Episode 665: Robert Chambers: The Preppy Killer
01:20:33 Share

Hey weirdos, before we unleash today's macabre mystery, we were wondering, have you ever heard of Wondery Plus? It's like a secret passage to an ad-free lair with early access to episodes. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.

Let Audible expand your life by listening. Explore over 1 million audiobooks and exclusive Audible Originals that will inspire and motivate you, all in one easy app. Tap into your well-being with advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on better health, relationships, career, finance, investing, and even more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one. Recently, I listened to So Thirsty, which was really good. I like how the narrator went between the two characters' voices. That was really fun. And then I just started listening to God of the Wood's.

So good. Get advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on health, relationships, career, finance, investing, and more. There's so much opportunity to learn and more to imagine when you listen. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash morbid.

Today, the beverage aisle looks a lot different than it used to. America's beverage companies are working together. We're delivering the options everyone wants. In fact, nearly 60% of beverages Americans buy have zero sugar. You'll find more variety than ever, including more of your favorites, now available with zero sugar. You'll also find more sizes and clear calorie information on the front of every can, bottle, and pack.

We know when it comes to finding balance, the more choices, the better. Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. This is the beetle. Hi, everybody. Hello. What's up?

Not a lot. No? No, it's not a lot. 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 going to have to have you take the mic for me. Yeah. Let's start today. Well, my Finch is in Sydney, Australia. Mine is in Taipei. Hey guys in Australia, if you see my Finch Gatsby walking around there, tell him I said hi.

Well, Big Ange, my Finch, said, I can't decide. Is it better to be super strong or super fast? Ooh, I think super fast. 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 live. Yeah, I'm saying. She's all set. Yeah, you can't 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 Finch app. Yeah. I want to know if you guys did it. Did you do it? Did you do it? What's your Finch's name? Just yell it really loud and I'll listen. Oh, they did. Okay, yeah. A lot of you did. I heard you. Somebody, oh, Larry. We have a Larry. Larry, thank you for trying. 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 may have tried it as well. Maybe. Maybe.

I don't know. I believe you. I'm just fucking with you. We just finished watching...

season six yeah 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 walkout yeah it's true if you want to she did like a she did a housewife style walkout I did at the reunion I did I really did but I came back and that's all that counts um if you want to hear our extra thoughts on all of Buffy because the

Beginning seasons of Buffy are fantastic. They are. We've had so much fun talking about it. And we've even had fun talking about this season. Oh, yeah. Go listen to the re-watcher. You should. We're about to end season six and go into season seven. So I have a whole new season adventure awaiting me. Join us. 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, um, David Carpenter, David Carpenter, the trailside killer, the trailside killer. And that was just like a very, uh,

It was riddled with misjustice. Injustice, if you will. Misjustice. I like that. Misjustice. Misjustice. That's a good drag name. Misjustice was in here, but she left. Yeah. She left halfway through that case. She did. Yeah. 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 Dawn Levin.

And we're going to talk about that entire case. So Jennifer Dawn Levin was born May 21st, 1968 in Port Washington, New York. Her parents were Stephen 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 like 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'd do it.

She didn't go to like, oh, let me go ask my parents. She figured out how she could get it without their help. Yeah. 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. Yeah, it's fantastic. That's honestly such a rare viewpoint for such a young person. Yeah. 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. That wasn't my viewpoint. But in 1973, when Jennifer was five years old, her parents did end up divorcing. Steve and her father moved to an apartment in Manhattan, and Ellen stayed on Long Island with Danielle and Jennifer.

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 Stephen's new wife, Arlene.

Oh. Yeah. Oh.

Fucking iconic. What a savvy, savvy person. That is wild. And like picture a Manhattan cab driver. Yeah. They don't have time for your shit. No, they're always like onto the next. Somehow she had the charm to be like, listen, I got a test coming up and I got a parallel park. Can you help me out here? Yeah, help me, man. I love that. And he did.

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. Oh, okay. Which...

I don't know. 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. Yeah.

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 does sound cool. I want to be her friend. Yeah.

Now, also, 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 Flutie'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. That sounds so familiar. Yeah, right? Yeah.

It really does. I don't know if it's like from something. But her manager said, never once did I see her come to work with anything but a smile. More on her job at Flutie's later. There's like another anecdote in my tale here. But when it came to romance and relationships, Jennifer, who had been voted best looking in her senior class. Oh, Jennifer. Stop, stop. She was pretty noncommittal. You're in high school. You need to be committal.

