Disturbing And Fascinating Facts About The 'Preppy Killer,' Robert Chambers

While there are scary stories of murders in universities, Jennifer Levin's horror story occurs between high school and college. In the summer of 1986, Jennifer Levin was happily college-bound when she was killed by Robert Chambers. Both of the teenagers lived in Manhattan and attended elite preparatory schools, causing the media to dub Chambers the "Preppy Killer."

Chambers strangled Levin to death in Central Park, later claiming he accidentally killed the teenager during an early morning session of kinky sex gone awry. Throughout his trial, Chambers's defense attorney attempted to paint Levin as a wanton young woman who was somehow to blame for her own death. As a result of this strategy, Chambers spent less time behind bars for killing Levin than he would for selling drugs after he was released from prison for manslaughter. Read on to discover the chilling and disquieting facts about the man who brutally asphyxiated a young, 18-year-old woman. 

According to detectives, after providing a videotaped confession to law enforcement, Chambers was surprised when he was placed under arrest. As he was being booked, Chambers reportedly said to his father: "That f*cking b*tch, why didn't she leave me alone?" Sadly, while Chambers may have been the first person to blame Levin for her death, he was hardly the last.

The press referred to Levin's journal as her "sex diary" because according to Chambers's defense attorney, it included details of "kinky and aggressive sexual activity by Jennifer Levin with many lovers." There was even article about how Levin, who had been strangled by a man who weighed twice as much as her, should be blamed for her own murder in a piece titled, "How Jennifer Courted Death."

In 1988, Levin's parents filed a wrongful death suit against Chambers, seeking $25 million dollars in damages. Chambers pleaded no contest to the charges, so he was ordered to pay any lump sum payments to the Levins, as well as 10 percent of his wages, until the amount was paid in full.

In a note Chambers wrote to the court, he said:  "I elect not to contest the action for damages brought against me by the Levins. My only wish is for the nightmare to end, for both families and friends. I do not wish the Levins to endure any more pain."

While Chambers' mother sent her son to private schools to help him make connections with wealthy and influential people, Chambers took advantage of these relationships by routinely stealing from his affluent friends. In fact, just months before he strangled Levin in Central Park, he stole his friend's credit card. He racked up thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges, but Chambers' mother convinced the victim not to press charges.

Stealing wasn't a one-time thing with Chambers. After killing Levin, he was convicted of committing a number of burglaries, stealing approximately $70,000 from penthouses on the Upper East Side. It is alleged that Chambers committed burglary, petty theft, and credit card fraud to pay for his cocaine habit.

While Chambers wasn't wealthy, his mother wanted him to network with the elite, so she arranged for him to have a play date with John F. Kennedy Jr. Apparently, Chambers' mother had cared for JFK Jr. as a nurse when he was sick with bronchitis. During that time, she suggested the young patient and her son go to a restaurant and theater. According to the woman who was Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis's assistant at the time, Chambers's mother repeatedly got upset with her then-five-year-old son for "saying the wrong thing."

Soon after Chambers was arrested for murdering Levin, the press dubbed him the "Preppy Murderer" and the "Preppy Killer" because he'd attended private preparatory schools, including York Prep, Choate, and Browning. However, while he'd gone to private schools and lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Chambers's parents weren't particularly wealthy. In fact, his mother worked as a nurse and his father was a videotape distributor, and Chambers attended expensive prep schools with the help of scholarships.

In contrast, Levin lived in Manhattan with her father, who was a successful real estate agent, and her stepmother. She had attended The Baldwin School, an elite private school for girls. Levin was also planning to go to college, while Chambers had been kicked out of Boston University after just one semester.

After his arrest in 1986, Chambers roamed about for two years, free on bond. His trial began on January 4, 1988, and lasted approximately three months. The jury deliberated for nine days, but they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict. In the end, Chambers accept a plea bargain which required him to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. 

Shortly after Chambers went to jail, a videotape which had been taken shortly after he was charged with murder in 1986 was leaked to the press. The recording featured Chambers with several young women in lingerie. At one point in the tape, Chambers strangled a doll and said to the camera, "Oops, I think I killed it."

After Levin's sister, Danielle Levin Roberts, viewed the videotape, in which it appeared as though Chambers was mocking Jennifers's death, she told the media: "He's not even a person. He's an animal."

After the police told Chambers to leave the park, he went to the Manhattan apartment he shared with his parents and fell asleep. After learning Levin's identity and discovering she had been at Dorrian's Red Hand shortly before she died, police questioned the patrons who had been at the bar with the teenager. Investigators quickly learned the victim had left Dorrian's Red Hand with Chambers, so they went to his home to question him about his possible involvement in Levin's death.

When they arrived at the apartment, the officers noticed Chambers had scratches on his neck and face, so they brought him in for questioning. When investigators asked Chambers how he got the deep scratches on his body, he told the officers his cat - who detectives later learned had been declawed - had caused the injuries. Eventually, Chambers confessed to killing Levin, but he denied strangling her, instead telling officers it was a case of rough sex gone wrong.

After killing Levin, Chambers didn't flee the scene. Instead, he sat on a wall not far from Levin's corpse until around a passing cyclist noticed the 18-year-old's lifeless body around 6 am and called 911 for help. When law enforcement and emergency services arrived at the park, Chambers was still in the area, but he didn't tell any of the officers that he knew Levin; consequently, police told Chambers, along with members of the public who were at the scene, to leave.

When detectives examined Levin's body, they found she was partially clothed and covered with bruises and cuts. They also noticed marks on her neck and the medical examiner later determined she had been strangled to death, not killed by a single blow to the throat as Chambers had claimed. 

Chambers' first request for parole was denied, in part because Levin's mother told the board: "In my eyes, anything less than the maximum would devalue my daughter's life." The members of the parole board denied his release in 1992, because they believed Chambers would most likely break the law if he was paroled. 

While Chambers seemed to be somewhat contrite in the note he wrote to the court in 1988 about the wrongful death suit filed against him by the Levins, he didn't express any remorse at his 1994 parole hearing. According to the transcript of the hearing, Chambers told the board: ''I guess I could also give you the party line and say I have learned my lesson, I will never do this again. But that's not how I feel at this moment, because I have a lot of conflicting emotions.'' 

On August 26, 1986, 19-year-old Robert Chambers and Jennifer Levin, who had casually dated one another over the summer, left the Dorrian's Red Hand bar on Manhattan's Upper East Side together at approximately 4 am. According to Chambers, he and Levin went to Central Park to have rough sex and she used her underwear to bind his hands behind his back. However, Chambers claimed he became upset when she repeatedly squeezed his testicles.

In response to the pain, Chambers (6'5" and weighing 220 pounds) angrily reacted by knocking Levin off, hitting her in the throat with his arm. Levin was 5'4" and half his weight, and immediately fell backward onto the ground. Chambers said he knew "something was wrong," but he left the scene without attempting to revive Levin and didn't call 911 to get the young woman medical attention.