she'd met in the club scene, which you could imagine, probably not the best influences.

Brock, her first boyfriend there said, I remember when I met her, she was little Miss Innocent.

I saw her change, grow up real quick in the Yeah.

He said the unchanged, the change was unwelcome and pretty disappointing.

He said, I tried to do other things with her like other than go to the club.

He said we went to the theater, formals, restaurants, but she always had to go by Dorians.

That's where our friends were.

Oh man. Yeah. So remember these are like very, very wealthy kids with literally no adult supervision whatsoever.

So they were living like adults, but they didn't have the emotional maturity that usually comes with age.

Which is very like dangerous.

I'm not trying to be like silly here when I say it's very gossip girl -esque like you know like the whole like kids living very adult lives having very adult drama but in like a kids setting.

And it comes with adult problems and repercussions, you know.

Exactly. A close friend said, we act like we were adults, most of us have credit cards, we all drink, we all fool around, have flings, like truly very gossip girl -esque.

Sex in the City style like.

Yeah, but these are kids.

But kids. So that summer, while she was still seeing Brock, Jennifer, again, casually dated a few different guys like I said, including Robert Chambers, who was also working on The Hamptons that summer.

And their social circles kind of overlapped with each other.

Nothing really came of the brief relationship with Robert Chambers actually.

But for Brock, it was the beginning of the end.

That winter, he and Jennifer broke up for the first of what would be several short breakups before finally ending things for good a few months later.

And Jennifer wasn't the only one struggling to find her place in 1985.

After he got kicked out of Boston University, Robert Chambers life was spiraling out of control.

It was a very slow spiral at first, I think when he left school, but then things really started gearing up.

He managed to find work at like some low paying jobs, he actually even took a few college courses at Hunter College, but his drug use was overtaking everything.

it was becoming his biggest priority.

He wasn't really hurting for money, but that fall he fell in with a group of young guys from wealthy families who just broke into people's houses around the city for fun.

Oh cool. Yeah. As groups of young men do.

Just kids being, boys being boys.

Guys being dudes. Guys being bros.

Yeah, that's casual.

Yeah, that's fine. They stole jewelry, other expensive items like that, just for fun.

An acquaintance of his, of Robert.

and he's like the bling ring yeah i know honestly yeah it really does an acquaintance of his said we went out to dinner in america once and he pulled out a credit card that wasn't his and joking jokingly said should i use this tonight what the fuck is a douchebag what the fuck but this is so entitled like spoiled rich kid behavior it's very cliche yeah like this part of it like that's why it's very like what you think spoiled rich kids in Manhattan are gonna be you know it's got not necessarily what they are but like this is very what a tip it's very typical of what you would think yeah it's very

stereotypical yeah it's very like clueless bling ring yeah gossip girl like yeah all of those vibes even um remember the Sex in the City like prequel that they did I don't think you watched it yeah it was a banger I think it only got like one or two seasons I loved it I'm a purist I get it no sequel, no reboot.

No. I get it. The, the prequel was pretty good though.

And it reminds me of this, but anyway, as the year went on, so did Robert's successive drug use and now theft before long, he moved on from stealing from strangers to just straight up stealing from people he knew.

Like his friends on nights when people, when Robert had been at their homes, his friends and acquaintances would notice that money had gone missing.

Wow. Which is like, if he's willing to do it to people he doesn't know, of course he's going to start doing it.

Like you can't trust that kind of person.

But that's such a big escalation.

It is. Like stealing in general is so up and stealing from strangers is up.

Stealing from your friends is up on a whole other level.

Of course it is. It's wild.

But, at popular hangouts like Dorian's Red Hand, even the customers frequently complained to management that money and credit cards were going missing from their pocketbooks, their coats.

And a lot of times people knew that it was Robert, but they just didn't wanna confront him because, you know, he's this like wealthy kid.

and he comes from a good wealthy family.

So there was rarely any consequences, but everybody knew what he was doing.

Yeah, and he was just allowed to get away with it.

Yeah, now that spring, he went to Palm Beach to visit some friends and while he was gone, his mother was cleaning up his bedroom and she found evidence of his ongoing drug use.

And she called, this is actually really smart on her behalf, she called him and she said he needed to come home immediately because somebody was sick.

Whoa. But when he turned home, it turned out they were having an intervention for him like he was the one who was sick.

And a few days later, he did agree to go to a drug rehab facility.

He went to Hazelden foundation in Minnesota and he spent the next month there detoxing and learning the skills that he would need to, you know, stay clean once he got back home.

But I think that's so smart, the way she did that.

Oh yeah. He made sure he got home.

And she's not lying.

Yeah. Someone's saying someone's sick.

Yeah. Yeah. So he went to rehab, he cleaned up, he spent a month there.

He came back to New York from Minnesota in late May of 1986 and enthusiastically announced that he had kicked his cocaine habit for good and he was ready to start fresh.

Wow. I mean, it sounds good.

Yeah, it would have been exciting, but here we are talking about it.

Here we are. He's on morbid, so it's not good.

He actually even found work as a painter.

He was the caretaker for his neighbor at this time, but a lot of people around him who are closer to him were questioning how he was actually doing.

A close friend said, in a way he was too positive.

Most people when they get out of rehab are realistic, but Rob always wanted to think that he could handle anything and it soon started to become obvious to those, again, close to him, around him more frequently that he was still struggling and he started drinking again in no time and then smoking pot and then it escalated.