Exactly. So when she started dating in her junior year, she spent a lot of time with Brock Pernice, 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. Yeah. 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 our first date. Oh my God. Yeah. That's a banger of a first date. What a fucking sick ass first date.

date. And then 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. It sounds like he really, really liked her a lot. Brock. It gives me butterflies.

Wow. Yeah, it's very like young love. Brock surprised me because to be honest, the name Brock gives me pause sometimes. We're conditioned. I was going to say I've been conditioned, but actually two television shows where my Reba fans are. Yeah. So it's like 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 Sider. 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 a bar. Wow.

I love that. Yeah, it was a Manhattan bar popular with college students. Damn. 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. And it's never a part of the story. No. 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 her... Every facet. DNA that goes on her...

you know, resume. Like it's normal to date around and find out what you like and who you want to hang out with. And like, you're not dating to marry in high school. No. I mean, maybe you got so lucky that you meet that person that you're going to marry. Yeah. I wish I had dated like more different people in high school. I wish I had dated less people in high school. The same person that I dated for all of high school. Yeah. You heard. Yeah. But with purred. Yeah.

Yeah, but I support this and I'm harping on it because it becomes a major aspect of this case and it pisses me off. Yeah, I get it. That she gets very much slushied. Gets railroaded for it. Yeah. So let's talk about Robert a little bit, Robert Chambers. Sure. Robert Emmett Chambers Jr. was born September 25th, 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. Oh. I just can't like hear the Upper East Side without thinking of Gossip Girl.

I think of Cruel Intentions. I'm the Marsha fucking Brady of the Upper East Side and sometimes I want to kill myself. That's a direct quote, not me. Movie. Yeah. I love that movie. I'm going to go watch that later. She's a fucking icon in that movie. She's so good in that movie. So scary. Honestly, everyone is so good in that movie. Oh, everyone's A plus in that. That movie is A fucking plus. 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. In that It cast, you cannot bottle that. So good. It's got Tara Reade in it. What are you doing trying to make that again? I always forget that Tara Reade is in 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. When she drives across the bridge. The song Coffee Black and Egg White. Oh my god. We've gone on too long. So the Upper East Side period. Yeah, sorry. That's what makes us 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. Mm-hmm.

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. Yes, exactly. They were very focused on education, which is great. Yeah. But there's more aspects to a child's upbringing. There's definitely more to life. Yeah, exactly. More to a human. Yeah.

Now, he would be portrayed by the press, interestingly, later 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. Oh, wow. And her income rarely covered the entire tuition. So the fees, he were covered by like a scholarship. He was there on scholarship and by his mom's hard work.

His mom sounds like a badass in that respect. She does, definitely. Like, really working her ass off for a 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. Think Dan Humphreys and Gotham Girl. I was just going to say, this sounds very, like...

written by a showrunner. It does. You know? It's very that. Yeah. 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. Okay. 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. Okay.

Wow. 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 Revolution-y vibes. And he was an officer in the Knickerbocker Greys, 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. Yeah.

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. It's very like, pinkies up. Yeah. See, I'm psyched about my kids knowing karate. There you go. And how to, you know,

Beat the shit out of a man. Chop someone in the throat. There you go. But like, I guess, yeah. Different strokes for different folks. Different vibes for what's important, I guess. 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 this. I had never heard of it before either. I mean, the good news is their 142nd season is starting. Whoa. 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. 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. I don't know about that. 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. Like 100%. And a 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 me 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. That's the only, like, a real vip. Legit, babe. Legit. Yeah. You never want secrets. It's not a good thing to go after. Yeah, no. No. Secret of charm isn't really, like, a descriptor I've heard before. 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? Yeah.

Casual. And other illegal activities like petty theft and vandalism. Very casual. You have to deal with your secretive charm in a certain way. Soon his grades began to slip. He lost his scholarship, which is real shitty because his mom worked her ass off. Yeah, I was going to say. And he was also kicked out of school. Oh. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. You buried that lead. So your secretive charm didn't get you anywhere, bud. Yeah.

Whoa.

This whole thing is like a TV show slash movie. It is. It's very dramatic. Yeah. Looking back, John DeLingo 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. 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. And 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. That's a good school, man. That's a great school. It's very impressive. Yeah. Yeah.

Vacation season is nearly upon us, and this year I am treating myself to the luxe upgrades that I freaking deserve with Quince's high-quality travel essentials at fair prices. I love shopping for a trip, especially if I'm like, oh, I'm going to go here and I'm going to match my outfit to the vibe. And Quince is the perfect place to do that because they have lightweight European linen styles from $30. I love a linen style, babe. The linen pants. I love a linen top. I love a linen moment.

They also have washable silk tops and comfy lounge sets, which are perfect for vacation. They also have premium luggage options and stylish tote bags to carry all your stuff. And the best part, all Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Love, love, love their lounge sets. They are so comfortable. I wear them all the time. I wear them to bed sometimes, but I will also wear them like just running errands.

and I will definitely be packing them the next time I go on vacation. For your next trip, treat yourself to the luxe upgrades you deserve from Quince. Go to quince.com slash morbid for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash morbid to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash morbid.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Let's talk numbers. Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session. That's a lot of money and it adds up fast. But with BetterHelp Online Therapy, ooh, ooh,

You can save, on average, up to 50% per session. That's a lot of money for savings. With BetterHelp, you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and on time. I feel like therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury thing that you're treating yourself to. Everyone should be able to access it. And with online therapy, you can get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress. Your mental health is worth it, and now it's within reach.

With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time. Your well-being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com slash morbid today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash morbid.

So after his graduation from York in 1985, so he did graduate, he moved to Boston. Whoop, whoop. Whoop, whooping Boston. I was going to say. Yeah. And he started the year in Boston University's basic studies program, which basically was established by the school to help students who struggled social or emotionally during high school. Oh.

Oh. Which is really cool. I didn't even know that was a 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. Yeah. 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 hand-holding, but for lack of a better term. And you like, you got to do the most with that. Don't blow that. Yeah. You got to do the most with that.

Unfortunately, he did not. He fell back on old habits and according to his friends, he, quote, used the school as an excuse to party and hang out. Oh, 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, and exactly. That pisses me off. Somebody who would have actually used it. Yeah, maybe 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 picked up. Yeah, it 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. Oh, man. 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. Aw, that's sad. Which is sad. It's also...

I think a very common problem amongst teenagers. Well, I was going to 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... When 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 100%. 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. Yeah.

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 Hamptons. She wasn't actually working at Flutie's yet. And she was spending more and more time with some new friends that she'd met in the club scene. Okay. Which you can imagine probably not the best influences. Brock, her first boyfriend there, said, I remember when I met her, she was a little misinnocent. I saw her change, grow up real quick in the city.

Yeah. He said the change was unwelcome and pretty disappointing. Oh, man. He said, I tried to do other things with her, like other than go to the club. Yeah. He said we went to the theater, formals, restaurants, but she always had to go by Dorian's. That's where our friends were. Oh, man. Yeah.

So, remember, these are, like, very, very wealthy kids with literally no adult supervision whatsoever. Oh, yeah. So, they were living like adults. Yeah. 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 yeah but in like a kid's setting and it comes with adult problems and consequences you know yeah 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 straight up like 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's. 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. Uh-oh. He managed to find work at, like, some low-paying jobs. He actually even took a few college courses at Hunter College. Yeah.

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. Yeah. As groups of young men do. Just, you know, just...

Kids being kids. Boys being boys. Guys being dudes. Yeah. Guys being bros. Yeah. That's casual. Yeah. That's fine. They stole jewelry, other expensive items like that just for fun. Yeah. An acquaintance of his of Robert's. Sounds 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 jokingly said, should I use this tonight? Yeah.

What the fuck? No, you douchebag. What the fuck? This is so entitled, like, spoiled rich kid behavior. It's very cliche. Yeah. Like this part of it. It's very like what you think spoiled rich kids in Manhattan are going to be, you know? Not necessarily what they are, but like this is very...

It's very typical of what you would think. Yeah, it's very stereotypical. It's very clueless, bling ring, gossip girl. It's got all of those vibes. Remember the Sex and the City prequel that they did? I don't think you watched it. It was a banger. I think it only got one or two seasons. I loved it. I'm a purist. I get it. No sequel, no reboot. No, I get it. The prequel was pretty good, though, and it reminds me of this. But anyway...