Meanwhile Jennifer had also started making major changes in her life.

In late spring she spent some time visiting colleges in Boston.

Boston. Boston maybe.

And she eventually applied and was accepted to Chamberlain Junior College which is a school with Mount Ida.

I feel like people talked about Mount Ida all the time around here.

Yeah so many people go there.

Yeah everyone goes there.

Everybody Mount Ida.

When she got back to New York she found, that was when she found her part -time hostess job at Flutie's.

Oh okay. And according to friends the job interview at Flutie's actually didn't go as well as she hoped it would but like she had so many times before her charm and just worked for her.

And eventually she won them over.

I love it. Her friend Betsy remembered.

She had to wait three or four hours for an interview, which I'd leave at that point so good for her.

Seriously. And when the guy saw her, he told her she wasn't right for the job.

So she grabbed him by the shoulders and told him she was great with people and about all the jobs she had had selling and made him fall in love with her.

And she got the job.

Yeah. Jennifer, sounds like such a badass.

Like a hot ticket. That's exactly what she sounds like.

You know? Yeah. And like imagine having that chutzpah at that age, like grabbing the man by his shoulders and being like, no, I got this dude.

She's, she sounds to me like a like a, like a young Blanche Devereaux.

Yes. You know, like she's got that vibe to her where she's just like, fuck it.

I can do it. She's a straight shooter.

She's a sass master.

I like it. She is. So things were looking up for her at this point.

Her future was very bright.

Everything was on the and up.

Things were not going as well for Robert.

All through the summer he kept telling his friends and family that he was working on getting his life back on track, he was going to enroll in courses at Columbia, but by the end of August he hadn't enrolled in any classes, hadn't found a permanent job, he was also stealing from friends and acquaintances again.

Everybody was like oh he's backsliding and this is not good and it was not.

On the evening of August 25th Jennifer and some of our friends decided to go out to Dorian's Red Hand for one last night out on the town.

She's gonna be leaving soon.

She's gonna be moving to Boston, starting her new life.

And as it turned out actually, Brock had been accepted to Northeastern, so Jennifer hoped that they could reconnect and start seeing each other again.

Yeah, it was true that she had gone on a few dates with Robert Chambers, but insisted, her thing with Chambers was no big thing, just a crush.

Nothing at all like the serious relationship she had with Brock.

she was really hopeful.

I really, I like Brock.

I do too. Okay good.

Yeah, I do too. I was like tell me I can like Brock.

I only know very minimal things but from what I do know - What I know I like.

Now that night, Robert Chambers had made plans also to meet up with a girl that he'd been dating for a short time and they decided to go to Dorian's Red Hand together.

Again, like I said, very popular spot.

They had been there a few hours by the time Jennifer and her friends arrived just before midnight and everybody had been drinking.

Uh, despite her stated desire to reconcile with Brock, Jennifer was still pretty excited when she saw Robert that night.

And she told friends apparently that she quote, wanted to go home with him later.

Remember they dated before casually.

She was excited about the future, but she still wanted to live it up and have, you know, one last hurrah before leaving the city.

I get it. Why not? According to Larissa Thompson, one of the girls that Jennifer had been out with that night, Jennifer quote, immediately made a Beeline for Robert's table when she saw him Dorians and seated herself at the table.

One of the customers at the bar said she was very flirtatious, definitely outgoing.

Robert Chambers on the other hand was distracted.

It seemed and occasionally even disinterested.

People said he chatted with Jennifer for a little bit but at multiple points throughout the night, he would just get up and walk away only to return a short time later.

Hmm. Which to me says something.

Something. It says, um...

yeah it's a break maybe.

Some stuff's going on.

Lots of people go to New York bathrooms for this.

They do. I mean they yell about it on Housewives seasons.

They do. What are people doing in your bathroom.

Yeah. Now when asked about his mood that night, Robert explained that he was depressed about a friend from rehab who had recently died.

Who knows? Yeah. Whether it was his emotional upset or his interest in talking to Jennifer, he spent most of the night ignoring the girl he was on a date with.

So finally after an hour had passed without him speaking to her, she approached the table that he was sitting at and threw a bag of condoms at his face and told him he could, quote, "'Use these with someone else "'because you're not gonna get the chance "'to use them with me,' and stormed out of the bar." Again.

Wow. Is this like? I'm like, what!

That's a queen move right there.

Wow. Wow, wow. If your date is ever ignoring you, do that.

Yeah. If I saw someone do that - Slow clap.

I would talk about it for the rest of my life.

The rest of my days.

That would be the first thing I brought up.

Any new person I met, I'd be like, can I tell you this crazy thing that I saw?

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, I would.

Most people, forgettable, that girl.

Not forgettable. Well, the date's theatrical exit from Dorian's was also a great opportunity for Jennifer because you know she wanted to hang out with Robert that night yeah so now this girl is not in her way.

Well she left so she wasted no time settling in next to Robert at the table but for all her directness and enthusiasm for some reason she wasn't comfortable propositioning Robert directly.

Like I get that. You don't want to be like you want to get out of here man.

Yeah and I mean he's just had a bag, a literal bag of condoms thrown at him?

Yeah. In public? Yeah, he might.

That might have made it a little weird. It probably did.

Yeah. So instead she had a friend asked him to meet her outside of the bar.

The friend later said he just tilted his head like she's driving me crazy and said, I don't think so.

I don't want to deal with it.

Which is rude. Go tell her that yourself.

Now, you might not have wanted to meet Jennifer outside the bar, but that definitely didn't mean that he was uninterested.

Because when Jennifer's friends left Dorians a little past 2 a .m, they remembered seeing her still sitting at a table with Robert and engaging in what appeared to be a very serious conversation.

So what the fuck? Yeah they're clearly like carrying on.

Yeah. So a little before 4 .30 a .m. several more friends saw Robert and Jennifer get up from the table and leave Dorian's headed in the direction of Central Park.

A friend said, usually she'd come over and give me a big hug and tell me she'd call me tomorrow, but this time she didn't.

I remember she looked sort of mellow putting her jacket over her shoulder, pulling her hair and crossing the street like there was no problem.

So she didn't seem like agitated or like upset or anything like that.

She seemed fine with Robert.

But it was a little weird that she didn't say goodbye to anybody.

Like, it wasn't like her.

So that's why it's pretty unclear why the two of them did go into the park that morning because they did go into Central Park.

Friends of Jennifer's insisted that she wasn't the type of person who would have wanted to have sex outside, because that's ultimately the story that gets told.

and several friends of hers were like no she wouldn't do that, like that's not her vibe at all.

Yeah that doesn't make sense.

And also remember she's like, like when I was saying earlier that she didn't wanna go to public school she has a fear of danger and like dangerous situations.

Yeah she's not reckless.

Yeah so she wouldn't have gone into that park if she didn't feel like she was safe with Robert Chiller so she very clearly did.

But this wasn't the first time that Robert had brought a girl into the park for a romantic evening.

In fact a few weeks earlier He brought another date there and friends said that the park held special meaning for him.

So it's possible He hoped bringing Jennifer.

There would be a similarly romantic experience Well, it's like that doesn't line up with like how he was acting earlier No, unless that was just like directly from the girl like throwing a bag of condoms at him Yeah, maybe maybe he was just like thrown off for a minute Maybe but he was awesome for me it all sounds weird the night itself seems like nobody was really acting how they typically would have. But I feel like that happens when these kind of things happen.

Even though you don't know that like something awful is gonna happen, it can be like in the air sometimes.

Yeah it's just like some kind of tension happening.

Exactly. So Robert and Jennifer entered the park around 4 .50 in the morning at an entrance near the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What happened next is only known to Robert himself and he has changed his story multiple times over the years.

Awesome. So, nobody really knows the exact truth.

But this, in my opinion, is not the truth.

According to him, he was not interested in Jennifer romantically and initially actually declined to go to the park with her.

But Jennifer insisted, he said, so he finally relented and agreed to join her.

According to him, she was clearly interested in him, and he thought that she wanted to have sex in the park.

But he declined her advances and said he was interested and other people and he'd see her around.

But he said she freaked out.

She like got up and knelt in front of me and scratched my face.

What? Like, that would have escalated so quickly.

She knelt in front of him?

He said she got, she like got up, knelt in front of me and scratched my face.

Which when you see the scratch marks on his face later, because they are photographed, it wouldn't have been like, she scratched my face like in a cute way or like, yeah, like like they're deep scratch marks on his face.

He said after that, after that happened, he got up to leave, but that Jennifer apologized and he agreed to stay and keep talking.

Since she had apologized.

And despite asking her to sit far away from him, he said she came up behind him and started massaging his shoulders and he said, she, she said, I looked really cute and that I would look cuter tied up.

Okay. According to the statement that he gave police, he didn't think she was serious until she held his wrist together and using her underwear started to tie them together.

Once his hands were bound, Chambers claimed that Jennifer tried to take off his pants, but she was hurting him in the process.

And he said she quote, kind of laughed in a weird way.

Like more like a cackle or something.

And then he said that his protests only made her more aggressive and she started scratching his chest and his face and was quote laughing and giggling and making weird laughing type sounds while digging her nails into me this is unbelievable I don't believe this I'm looking at those scratches on his face right now too they look defensive they absolutely in my opinion my opinion in my opinion, in our opinion.

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See the cash out user agreement for details service not available in all states.] So, Robert claimed that his screams caught the attention of a nearby jogger who eventually came over to investigate, but the jogger left the area when Jennifer insisted everything was fine.

Okay. Then he claimed he could not take the pain that Jennifer was inflicting on him anymore, so he reached up and grabbed her, putting his arm around her neck and pulling hard. He told detectives, it was just really quick.

She flipped over and then landed, and she was kind of twisted on the tree.

So you flipped her over into a tree?

At that point, she wasn't moving, and Robert thought that she was trying to frighten him, but when he shook her and got no response, he said he realized she was dead and walked across the park and found a place to sit on the wall where he could still see her body.

From that position he said he eventually saw a cyclist enter the park, come upon the body, and then leave and return a short time later with paramedics.

Once the ambulance arrived, Robert himself left the scene, went home, showered, and went to bed.

Okay. Three words. In what world?

I, yeah. In what world?

That is a no for me, that's a no for me.

That's one of the most bizarre stories.

That is a very, bizarre is the perfect way to describe that story.

Uh, not one bit of that makes sense.