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 fucked up and stealing from strangers is fucked up. Stealing from your friends is fucked 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 want to confront him because, you know, he's this like wealthy kid. 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. 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. Of course it is. Made sure he got home. And she's not lying. Yeah, someone's sick. She's saying someone's sick. Yeah. You know? 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, sounds good. Yeah. It would have been exciting, but here we are talking about it. But here we are. He's on morbid, so it's not good. He actually even found work as a painter. He was a 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. Oh, man. Man.

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

In late spring, she spent some time visiting colleges in Boston. Boston? Boston, baby. 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. Mount Ida. When she got back to New York, that was when she found her part-time hostess job at Flutie's. Oh, okay. Yeah.

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 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. Wow.

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 sounds to me 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. Yeah, 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 up and up. But 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 her friends decided to go out to Dorian's Red Hand for one last night out on the town. She's going to be leaving soon. She's going to 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. Ah. Yeah. It was true that she had gone on a few dates with Robert Chambers, but insisted, quote, her thing with Chambers was no big thing, just a crush. Hmm.

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 what I do know. What I know I like. Yeah. 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. Yeah.

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. Yeah. Casually. 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 at Dorian's 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. I think. 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. Wow. 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 in his face and told him he could, quote, use these with someone else because you're not going to get the chance to use them with me and stormed out of the bar.

Again. Wow. I'm like, what? That's a queen move right there. 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. For 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. Yeah. Most people forgettable. That girl, not forgettable. 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's not in her way anymore. 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 be. So that might have made it a little weird. It probably did. Yeah. Yeah.

So instead, she had a friend ask 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. Yeah. Now, he 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 Dorian's 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 all. 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, anything like that. She seemed fine with Robert. Yeah. But it was a little weird that she didn't say goodbye to anybody. Like it wasn't like her. Yeah. 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 um have wanted to have sex outside because that's ultimately the story that gets told oh and several friends of hers were like no she wouldn't do that yeah that's not her vibe at all that doesn't make sense and also remember she's like uh

Like when I was saying earlier that she didn't want to go to public school, she has a fear of danger and 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. 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, it doesn't. 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. I don't know. But he was off before that too. It all sounds weird. The night itself seems like nobody was really acting. Yeah. How they typically would have. Yeah.

But I feel like that happens when these kind of things happen. It is what it is. Even though you don't know that like something awful is going to happen, it can be like in the air sometimes. Yeah, there's just like some kind of tension happening. Yeah, 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 in 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. And she knelt in front of him? He said she 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 they're deep scratch marks on his face. Yeah.

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 said I looked really cute and that I would look cuter tied up. 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 the scratches on his face right now, too. They look defensive. They absolutely look defensive. In my opinion. In my opinion. In my opinion. In our opinion. With longer daylight hours, you might be spending more time away from the house and, unfortunately, giving burglars more opportunities to strike. F.

FBI crime data shows that break-ins are more likely during the daylight hours than under the cloak of night, which is interesting. But what is even more interesting is that you can protect your home with SimpliSafe's proactive security system that helps stop threats before they even happen. I'm obsessed with SimpliSafe, especially this time of year. I feel like you're going on more vacations. Like I said at the top, you're spending more time away from home. But you can check in on your home with the simple tap of a button. Having that is...

Everything to me. With SimpliSafe, millions of Americans enjoy the new standard in home security and greater peace of mind every time they arm their system, when heading out in the morning or when locking up each night. And traditional security systems only take action after somebody's already broken in. That is way too late.

SimpliSafe's ActiveGuard outdoor protection, though, can help prevent break-ins before they even happen. Visit simplisafe.com slash morbid to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. Whoa! That's simplisafe.com slash morbid. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

Hi, weirdos. I'm Candace DeLong, retired FBI criminal profiler and the host of Killer Psyche. If you enjoyed Morbid's coverage of the tragic murder of Jennifer Levin, known as the Preppy Killer case, you should check out my episode of Killer Psyche.

where I dive deep into the psychology of Robert Chambers. I explore his troubling behavior, privileged background, and the psychological factors that led to this devastating crime. On Killer Psyche, I use my decades of experience to uncover the why behind some of the most shocking crimes in history.