No. Whatsoever. No. You're literally saying that you put your arm around her neck and it's like really quick though, you make sure to say really quick.

Really quick. Somehow flipped her into a tree.

Yeah. Um, and then she just died in the tree.

Yeah. Really quick.

And you just knew that.

that's my favorite part is I realized she had she was dead.

Yeah. Interesting. Like that, I'm sorry, if that, if I got into a little tussle with someone and they just flipped into a tree, I wouldn't automatically assume that they were dead.

Like that would be I'd be like, wow, that was weird. Let me help you up, like that would be, and I wouldn't just be like, wow, I bet you're dead.

And then also, like what?

How did that, like he's just like, yeah, I just realized.

You realize she was dead and then you went and sat on a bench nearby and watched somebody discover her dead body leave go get help.

You watch that help arrive and you watched her body be taken away in a body bag and in an ambulance.

And then you just went home and showered and went to sleep.

And at no point did you intervene and tell them like what happened here was an accident.

Like let me, let me tell you.

Interesting that you showered.

That's a bonkers story.

It's crazy. It's a bonkers story.

In my opinion, does not line up with the way that her body was found.

It's a very strange story.

Yeah, well later detectives showed up at Robert Chambers apartment to question him and then they took him to the station for further interrogation where he gave a videotaped statement to police.

Now let's talk about the crime scene.

The crime scene was unfortunately a pretty familiar one to investigators, a young woman found dead in the park, an apparent victim of sexual assault.

Her body was slumped in front of a tree.

her shirt was pushed up, and her bra was wrapped around her neck.

What the fuck? At the time, they thought that she had been killed maybe somewhere else and dumped in the park, since there were tire tracks leaving the scene, and somebody spotted a car around the same time that the body was discovered.

But that would quickly be dismissed when she was identified.

Now, the crime scene didn't yield a lot of clues or evidence, but there were obvious signs of a struggle.

It appeared that she'd been physically assaulted and hit in the face.

According to the medical examiner, the left eye was swollen discolored and about just about closed on the bridge of the nose.

There was a dark mark.

Her mouth was caked in dirt and what appeared to be dried blood.

Yeah, those scratches are defensive in my opinion, in my opinion.

Yup. One of Jennifer's front teeth was also loose and there was a dark, red mark around her neck from where her killer had strangled her with her bra.

Wow. That's not lining up.

None of that aligns with him swiftly flipping her over into a tree.

No, and how awful that this poor girl's last moments were filled with that.

Her front tooth was loose.

That's awful. That's a violent struggle.

A violent struggle.

According to the pathologist, the bra had been twisted around her neck, but it was also still hooked in the back, so there was a possibility that her shirt and bra had been pushed up, and maybe the strangulation was an accident, but there was also, like that is what they thought on a cursory glance.

But there was petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes that indicating that the blood flow to her brain was restricted, which would've been unlikely if it was just a matter of her bra getting wrapped around her neck.

Brows aren't that tight.

We've said it before, it's very difficult to strangle someone, it takes a lot of - A lot of like a pressure and time.

Yeah, consistent pressure.

Consistent pressure and can see yeah.

Yeah. So the pathologist said in court later, I thought the deceased was strangled like definitively.

The murder and Robert's arrest though, came as a shock to residents around New York.

Not only because of the brutal facts of the case, but also because of the social status of the young people involved.

Yeah. Jennifer's death shined a light on a social scene that few outside of it knew existed.

Both the victim and her killer were not out of their teens, but the lives that they lived reflected a world usually populated by adults, like we were saying, complete with problems like addiction and violence.

When asked for a comment about his daughter's death, Steven Levin said, I've lived in New York city for 19 years and I have hesitatingly come to the conclusion that is no longer a fit place to live.

It is a social experiment that failed.

Wow. It's really sad.

Damn. On October 28th, Robert Chambers was arraigned on a charge of second degree murder, which is interesting.

Yeah. And it was during his arraignment that his lawyer, Jack Littman, revealed the beginnings of his strategy.

In his statement to the court, Littman explained that Jennifer had been pursuing Robert for several weeks, and quote, that night she was the aggressor.

According to Littman, Jennifer's death was simply an accident that occurred when his client was trying to defend himself against sexual assault by Jennifer Levin.

Wow. Yeah. Lippman preemptively defended against accusations of rape by pointing out how popular Robert Chambers was with women.

Wow. He said he didn't have to chase girls they chased him.

Oh yeah so that that clears it up.

Yeah attractive people aren't rapists ever.

No of course not because everyone wants to have sex with him.

Yeah. Because he is conventionally, according to some people, attractive.

Yeah totally. Yeah that totally that checks.

That's a perfect argument that's not based on opinion at all.

Yeah, people don't have varying attractive levels.

Attractive, definitely not.

But he said that being the case, there would have been no reason for his client to pursue Jennifer, much less sexually assault her.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Yep. The elite status of the defendant and the victim were completely unavoidable though, from the moment Jennifer's body was discovered, and it was an element of the case that the press simply could not resist. In article after article, young people that made up Jennifer and Roberts social groups were discussed just as distinctly different from teenagers their age.

They made this a zoo.

In a New York Times article one reporter wrote, many of them are under 21 and get past the bartender with skillfully applied makeup and expensive clothing that makes them look several years older and with elaborately faked identification.

It's like you're talking about women there, you're not talking about the entire social group, which involves males as well, but cool, so that's cool.

One teenager who went to the city's hottest nightclubs and restaurants said, you walk in here and no one's gonna challenge you, it's an attitude.

So they were very much making this, putting together this picture that these kids were like fast, you know?

That they put themselves in these positions, essentially.

Exactly. This is very much a victim blaming strategy.

Yes. Well, what did you expect?

And it's not only coming from the defense but like the press as well.

The emphasis on the expensive and out of control lives of these, you know, Manhattan's elite teenagers reinforced a growing class divide too across the city and confirmed what a lot of people outside of that social class believed, that there was one set of rules for rich people and another one for everyone else.

So immediately everybody's polarized.

Of course. And that became even more apparent within days of Roberts' arrest when he started getting an outpouring of support from wealthy friends and family, and also even influential figures like archbishop Theodore Edgar McCarrick of New Jersey, who wrote a letter of support in favor for bail.

No comment, that was a mouthful.

Yeah, there was also a noticeably gendered tone to the ways people talked about the victim versus the suspect.

I'm shocked. When discussing Jennifer, many reports seem to have taken a tip from Jack Littman and rather than focus on the fact that she was straight up murdered, they discussed her quote sexual aggressiveness.

Yeah, that's a cool thing to do when somebody is dead and can't defend themselves.

Also, how do you know?

Yeah. How do you know?

Well you don't. She's dead, so she can't defend herself.

And this is one instance where one person is saying this about her, who's also the last person that saw her alive.

So are we really going to take that?

Maybe you should question that a little bit.

But Robert Chambers, on the other hand, was described in very sympathetic terms. Friends and acquaintances insisted that he was, quote, not the violent type and were shocked that he had, quote, found himself in such a situation.

Oh, I love the passive use of found himself.

I just found myself sitting across Central Park when he had a dead girl.

He did not walk in there.

He just found himself in that situation.

He just looked around and suddenly I was there.

What a nice way to say that.

Yeah. One headline, read friends call Robert a reluctant Romeo.

Shy with girls. I hate it here.

Gross. I hate it here.

Yeah. That is so yucky.

Well, it also, which one is it?

Is he a reluctant Romeo or like your defense attorney was just saying that he doesn't have to chase girls at all.

Yeah. And now he's a reluctant Romeo.

You can't have it both ways that that's very much like the the Brock Turner effect to where it's like, You know, he lost everything.

He could have been, this kid could have been like an amazing athlete.

And I'm sorry, are we talking about, who are we talking about here?

Who lost everything?

What part, victim or aggressor are we talking about?

Like he, it's very much talking about it like, one, this happened to him.

And he just found himself in these circumstances.

He didn't do it, this happened to him, and two, let's talk about him and his losses.

His future. He's like, what?

So he took it away from himself.

In that case, one friend from Dorian said we have to fight for Robert's rights.

There's nothing we can do for Jennifer now.

That's an instance of, I'm I'm going, I'm a head out.

We think before we speak.

We listen. We listen and we judge.

Yeah, I listened and I am judging harshly.

There's nothing you can do for Jennifer now?

Uh, I'd say there's actually a lot you could do for Jennifer now.

Imagine if everybody thought that way, when somebody gets murdered, it's like, well, nothing we can do now.

No, that's nice. Oh, cool.

Yeah, let's just move on.

Sure, that was great for her family to read.

Let's blow by that literal life that was stopped in its prime.

You can't be there for her family now, you got to be there for Robert.

No, you have to be there for Robert.

Yeah. Interesting. I don't think I got it.

So the picture of Robert Chambers as this gentle giant, who would never act violently or hurt anybody was just one aspect of Jack Litman's defense strategy.

Just one day after his arraignment, Litman also told reporters that he was now weighing an insanity plea.

Huh. That's a completely different route, sir.

That's interesting.

He said it appears that the state of mind of Robert Chambers that led to this tragedy was completely out of character for him and therefore an insanity plea is possible.

Huh. Okay. I just feel like you're arguing two very different points at the same time.

Yeah. I would say that.

Um, and what the press didn't know was that this characterization of Robert as innocent was completely at odds with the statements that he had given himself to police before giving his statement where he confessed to accidentally causing Jennifer's death.

He actually denied having been there at all, which proves that he knew he was wrong.

And I have three cats.

I have three precious baby cats.

First of all, they've never scratched my face.

Secondly, they don't cause that deep of scratches.

Like I know cat scratches can be deep, but he has scratches all over his face.

Yeah, I mean if you look at the scratches I wasn't there, so I can't tell you if a cat made those or not, but I would be shocked if a cat made those.

Yeah, same. I can tell you that.

Yeah, yeah, interesting.

Well later he deviated from that story and said yeah it was Jennifer but it was like it's just - So he even later is like no it actually was her.

Yeah like when I...

the first story. Chronologically the first story I told.

Yeah but after he lied.

Was after he lied. Okay.

He changed his story a million times so I just I said one of them.

That's even wilder that like where he's he moved like from the cat to like actually no it was her.

Like you were really going to try to lie about that?

Oh, yeah. He was going to say he wasn't even there.

And then he was like, actually I was.

And I watched the entire aftermath play out as well.

I'm telling them those are two very different things.

Yeah. They, they sure are.

That's a theme in this case.

But a month later in late September, Robert Chambers did plead not guilty to one charge of second degree murder and one charge of murder under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life.