If you are fascinated by what drives people to commit such heinous acts, join me for a closer look into the twisted minds behind them. Follow Killer Psyche on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Wondery Plus subscribers can listen early and ad-free. Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today. 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. 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 that is uh world

That's a no for me. That's... That's a no for me. One of the most bizarre stories. That is a very... Bizarre is the perfect way to describe that story. Bizarre. Not one bit of that makes sense. No. Whatsoever. No. You're literally saying that you put your arm around her neck and like really quick though, you made sure to say really quick. Really quick. Somehow flipped her into a tree. Yeah. And then she...

She just died in the tree. Yeah. Really quick. And you just knew that. That's my favorite part is I realized she was dead. Yeah.

Interesting. Like that, I'm sorry. If that, if I got into a little tussle with someone and I, 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 realized she was dead and then you went and sat down

So you could watch? On a bench nearby and watched somebody discover her dead body, leave, go get help. You watched that help arrive and you watched her body be taken away in a body bag 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. You just went to sleep? 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 videoed statement to police. Wow. 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 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 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. Yep. 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. None of that aligns. That's not lining up. None of that aligns with him swiftly flipping her over into a tree. And how awful. Yeah. Like 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. Yeah. According to the pathologist, the bra had been twisted around her neck, but it was also still hooked in the back. Yeah.

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. Yeah. But there was petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes that indicated, indicating that the blood flow to her brain was restricted, which would have been unlikely if it was just a matter of her bra getting wrapped around her neck. Your bras aren't that tight. It's, we've, we've said it before. It's very difficult to strangle someone. It takes a lot of minutes, a lot of,

Like pressure and time. Consistent pressure. Consistent pressure and 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. 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. Yeah.

When asked for a comment about his daughter's death, Stephen Levin said, I have lived in New York City for 19 years and I have hesitatingly come to the conclusion that it 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 Lippman, 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.

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 clears it up. Yeah, attractive people aren't rapists. 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, like, what they find 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 Robert's social groups were discussed 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 going to challenge you. It's an attitude.

So they're very much making this, putting together this picture that these kids were like fast, you know? That they put themselves in these positions. Exactly. This is very much a victim blaming strategy. Yes. Of, well, what did you expect? And it's not only coming from the defense, but like the press as well. But everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

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 too. Of course.

And that became even more apparent within days of Robert's 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. 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, a

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. And she's dead, so she can't defend herself. And that's the strategy. And this is one instance where one person is saying this about her, who's also the last person that saw her alive. So, like, are we really going to take that? Maybe you should question that a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

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 got a dead girl. He did not walk in there. He just found himself in that situation. I 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, and 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. They're all over him. Yeah, that girl. Yeah. And now he's a reluctant Romeo. Yeah. You can't have it both ways. That's very much like the Brock Turner effect where it's like,

You know, he lost everything. He could have been... This kid could have been like an amazing athlete. And it's like, 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? Oh, that leads me. 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. What? It's like 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 a head out. We think before we speak. I'm a head out. Yeah. We listen. I'm a head out. We listen and we judge. Yeah, I listened and I am judging harshly. There's nothing you can do for Jennifer now. I'd say there's actually a lot you can do for Jennifer now. Imagine if everybody thought that way. Fight for justice.

Imagine if everybody thought that way. When somebody gets murdered, it's just like, well, nothing we can do now. That's it. Oh, that's nice. Oh, cool. Yeah. Let's just move on. Sure, that was great for her family. Yeah, let's blow by that literal life that was stopped in its prime. You can't be there for her family now? No. No? You got to be there for Robert. Yeah, of course. Interesting. I don't think I get 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 Lipman's defense strategy. Just one day after his arraignment, Lipman also told reporters that he was now weighing an insanity plea.

Huh. That's a completely different route, sir. That's interesting. He said, Huh.

Okay. I just feel like you're arguing two very different points at the same time. Yeah, I would say that. 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 he claimed that those scratches on his face came from his cat.

Oh, 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 the first story. The original story. Chronologically, the first story I told was after he had 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 know it was her. Yeah. Like you were really going to try to lie about that? Oh yeah. Well, 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. Damn, those are two very different things. Yeah, they sure are. That's a theme in this case. Yeah. 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.

Wow. 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. No, Incarnation. Is it like Monsignor or Monsignor? 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. Yeah. So instead, Jack Lipman's strategy was...

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. Huh. Which is just bonkers. That's truly bonkers. And just, like, really fucked up.

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...

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. In order to defend against the obvious inconsistencies, though, Jack Lippman told the jury the tape was the unvartish 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. Yeah. The prosecutor, 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. Why didn't he just go for help? That's what I don't get.

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 it's like... They were... Like, 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 you're just watching. He's a white man. A rich, well, I shouldn't say rich, but he is a... He was wealthy. And he's socially in a higher echelon white man. Yep.

You could have said, you know what I mean? Like, you're not in a position where it's scary for you to say that an accident happened. You know what I mean? Where some other people, it may be genuinely scary to say it because you're just not going to be believed immediately. It's like you are one of the only people, you know, one of the only kinds of 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 innocent until proven guilty. It's like, that's really only the case for certain people. Yup. And he happens to be part of that, that kind of people, 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. It's weird. 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 care about, spent a lot of time with. Many, 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. Some people get a wild haircut or book a spontaneous trip when life throws them a curveball. But Molly?

Well, she dove headfirst into a world of no-strings-attached sex, secret rendezvous, forbidden affairs, and unforgettable adventures. And together, we tell every juicy detail in Dying for Sex, Wondery's award-winning podcast that's now streaming on a TV near you, starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate. And to top it off, we're dropping brand new bonus episodes where I sit down with the cast to spill all the spicy secrets.

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, Lippman hoped that he could convince at least a few jurors, because 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. Yeah. I can't imagine having to stand by as her mom watching that. And again, that it became her fault. Like, that's wild. It's like she's on trial all of a sudden. Yeah.

In the end, though, the defense's 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.

Wow. Yeah. 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 like passion behind, you know. Yeah, they were considering both sides. Yeah. But ultimately came to a very interesting decision. Yeah. So whatever the case, the deadlock 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. Wow.

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, Chambers 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 Miss Levin physically. Huh. So he said yes, but no. Yeah, but no. Yeah. Like what? But not really. Yeah.

Looking back, I'd have to say yes, but like not in my heart. Not in my heart. Like, okay, 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 the 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 Lipman's strategy. It absolutely was. Her grandfather said Lipman predictably tried his case in the press in which he aimed 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 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 is. Like that is just... I don't know. Like I don't see the integrity in that. No, I completely... As a 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 completely agree. You know, you just shouldn't have to. And, like, to do that, I don't... This is just me personally. I think it's yucky. I do, too. Because, again, there's...

If he can win the case, win the case. There's a lot of routes to go down. Yeah. And he himself, clearly, he had two routes that he could have gone down. Yeah. But he picked one. I just think it's yucky. And especially when somebody can't be there to defend themselves. Exactly. Like, I don't know. And when that person was...

Yeah. No matter what that person was murdered. Exactly. That's the thing. It's fucked up. And it's fucked up to do to the family. It puts the family through a whole other layer of trauma and... No one's private life like that should be splashed around for their family to hear. No. When they've been murdered... Right. They have had the ultimate injustice done to them, and now you're adding on to it? Yeah. It's insult to injury. By then, like...

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. Yeah, 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. If it's a good case, you'll win it some other way. Agreed completely. Without having to make like slut shame a dead girl. Yeah.

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 am sorry. The Levin family has gone through hell because of my actions, and I am 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. Damn. Yeah. So the judge was like, I got you. Yeah. It was like, okay. Robert Chambers 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. It's crazy.

Yeah. Two years later, after being transferred to Greenhaven Prison, Chambers was again denied parole due to, quote, the nature of his offense and poor disciplinary record. Oh. So he was not doing well. Damn. 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 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 going to come in today. I'm at a point where I'd rather just have you tell me, listen, you're going to 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, because if I'm on the parole board and you say that shit, I...

Yeah, I'm going to be like, keep sitting there. Cool. Consider that a request that I am now granting. That's wild. But his release was obviously unwelcome news to Ellen Levin. She said, Okay.

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 Levin family continues to suffer her loss and I am deeply sorry for the grief that I have caused them. Wow. Yeah. I mean, nothing you can say can bring someone back. I was going to say nothing you can say can bring someone back and that is just a... That case is 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. Yeah. I have an idea. I have my own idea, obviously, that I'm not going to share because we don't need to get into like opinions here. But yeah. Yeah.

But who knows? Because, you know, people are walking around here. We don't have to insert our opinions. Well, as it turned out, Robert's freedom was to be short-lived, though. 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 oh no lessons have not been learned you always wonder how that hits someone yeah 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 yeah well after initially intending to go to trial which i'm like

What were you... What? What are you doing? 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. 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. Wow. Which I disagree with. I have my own thoughts about that. Okay. Wow. That is... Something. That's an unsettling one on a different level. It is. Because like...

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. Because we always say. Except that 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. Of course. And it's probably worse.

than anything that could ever even agree. That's what I feel so bad about is like... And she was so young. Yeah, she was really young. She was just about to leave the city. Like this was her last night out on the town. Like that sucks. It's 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 as far as addiction goes. No, and 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. One thing you can say is he was just... He's an entitled... He was an entitled guy. He was an entitled teenager. He was an entitled young adult. Friends said that. Plenty of people said that. And it's like...

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 mean, remember, like, one of her eyes was swollen near shut. She had marks on her nose. Her tooth was loose. Her tooth was loose. She had dirt and blood caked to the side of her mouth. Her bra was pulled up around her neck. Like, this doesn't, like... It doesn't scream accidental to me. You're going to have to explain to me more about...

Like, I don't get it. I don't understand it. My brain is not putting this onto 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, I can't imagine somebody doing that to my family member and having to sit with that.

with that. That's the thing. And then to watch that person get out of prison time and time again. Well, that's the worst part. 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, that was strange. But I hate when they give those kind of nicknames, like the preppy killer. Like that's just, it's very tasteless. It is.

Because that's also a way of taking away some of the sting of the reality of it. He's just a preppy guy. He's just this preppy high society guy. Totally. Just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hate that a lot. I do too. I hate that a lot. Eat it. And I feel really bad for Jennifer and really bad for those who care about her. I know. I agree. I hope they feel like they got some kind of justice at some point. I hope so. Yeah.

But it's a little upsetting. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. Damn. 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 palate cleanser. Nice little palate cleanser, if you will.

Oh, and this is the end of the episode, so hopefully you're still here. Hi. If you are seeing on Spotify, we're just going to start opening episodes with this and possibly closing with this as well. Honestly. If you are seeing a bonus episode designation on Spotify, we don't have bonus episodes. We don't have anything behind a paywall, like a bonus episode or anything like that. That's a Spotify issue.

They did something like an update with their system or something like that. We have been begging to get that like removed, but it's across the board, I guess, like an update that happened and they have yet to be able to remove it. We don't have any bonus episodes behind a paywall, nothing like that.

What you are seeing as quote-unquote bonus episodes that look like they're locked, I think it shows you like that. It literally has locked next to them. What those are is they're showing our Wondery Plus week early episodes as bonus episodes behind a paywall, which is not what they are. It's a very misleading thing. It's very frustrating. We understand why that would be like...

what the fuck? Yeah. Like, where are these bonus episodes and why are they behind a paywall? Just know that like, podcasts I listen to have the same thing going on. Yeah. It's, it's across the board. It's not just our podcast. You gotta scroll a little bit, find the available one. Or,

Listen on a different platform. Yeah, you don't... If you... Wherever you... You know, this is... I think this is a Spotify issue. It is. Like, only. So if you go to other platforms, you're not gonna... Like, I listen on Spotify, too. I do, too. So I'm not, like, shitting on Spotify. No. But, like... But if it bothers you to see that...

the fake bonus episode that doesn't exist, like you can go somewhere else to listen to it. Or go tell them because we would love to get rid of it. Yeah, let them know that it's like really misleading because like we want it taken down as well because we have been getting a lot of feedback that you guys think that we're like putting bonus episodes behind a paywall and I promise you we're not. We will never do that.

We're never going to put bonus episodes behind a paywall. No. Like it's just not something we're going to do where it like shows up in your feed as like, oh, you want to listen to this? Go pay money because it's not in our real feed. It's not our vibe. That's not the vibe. So I promise you we'll reiterate this at the beginning of the next few episodes too just because I want everybody to know that like it's not a bonus episode behind a paywall. It's just not. Promise. Promise.

So, yeah. With all that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep here. But not so rare that you think that we do bonus episodes because we don't even do bonus episodes. Those are not even locked. Bye. A bonus episode would be free like Tobias's. Toby.

You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead...

in hospital rooms and doctor's offices. Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors.

So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.