In his statement to the press, Manhattan District Attorney Robert, I think it's Morgenthau?

Told reporters, we believe that either one or both of these occurred and that the autopsy showed quote, a substantial amount of pressure had been applied to Jennifer's neck, which justified the charges.

Wow. On October 1st, 1986, Robert Chambers was finally released from jail on $150 ,000 bond, which is crazy.

Yeah. And that was on the condition that he report daily to Monsignor Thomas Leonard, a former teacher at the Church of the Incarceration.

Igno, incarnation. Is it like Monsignor or Monsignor?

Monsignor. Monsignor, there it is.

But it was during this time that the District Attorney announced that Robert Chambers was also under investigation for several burglaries that had occurred around the city and that Charges would also be added in the near future for those, or could be, at the very least. There were a lot of delays in bringing the case to court, but finally, in January of 1988, Robert Chambers finally went to trial for the murder of Jennifer Levin.

In the time between the discovery of the body and the trial, a ton of information and misinformation had been spread through the media, which unfortunately very much worked to the benefit of the defense.

For sure. Since he'd confessed to having played a role in Jennifer's death, though, It was obviously impossible for him to deny that he had killed her.

So instead, Jack Lippman's strategy was to obscure various facts about the case in the courtroom and convince the jury that Jennifer's death was the result of his client defending himself against an assault on Jennifer's part.

Which is just bonkers.

That's truly bonkers.

And just, like, really fucked up.

Damn. Yeah. Yeah. In the courtroom, the jury witnessed the entire videotaped confession that Robert made to the police the day he was arrested.

But the problem was it was clear that the evidence discovered during the investigation didn't support his claims entirely.

For instance, the position of Jennifer's body found when she was discovered, the dirt coverage, the extent of her injuries, they were all inconsistent with Robert's claim that he had wrapped his arm around her throat in order to move her off of him.

Like again, consistent pressure had been applied to her neck.

Oh, yeah. It wasn't a quick move.

No, it was definitely not that quick.

Like oops. No. Yeah.

In order to defend against the obvious inconsistencies though, Jack Lippmann told the jury the tape was the unwardish truth, but that it contained a number of obvious silly lies that one could expect from a scared teenager, just deducing his client to a scared teenager.

The prosecutor Linda, Linda Fairstein, on the other hand, explained that the facts made Robert Chambers account of assault almost entirely impossible.

She pointed out that if the death was an accident, and like I said earlier, why didn't he just go for help?

Yeah, that's the thing.

Years later when she was asked about the case, she returned to that point on the today show in 2016 she said, he sat on the wall behind the metropolitan museum and watched as her body was found and as her body was taken away from the park in a body bag.

And he never went over to the police and said, this is my friend.

this was an accident, I know who she is.

And they had a history together.

They very much knew each other, they were friendly.

Of course. To just watch and know that whatever the circumstances were, you caused that death and he was watching.

He's a white man, a rich, well I shouldn't say rich, but he is a - He was wealthy.

He was a family wealthy.

And he's socially in a higher -echelon white man.

Yeah, you could have said, you know, I mean like you're you're you're not in a position where it's scary for you to yeah, to say that an accident happened.

Yeah, I mean, we're some other people it may be, you know, like margin you and Lee scary to say it because you're just not going to be believed immediately.

It's like you are the one of the only people you know, one of the only people that can say that was an accident you will at the very least be considered to be believable.

you're so right that's a really valid point like the the innocent until proven guilty it's like that's really only the case for certain people yep and he happens to me he happens to be part of that that kind of people yeah you know so it's like the whole like well i'm like so why didn't you you know like you really like that's weird no it's weird this is and again this isn't even like a this isn't even like a stranger which would that would be weird enough this is somebody like you genuinely know and cared about, spent a lot of time with.

Yeah, many instances.

Dated, yeah. Like, why wouldn't… I don't know.

It's just very strange to me.

It's a very removed position to be in.

It feels that way, yeah.

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Well, the trial dragged on for 13 weeks and during that 13 weeks very intimate details of Jennifer's life and sexual experiences were put on display.

Which really sucks.

which is ridiculous.

And that was obviously primarily by the defense in order to portray Robert as the innocent victim in some terrible tragedy.

Yeah. And by obscuring the facts of the case and painting a picture of Jennifer Levin as sexually aggressive and assertive, Litman hopes that he could convince at least a few jurors, cause that's all you need.

That Jennifer's death truly was an accident, that she had attacked Robert, forced him to have rough sex, and he was just protecting himself.

Ellen Levin, Jennifer's mother said later when it happened, how she was being portrayed, how it suddenly became her fault, he was blatantly playing the victim.

I can't imagine having to stand by as her mom.

And again, that it became her fault, like that's wild.

It made it, it's like she's on trial all the sudden.

In the end though, the defensive strategy worked.

The jury deliberated for nine days before reporting to the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked.

There was only four jurors convinced of Robert Chambers' guilt, and the rest were in favor of an acquittal.

That's really shocking.

It is, it is. Ellen Levin said, I can't imagine that there was someone on that jury that thought he was a clean -cut young man who would never do anything like this.

Damn. In their note to the judge, the foreman indicated that there was actually three jurors who, quote, could not go on because of the mental and emotional strain.

And another juror indicated that quote, votes in the jury room had swayed violently back and forth.

So at least there was like, they were very clearly considering - There was some passion behind, you know.

Yeah, they were considering both sides.

But ultimately came to a very interesting decision.

So whatever the case, the deadlocked jury is usually always and was in this case a bad sign for the prosecution.

They weren't hopeful that a retrial would produce a different outcome.

So in late March of 1988, they offered Robert a plea deal.

Wow. He would plead guilty to one charge of first degree manslaughter in an exchange for a sentence of five to 15 years in prison.

Just like nothing. But he had no better options, so he accepted the deal.

And before accepting the plea agreement, the judge asked Robert Chambers whether he, quote, intended to cause serious physical injury to Jennifer Levin on the morning of her death.

And in response chamber said looking back on everything I'd have to say yes, but he insisted that quote in his heart.

He still had not intended to injure, injure Miss Levin physically.

Huh? So he said yes but no. Yeah but no. Yeah.

What? But not really.

Looking back I'd have to say yes, but like not in my heart.

But not in my heart.

I'm like, okay then.

Well that doesn't really help us here.

That doesn't make any sense to anybody.

How about in reality?

It was revealed in a press conference later that day that Robert Chambers' statement was a prerequisite of the agreement.

Of course, a spokesperson for the Levin family said one of the big things was hearing him say that he had intent.

Still, the plea was a disappointment to the rest of the family who not only lost a daughter, but also had to watch as she was slandered during her trial.

Her grandfather, Arnold Dominitz, I believe, said, I can sum up my feelings in eight words.

Robert Chambers has literally gotten away with murder.

Wow. Yeah. As far as the family was concerned, the inability to secure a murder conviction was the result of Jack Lippman strategy.

It absolutely was. Yeah.

Her grandfather said Lippman predictably tried his case in the press in which he, uh, aim to malign and character assassinate the victim reaching the depth of degradation by terming a young girl's simple date book as a sex diary.

That's all I, I understand again that this is like a job.

I understand the whole thing but like that tactic to me it's shitty is like dirty pool it like that is just I don't know like I don't see the integrity in that no I could strategy I just don't if you can if your case is strong you shouldn't have to malign somebody who's dead's dating history yeah I can you know you shouldn't have to and they to do that I did this is just me personally I think it's yucky.

I do too. Because again, if you can win the case, win the case.

There's a lot of routes to go down.

And he himself, clearly he had two routes that he could have gotten down, but he picked one.

I just think it's yucky.

And especially when somebody can't be there to defend themselves.

Like I don't, I don't know.

And when that person was murdered.

Yeah. No matter what that person was murdered.

Exactly. That's the thing.

It's fucked up. And it's just up to you to the family.

It puts the family through a whole other layer of trauma and - Well, no one's private life like that should be splashed around for their family to hear.

No. When they've been murdered, they have had the ultimate injustice done to them and now you're adding onto it.

Yeah, it's insult to injury.

I don't know. Like that just like having...

I don't know, I don't get it.

I think it's I understand it's a tactic.

I understand that defense attorneys have to do things, but like, of course, and I understand it's a job and it's a valid job and all that shit.

Don't worry about it.

But that particular tactic just doesn't do it for me.

I don't get it. I just think if you can win your case, win it some other way.

Agreed. Agreed. It's a good case.

You'll win it some other way.

Agreed. Completely without having to make like slut shame a dead girl.

Well in April, Robert Chambers went before the judge for sentencing and when asked whether he had anything to say, he told the judge to Jennifer, nothing I can do or say will ever bring her back and I'm sorry.

The Levin family has gone through hell because of my actions and I'm sorry.

For two years I've not been able to say I'm sorry and I wish to have my feelings known.

The judge sentenced Robert Chambers to 15 years in prison for manslaughter with a minimum of five years and another sentence of 15 years for those burglary charges with those sentences to run concurrently.

So the judge was like, I got you.

It was like, okay. Robert chamber started his sentence at the Shawagung, I think is how you say it, correctional facility in Ulster County, New York.

And it didn't take long, unfortunately, before his addiction issues returned.

When he came up for parole in 1993 and 1994, the parole board flat out rejected his bid for parole and they cited unsatisfactory behavior in prison, including his involvement with drugs.

Wow. Because people say all the time, there's more on the inside than there even is on the outside.

Yeah. Which is wild to think about.

Yeah. Two years later after being transferred to Green Haven prison, Chambers was again denied parole due to quote the nature of his offense and poor disciplinary record. Oh, he was not doing well.

After repeatedly being denied parole, Robert Chambers gave an interview to the press where he described himself as a political pawn and a victim of a state administration that was determined and to keep him in prison.

Which is like, no I think if you just like maybe tried good behavior, it could work out for you.

Yeah, it's like, I don't know about that.

But he wasn't about that life.

No, not about that.

In 1997 he told the parole board, to be honest with you, I wasn't even gonna come in today.

I'm at a point where I'd rather just have you tell me, listen, you're gonna max out in 2003.

Whoa. Like, why did you go?

Whoa. As it turned out, he was right.

He was never granted parole and he was released in February 2003 after having served his entire full sentence.

I mean, in part, I'm sure not at all from that attitude that he came in with.

Oh, cause if I'm on the parole board and you say that shit I, yeah, I'm going to be like just sitting there.

Cool, that's basic.

Consider that a request that I am now granting.

That's wild. But his release was obviously unwelcome news to Ellen Levin.

She said, my concern is that from the minute he gets out of prison, he will be treated like a celebrity.

In his own statement, Robert Chambers expressed his regret and again, apologized to the Levin family.

He said there's not been a day since Jennifer's death that I have not regretted my actions on that day I know that the love and family continues to suffer her loss and I am deeply sorry for the grief that I have caused them Wow, yeah, I mean I mean Nothing, you could say can bring someone I was gonna say nothing you can say can bring someone back and that is just a That cases like what happened that night is so brutal Yeah.

And it's like, I don't understand how you reconcile that later.

I just don't understand.

Like I don't understand what happened that night and I don't think we ever will.

I don't understand this.

There's too many stories and I don't believe any of them.

I have an idea, I have my own idea obviously that I'm not gonna share because we don't need to get into like opinions here.

But, yeah. But who knows?

Because you know, people are walking around here we don't have to insert our opinions.

As it turned out, Robert's freedom was to be short lived then.

Oh, oh no. People are walking around though.

In 2005, just two years after his release from prison, he was sent back after pleading guilty to possession of heroin.

He was released in 2008, only to be arrested yet again, this time for purchasing 246 grams of cocaine from an undercover police officer.

Yikes, yikes. Oof, oh no, lessons have not been learned.

You always wonder how that hits someone when they're like, hey, by the way, you're under arrest after selling you 246 grams of cocaine.

That's gotta, that's a bad day.

That's a lot of cocaine, dude.

That's a bad day. Yeah.

Wow. Well, after initially intending to go to trial, which I'm like, what were you, what?

Robert and his lawyer, they all changed their minds, and they accepted a plea deal from the prosecution where he pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence of 19 years and four months in prison with five years probation to follow.

Awesome. And on July 25th, 2023 Robert Chambers was again released from prison after serving 15 years of his 19 year sentence.

And he continues to claim that Jennifer's death was accidental and the result of him trying to defend himself during quote -unquote rough sex. I disagree with that.

I have my own thoughts about that, but, um, okay, wow.

That is something. That's an unsettling one on a different level.

It is because like, I, it kills me that like, we will not know what happened.

Yeah. And it's really awful for her family.

that's what kills me is like for her family to not have any real idea of what happened.

Cause we always say she was brutally murdered.

Yeah. And they know the details.

They sat through the trial and we always say your mind fills in those blank spaces and it's probably worse than anything that could ever even occur.

That's what, that's what I feel so bad about is like, Hey, she was so young.

Yeah. She was really just about to leave the city.

Like this was her last night out on the town.

Like that is just really sad.

It's really sad that somebody who was working on their future was taken away by somebody who was very much not.

That's the thing. I'm like, are you like you're not doing the work here.

That's the thing. Like, I know it's not that simple.

Like as far as addiction goes - No, I'm not going to claim to know that.

Put the work in, you know, especially all those years you have to yourself in prison to work on things.

Well, and like he did like one thing you can say is like he was just he's an entitled He was an entitled guy.

He was an entitled teenager he was an entitled or absolutely friend said that like like that's it's like and whatever happened that night something awful happened to her and whether it was an accident or not it was brutal as fuck and I just can't see I I mean, remember like one of her eyes was swollen near shut.

She had marks on her nose, her tooth was loose, she had dirt and blood cake to the side of her mouth.

Her brow was pulled up around her neck, like this doesn't like...

It doesn't scream accidental to me.

You're gonna have to explain to me more, like how, like I don't get it.

I don't understand it.

My brain is not, is not putting this on to that side of the aisle.

But at the end of the day, It's on the books as manslaughter.

It's manslaughter, wow.

Which must just, if I can imagine somebody doing that to my family member and having to sit with that.

That's the thing, like just. And then to watch that person get out of prison time and time again.

Well, that's the worst part.

Like that's awful. It's just watching someone be able to go live their life.

Yeah, and then also, on like such a silly note, having him be named the preppy killer.

Well, that's the other thing.

Come on. it's like when you said that name I was like what yeah like you got to be shitting me and weirdly I didn't know this case I didn't know it either actually it was a Dave suggestion yeah that was a no strange but I hate when they give those kind of nicknames like the preppy killer that shit it's very tasteless it is but because it also that's also a way of taking away some of the sting yeah the reality of it he's just a guy preppy he just High society guy, you know?

Yeah. She just got into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hate that a lot. I do too.

Hate that a lot. Hate it.

And I feel really bad for Jennifer and really bad for those who care about her.

You know, I agree. I hope.

I hope they feel like they got some kind of justice at some point, but.

You hope so. But it's a little upsetting.

It is. Yeah. Yeah, big time.

But yeah, that was quite an interesting case to say the least. Very interesting and really sad.

Yeah, and we will be back next episode.

I think with listener tales, so it'll be a nice little palette cleanser.

Nice little palette cleanser, if you will.

Oh, and this is the end of the episodes, so hopefully you're still here.

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[The Tragic Case of the 'Preppy Killer': Analyzing the Robert Chambers and Jennifer Levin Tragedy]-[Episode 665: Robert Chambers: The Preppy Killer]

📋 Summary

Introduction to a Tragic Case

The Night of the Incident

Legal Strategy and Victim Blaming

The Aftermath and Injustice

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript