Robert Chambers: The Preppy Killer | Forensic Files

Hey weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is [Music] Morbid. This is Bork Beetle. Hi everybody. Hello. What's up?
Uh, not a lot. No, no, there'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. Well, yeah, I'm like 20. I think today's day 28. I'm I'm going to
have to have you take the mic for start today. Well, my Finch is in uh Sydney, Australia. So, mine is in Taipei. Hey
guys in Australia, if you see my finch Gatsby walking around there, tell them I said hi. Well, Big Anch said, "I can't
decide. Is it better to be super strong or super fast?" Oo, 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. A, she's a queen bee. Um, this isn't
sponsored. I genuinely needed to check in on my Finch live. I'm saying she's all set. Yeah, you can't just Siri, I'm
not talking. 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? Did you yell it really loud at all this? Oh,
they did. Okay. Yeah, a lot of you did. I heard you. Yeah. Somebody Oh, Larry. We have a Larry. Larry, thank you for
trying. Yeah. No, no, they named their Finch Larry. I don't know. Oh, I thought it was Larry who tried it. No, I'm sure
we have a Larry who might have tried it as well. Maybe. I don't know. I believe you. I'm just [ __ ] We just finished
watching um season six final episode of Buffy. If you listen to the rewatcher, you know how we feel about season 6. Uh
I left the room during the season 6 finale. So, we're feeling some type of way right now. I faked a walk out. Yeah,
it's true. If you want to She did like a She did a housewives style walk out. I did 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, cuz the
beginning seasons of Buffy are fantastic, and we've had so much fun talking about it and we've even had fun
talking about this season. Go listen to the rewatcher. You should. We're about to end season 6 and go into season 7.
So, I have a whole new season adventure awaiting me. Join us. All right. Um, 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. Miss Justice. I like that. Miss Justice was in here, but she left. Yeah.
She left halfway through that case. She did. Yeah. Uh this is another case where
Justice is interesting. Oh, okay. Okay. We're going to be talking about the preppy killer, Robert Chambers, who
killed Jennifer Don Leven. Uh and we're going to talk about that entire case. So, Jennifer Don Leven was born May
21st, 1968 in Port Washington, New York. Her parents were Ste are Steven and Ellen Leven, a realtor and a homemaker.
Jennifer and her older sister Danielle were raised on Long Island's Northshore, 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 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 So, she's like She's an independent woman. She is. Yeah. She's
getting her [ __ ] done. She did. And like at an early age, too. Yeah. Her stepmother, Arlene Leven, 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 like viewpoint for such a young person, you know, to be like, "Well, I'll figure out
how to get it myself." Usually, it's just like, "Well, mom and dad won't do it." That wasn't my viewpoint.
But in 1973, when Jennifer was 5 years old, her parents did end up divorcing. Steven, her father, moved to an
apartment in Manhattan, and Ellen stayed on Long Island with Danielle and Jennifer. And despite the separation,
Jennifer and her sister managed to remain close to both their parents. And they even developed a good relationship
with a few years later with Steven's new wife, Arlene. Ellen, Jennifer's mom, said about Jennifer, "She just made
people smile by just walking into a room." Oh. Which is like, you could feel that. Yeah. And her charm and affection
wasn't just limited to friends, just not limited only to family. Once, just before she was scheduled to take her
driving test, she talked a Manhattan cab driver into teaching her how to parallel
park. [ __ ] iconic. What a savvy savvy person. That is wild. And like picture a
Manhattan cab driver. They don't have time for your [ __ ] I know. They're always like on to the next. Somehow she
had the charm to be like, "Listen, I got to I got a test coming up and I got you
got to help me, man. I love you." So, after finishing junior high on Long Island, she moved in with her father and
her stepmother in Manhattan. Um, mostly so that she could attend the Baldwin School, which was a private high school
on New York's Upper West Side. Oo. According to Arlene Leven, 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 maybe at the time it was like a little bit rough.
I'm not positive. Yeah. I don't know how like in that area how they are now. Yeah. I'm not sure. Yeah. But anyway,
she thrived at Baldwin School and quickly developed her own really independent personality. She wasn't
really your typical teenager. Her friends and classmates mostly kind of gravitated toward pop music and
television, but Jennifer herself preferred adult contemporary music. And she said that she'd rather work out than
watch TV. And she also became a vegetarian at a pretty young age just for the health benefits. Damn, she
sounds cool as hell. She 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 Fluties, a
bar in lower Manhattan. I feel like I don't know if I've been there, but I've definitely heard of it. Yeah. Right. It
really does. I don't know if it's like from something. Uh, but her manager said, "Never once did I see her come to
work with anything but a smile." A more on her uh job at Fluties later. There's like another anecdote in my tail here,
but when it came to romance and relationships, Jennifer, who had been voted best looking in her senior class,
Jennifer, snap, snap. She was pretty non-committal. You're in high school. You don't need to be committ. Exactly.
So, when she started dating in her junior year, she spent a lot of time with Brock Perise, a student at York
Prep, which is an elite uh 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 golucky. 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 what a banger of a first date. Sick ass first 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. It's It gives me butterflies.
Wow. Yeah. It's It's very like young love. Brock surprised me because to be honest, the name Brock like gives me
pause sometimes. We're conditioned from a certain television. I was going to say
I've been conditioned, but actually two television shows where my Reba fans at. Yeah. So, it's like I I'm 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 gota You are a New York upper eastider. 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 Perise 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 [ __ ] you want to do. Yeah. And she's casually dating. She's in high
school. Yeah. It's 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. No. 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 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 DNA. that's 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 you're not dating to marry in high school. And if I mean, maybe you
get so lucky that you meet that person that you're going to marry, but Yeah. I wish I had dated like more different
people in high school. I wish I had dated less people in high school. The same person that I dated for all of high
school. Yeah, you heard. Yeah. But with Perd, you know. Yeah. But I support this
and it I'm harping on it because it becomes a major aspect of this case and it pisses me off that she gets she gets
very much [ __ ] railroaded for it. Yeah. So let's talk about Robert a little bit.
Robert Chambers. Sure. Robert EMTT Chambers Jr. was born September 25th, 1966 in Queens, New York. He was the
only child born to Phyllis and Robert Chambers Senior, 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. Ah, I I think of Cruel Intentions. I'm the Marsha [ __ ] 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 [ __ ] icon in that movie. She's so good in that movie. Mhm. So scary.
Honestly, so scary. Everyone is so good in that movie. Oh, everyone's A+ in that. That movie is a [ __ ] 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. Um, yeah. Stop. Because you can't you can't remake that. You can't bottle stop. You can't bottle that time.
No, you can't. And that kind of and though that that it cast, you cannot bottle that. So good.
And just the look. It's got Tara Reed in it. You can't What are you doing trying
to make that again? I always forget that Tara Reed is a She starts the whole damn
thing. She sure does. Hell yeah. Oh my god. Her crying scenes are always the best. That movie. 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, coffee black and egg white. Oh my god. We've 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 handsoff and they were kind of emotionally
unavailable. Like they struggled to provide the best education for him. That was a 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. Ah, they just wanted the best education, but they weren't thinking of like making him a
well-rounded individual. Exactly. They were very focused on education, which is great, but there's more aspects to 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 uh 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 retro 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
Humphrey's and I was just going to say this sounds very like written by a showrunner. It does. You know, it's 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 an internal struggle that he was going
through. Okay. But outside of school he was an alter boy at the family's church.
He was a member of the children of the American Revolution which is always interesting. It always makes me think of
Gilmore Girls. It always makes me think of that. And he was an officer in something I've never heard of before but
gives very American Revolutiony vibes. And he was an officer in the Nickerbacher Grace, which is a drill
team for children of wealthy New York families. That doesn't even sound real. I know.
That sounds like something somebody made up. It does to make me feel stupid. Maybe they did. By being like, "This is
a real thing." Maybe they did. Wow. Well, Phyllis, his mom, served as the board president of the Gays 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
nicities of life. Wow. It's very like Yeah. See, I'm I'm psyched about my kids knowing karate. There you go. And
how to, you know, beat the [ __ ] out of a man. Someone in the throat. There you
go. But like I guess Yeah. different for different folks. Different vibes for what's important. I guess I I think you
should go be the president of the Nickerbach or Grays. Personally, it sounds wild. I'm looking it up right now
cuz I've just never heard of that. I had never heard of it before either. I mean,
the good news is their 142nd season is starting. Well, a lot of seasons. I didn't realize they had seasons. Yeah,
apparently it's like a team. This is very interesting. It is. Well, like I said, Robert might have felt like an
outsider, but the messages he got from his peers pretty much contradicted his self-image entirely. Like I was just
saying, yeah, he was 6'4. He weighed 220 lbs. 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 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. Ah like 100%. And a very huge sense of entitlement also. Oh, I could Yeah, I could I could feel that vibe
starting to come. He he's giving like tortured poet. Oh yeah. Without writing poetry. See, and let me just like quick
little thing. Secret of 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 vampire. Like that's legit, babe. Legit. Yeah. You never want
secrets. It's not a good good thing to go after. Yeah. No. No. Secret of charm isn't really like a a descriptor I've
heard before. Secret secrets are no fun. Secret Secrets hurt someone. Mhm. But he
started to deal with his insecurities by engaging in some casual drug use. Casual. Casual. And other illegal
activities like um petty theft and vandalism. Very casual. You have to deal with your secret charm in a certain way.
Casual. Uh 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 secret of charm didn't get you really anywhere, bud. This increasingly destructive behav behavior even took a
toll on his relationship with his oldest friends. His closest friend at the time,
John uh Tenko, said, "I just realized it was a dead end. One night, a group of us
were h hanging out at this bar on East 85th Street. I remember thinking how pathetic the conversation was. We were
just joking around in this cynical matter manner that we have, but I had stopped drinking a few weeks before, and
I couldn't relate to it at all. I stood up and told them to go to hell and walked out." Whoa.
This whole thing is like a TV show/m movie. It is. It's very dramatic. Yeah. Looking back, John Deligo 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 2020. 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, you know. 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. [ __ ] Yeah. Uh in large part, according to one
former friend, because of his high test scores. That a good school, man. That's a great school. It's very impressive.
Yeah. 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. uh which basically it was established by the school to help students who struggled
social or emotionally during high school. 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 and get his life back on track. For sure. And that's a big chance. You get into Boston
University and you get this like kind of like I don't want to say handholding but
for lack of a better term and you like you got to do the most with that. You got to do the most with that. Um
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 [ __ ] And it's like why bother? I'm sure that program was
beneficial for so many other people. That's the thing who didn't get to use it because you took their spot. Yeah.
Like and exactly like that pisses me off. Who would have actually used it? Yeah. Like some maybe somebody who
didn't get into it or even there was people there that probably like Yeah, exactly. Mhm. 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. He 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 up, uh, 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. Okay. 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. A 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 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 often times outweighed her responsibilities like school and work, which again very
typical of a lot of teenagers. Yeah, this is exactly what I was like 100%. Um, 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 uh Daniel Kimell, 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 or excuse
me, respectable schools. Now, for her friends who knew her best, the change in her personality started right around the
summer of 1985. At that time, she was working actually at a boutique in the Hampton.
She wasn't actually working at Fluties yet. Um, 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 miss innocent. I saw her change grow up real quick in the
city." Yeah. He said the unchange the 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. They were living like adults, but they didn't have the emotional maturity that
usually comes with age, which is very like I'm not trying to be like silly here when I say it's very Gossip Girl,
like you know, I mean, like the whole like kids living very adult lives, having very adult drama, but in like a
kids setting and it comes with adult problems and repercussions, you know. 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 others. 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 short 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's 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.
Uhoh. He managed to find work at like some lowpaying jobs. He actually even took a few college courses at Hunter
College, but his drug use was overtaking everything. It was becoming his biggest
priority. Yeah. He wasn't really hurting for money. But that fall, he fell in with a group of young guys from wealthy
families who just um broke into people's houses around the city for fun. Oh, cool. Yeah. You know, as as groups of
young men do. Just, you know, just kids being 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 Sounds like the bling ring. Yeah, I know. Honestly. Yeah, it
really does. An acquaintance of his said, "We went out to dinner at America once and he pulled out a credit card
that wasn't his and joking jokingly said, "Should I use this tonight?" What the [ __ ] No, you douchebag. What the
[ __ ] But this is so entitled like spoiled rich kid behavior. It's very cliche. Yeah, like this part of it. Like
that's why it's very like what you think spoiled rich kids in Manhattan are going
to be. You know, it's got not necessarily what they are, but like this is very what atyp it's very typical of
what you would think. Yeah, it's very stereotypical. It's very like clueless bling ring, Gossip Girl. Like it's got
all of those vibes. Even um remember the Sex in the City um like prequel that they did? I don't think you watched it.
It was a banger. I think it only got like one or two seasons. I loved I'm a purist. I get it. No sequel, no reboot.
No, I get it. The the prequel was pretty good, though, and it reminds me of this.
But anyway, as the year went on, so did Robert's excessive drug use and now theft. Before long, he moved on from
stealing from strangers to just straight up stealing from people he knew, like his friends. On nights when people when
Robert had been at their homes, his friends and acquaintances would notice that money had gone missing. Wow. Which
it's 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 guy. That's such a big escalation. It is. Like stealing in general is so [ __ ] up and stealing
from strangers is [ __ ] up. Stealing from your friends is [ __ ] up on a whole other level. Of course it is. It's
wild. But at popular hangouts like Dorian's Red Hand, even the customers frequently complained to management that
money and credit cards were going missing from their pocketbooks, their coats. And a lot of times people knew
that it was Robert, but they just didn't 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.
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 saying someone's sick. Yeah. You know, so he went to rehab, he cleaned up, he
spent a month there. He came back to New York uh from Minnesota in late May of 1986 and enthusially announced that he
had k kicked his uh 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 got 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. 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, she found that was when she found her part-time uh hostess job at Fluties. Oh, okay. And according to
friends, the job interview at Fluties 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 like, good for her. I
seriously And when the guy saw her, he told her he was 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's had she had had selling and made him fall in love
with her. and she got the job. Wow. Yeah. Jennifer is sounds like such a badass. Like a hot ticket. She That's
exactly what she sounds like, you know? Yeah. And like imagine having that hoodpa at that age, like grabbing the
man by his shoulders and being like, "No, I got this, dude." She's she sounds to me like a like a like a young Blanch
Devo. 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 Colombia. 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. 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 from what I do know
what I know I like. Yeah. Now, that night, uh, Robert Chambers had made plans also to meet up with a girl that
he'd been dating for a short time. And they decided to go to Dorian's Red Hand together. Again, like I said, very
popular spot. They had been there a few hours by the time Jennifer and her friends arrived just before midnight.
and everybody had been drinking. Uh despite her stated desire to reconcile with Brock, Jennifer was still pretty
excited when she saw Robert that night and she told friends apparently that she quote wanted to go home with him later.
Remember they dated before casually. She was excited about the future, but she still wanted to live it up and have, you
know, one last harrah before leaving the city. I get it. Why not? According to Lissa Thompson, one of the girls that
Jennifer had been out with that night, Jennifer quote, "Immediately made a beline 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, which to me says something something. It
says um yeah, it says he needs a break. Maybe some stuff's going on. Lots of people go
to New York bathrooms for this. They they do. Just ask I mean they they yell about it on housewives seasons. They do,
I think. What were 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 and 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. Is this like I'm like what? That's a that's a queen move right
there. That's a that's Wow. Like 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 life.
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. Well, the date
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 on 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. 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 [ __ ]
Yeah, they were clearly like carrying on. Yeah. So, a little before 4:30 a.m., several more friends saw Robert and
Jennifer get up from the table and leave Dorian's headed in the direction of Central Park. A friend said, "Usually
she'd come over and give me a big hug and tell me she'd call me tomorrow, but this time she didn't." I remember she
looked sort of mellow, putting her jacket over her shoulder, pulling her hair, and crossing the street like there
was no problem. So, she didn't seem like agitated or like upset, anything like that. She seemed fine with Robert, but
it was a little weird that she didn't say goodbye to anybody. like it wasn't like her. 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."
Like, 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 like dangerous situations. Yeah.
She's not reckless. Yeah. So she wouldn't have gone into that park if she didn't feel like she was safe with
Robert. So she 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. 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 too. It all sounds weird. The night itself seemed like nobody was really
acting how they typically would have. Yeah. But I feel like that happens when these kind of things happen. Even though
you don't know that like something awful is going to happen, it can be like in the air sometimes. It's just like some
kind of tension happening. Yeah, exactly. So, Robert and Jennifer entered the park around 4 uh 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 uh 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 her. He said she got
like she like got up, knelt in front of me and scratched my face, which when you see the scratch
marks on his face later because they are photographed, it wouldn't have been like
she scratched my face like in a cute way or like Yeah. Like like they're deep scratch marks on his face. He said after
that after that happened he got up to leave but that Jennifer apologized and he agreed to stay and keep talking since
she had apologized and despite asking her to sit far away from him he said she came up behind him and started massaging
his shoulders and he said she she said I looked really cute and that I would look
cuter tied up. Okay. According to the statement that he gave police, he didn't think she was
serious until she held his wrist together and using her underwear started to tie them together. Once his hands
were bound, Chambers claimed that Jennifer tried to take off his pants, but she was hurting him in the process.
And he said she quote kind of laughed in a weird way, like more like a cackle or
something. Okay. And then he said that his protest 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 I don't believe this. I'm looking at those
scratches on his face right now, too. They look defensive. They absolutely lookive in my opin opinion. In my
opinion. In our opinion. So, Robert claimed that his screams caught the attention of a nearby jogger
who eventually came over to investigate, but the jogger left the area when Jennifer insisted everything was
fine. Okay. Then he claimed he could not take the pain that Jennifer was inflicting on him anymore. So, he
reached up and grabbed her, putting his arm around her neck and pulling hard. He
told detectives it was just really quick. She flipped over and then landed and she was kind of twisted on the
tree. So, you flipped her over into a tree. At that point, she wasn't moving. And Robert thought that she was trying
to frighten him. But when he shook her and got no response, he said he realized she was dead and walked across the park
and found a place to sit on the wall where he could still see her body. From that position, he said he eventually saw
a cyclist enter the park, come upon the body, and then leave and return a short time later with paramedics. Once the
ambulance arrived, Robert himself left the scene, went home, showered, and went to
bed. Okay, three words. In what world? I Yeah, in what? That is a world. That's a no for me. That's a no for me.
That one of the most bizarre stories. That is a very That is bizarre is the perfect way to describe that story.
Bizarre. Uh 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. Um, and then she she she just died in the tree. Yeah. Really quick. And you just knew that. That's my
favorite part is I realized she had she was dead. Yeah. Interesting. Like that. I'm sorry if that if 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. Um, let me help you up." Like that would be and I
wouldn't just be like, "Wow, I bet you're dead." Mhm. 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 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 and in an ambulance and then you just went home and showered and went to sleep and at no point did you
intervene and tell them like what happened here was an accident. Like let me just went to sleep. Let me tell you
interesting that you showered. That's a bonkers story. It's crazy. That's a bonkers story. In my opinion does not
line up with the way that her body was found. A very strange story. Yeah. Well, later a detective showed up at Robert
Chambers's 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 once she was identified. Now, the crime scene didn't yield a lot of
clues or evidence, but there were obvious signs of a struggle. It appeared that she'd been physically assaulted and
hit in the face. According to the medical examiner, the left eye was swollen, discolored, and about just
about closed. On the bridge of the nose, there was a dark mark. Her mouth was caked in dirt and what appeared to be
dried blood. Yeah, those scratches are defensive in my opinion. In my opinion. 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. not lining up. None of that aligns with him swiftly flipping
her over into a tree. And how awful. Like that this poor girl's last moments were filled with that. Her front tooth
was loose. That's a violent struggle. A violent struggle. According to the pathologist, the bra had been twisted
around her neck, but it was also still hooked in the back. So there was a possibility that her shirt and bra had
been pushed up and maybe the strangulation was an accident. But there was also like that is what they thought
on a cursory glance. Yeah. But there was particular hemorrhaging in the eyes that
indicating 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. 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 a lot of like pressure and time. Consistent pressure. Consistent
pressure and cons. Yeah. Yeah. So, the pathologist said in court later, "I thought the deceased was strangled like
definitively." The murder and Robert's arrest though came as a shock to residents around New York. Not only
because of the brutal facts of the case, but also because of the social status of
the young people involved. Yeah. Jennifer's death shined a light on a social scene that few outside of it knew
existed. Both the victim and her killer were not out of their teens, but the lives that they lived reflected a world
usually populated by adults, like we were saying, complete with problems like addiction and violence. When asked for a
comment about his daughter's death, Steven Leven 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 seconddegree murder, which is interesting. Yeah. And it was during his
arraignment that his lawyer, Jack Litman, revealed the beginnings of his strategy. In his statement to the court,
Litman explained that Jennifer had been pursuing Robert for several weeks, and quote, "That night, she was the
aggressor." According to Litman, Jennifer's death was simply an accident that occurred when his client was trying
to defend himself against sexual assault by Jennifer Leven. Wow. Yeah. Litman preemptively defended against
accusations of rape by pointing out how popular Robert Chambers was with women. Wow. He said he didn't have to chase
girls, they chased him. Oh, yeah. So, that that clears it up. Yeah. Attractive people aren't rapists, right? 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 um like attraction 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 social groups 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, no one's going to challenge you. It's an attitude." So they were very much making this putting
together this picture that these kids were like fast, you know, that that they put themselves in these positions
essentially. 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, 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 McCerrick of New Jersey who wrote a letter of support in favor for bail.
No comment. That was a mouthful. Yeah. Yeah. Uh 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 Lit Litman. Uh, 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 that's the strategy. 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 Maybe you should question that a little bit.
Yeah. 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 there. He
just found himself. He just looked around and suddenly I was like, 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 going and now he's a
reluctant Romeo. You can't have it both ways. that that's very much like the um the Brock Turner effect where it's like
um he 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? Yeah. Who lost everything? What part victim or
aggressor are we talking about? It's very much talking about it like one this happened to him and he he just
found himself in these circumstances him and his losses and what it's like but 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 I'm going to I'm going to head out. We think before
we speak from the head out. We listen and we judge. Yeah. I I listened and I am judging harshly. There's nothing you
can do for Jennifer now. Uh I'd say there's actually a lot you can do for Jennifer now. Imagine if everybody
thought Imagine if everybody thought that way. When somebody gets murders, it's just
like, well, nothing we can do now. That's it. Oh, that's nice. Oh, cool. Yeah. Let's just let's just move on.
Sure. That was great for her family. Really? You have to blow by that that literal life that was stopped in its
prime. You can't be there for her family now. No, you got to be there for Oh, you
have 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 Litman's defense
strategy. Just one day after his arraignment, Litman also told reporters that he was now weighing an insanity
plea. Huh? That's a completely different route, sir. That's interesting. He said,
"It appears that the state of mind of Robert Chambers that led to this tragedy was completely out of character for him,
and therefore an insanity plea is possible." Huh. Okay. I just feel like you're arguing two very different points at the
same time. Yeah, I would say that. Um, and what the press didn't know was that this characterization of Robert as
innocent was completely at odds with the statements that he had given himself to
police. Before giving his statement where he confessed to accidentally causing Jennifer's death, he actually
denied having been there at all, which proves that he knew he was wrong. And 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 I mean, if you look at the scratches, I'm I 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
a It's just so So he even later is like, "No, it actually was her." Yeah. Like when I The first story like the the
chronologically the first story I told. Yeah. But after later 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. Yeah. Like you were really going to try to lie about that. Oh yeah. He 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. Like,
damn. Those are two very different things. Yeah, they 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 seconddegree murder and one
charge of murder under circumstances uh evincing a depraved indifference to human life. In his statement to the
press, Manhattan District Attorney Robert, I think it's Morgan thou told reporters, "We believe that either one
or both of these occurred and that the autopsy showed, quote, "A substantial amount of pressure had been applied to
Jennifer's neck, which justified the charges." Wow. On October 1st, 1986, Robert Chambers was finally released
from jail on $150,000 bond, which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And that was on the condition that
he report daily to Monsier Thomas Leonard, a former teacher at the Church of the Incarceration.
No, incarnation. Is it like Monsign or Mons? Monsior. Monsior. There it is. Um, 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 Leven. 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 Litman's strategy was to obscure various facts about the case in the courtroom and convince the jury that
Jennifer's death was the result of his client defending himself against an assault on Jennifer's part. Huh. Which
is just bonkers. That's truly bonkers. And just like really [ __ ] up. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. In the courtroom, the jury
witnessed the entire videotaped confession that Robert made to the police the day he was arrested. But the
problem was it was clear that the evidence discovered during the investigation didn't support his claims
entirely. For instance, the position of Jennifer's body found when she was discovered, the dirt coverage, the
extent of her injuries, they were all inconsistent with Robert's claim that he had wrapped his arm around her throat in
order to move her off of him. Yeah. Like again, consistent pressure had been applied to her neck. Oh, yeah. It wasn't
a quick move. No, it was definitely not that quick like oops. No. Yeah. In order
to defend against the obvious inconsistencies though, Jack Litman told the jury the tape was the unvarnished
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, Linder,
Linda Fstein, 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 for help. Years later, when she uh 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."
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 he was watching. He's a um
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 you're you're not in a position where
it's scary for you to to say that an accident happened. You know what I mean? Where some other people it may be yeah
like marginalized genuinely scary to say it because you're just not going to be believed or immediately. It's like you
are the 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. No, you're so right. That's a really valid point. like the
the innocent until proven guilty. It's like that's really only the case for certain people. Yep. And he happens to
be and he happens to be part of that that kind of people, you know? So, it's like the whole like I'm like, so why
didn't you, you know, like you really like that's weird. It's weird. This 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, cared 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 It's a very removed position to be in.
It It feels that way. Yeah. 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 sucked, 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 Levven as sexually
aggressive and assertive, Litman hoped that he could convince at least a few jurors cuz 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 Leven, 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 and that it became her fault. Like that's wild. It made it It's like she's on
trial all of a sudden. In the end though, the defense's strategy worked. The jury deliberated for 9 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 acquitt. Wow. Yeah, that's really shocking. Like it is. Ellen Leven said,
"I can't imagine that there was someone on that jury that thought he was a cleancut 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. He would plead guilty to one charge
of first-degree manslaughter in an exchange for a sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. Wow. Just like nothing. But
he had no better option. So, he accepted the deal. And before accepting the plea
agreement, the judge asked Robert Chambers whether he quote intended to cause serious physical injury to
Jennifer Leaven on the morning of her death. And in response, Chamber said, "Looking back on everything, I'd have to
say yes." But he insisted that quote, "In his heart, he still had not intended to injure in injure Miss Leven
physically." Huh. So, he said yes, but no. Yeah, but no. Yeah. Like, what? But not really.
Looking back, I'd have to say yes, but like not in my heart. But not in my heart. Like, okay. Well, that doesn't
really help us here. That doesn't make any sense to me. 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 Levven 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
Litman's strategy. It absolutely was. Yeah. Her grandfather said Litman predictably tried his case in the press
in which he uh 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 a 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. Like that is
just I don't know like I don't see the integrity in that as a strategy. I just don't if you can if your case is strong
you shouldn't have to malign um somebody who's dead's dating history. Yeah I completely. You know you 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. Um 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 when 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 I don't know. And when that person
was murdered. Yeah. No matter what that person was murdered. Exactly. That's the
thing. It's [ __ ] up. And it's [ __ ] 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. Like I I don't know. Like that just like having I don't know. I don't get it. I think it's I I
understand it's a tactic. I understand that defense attorneys have to do things, but like of course and I
understand it's a job and it's a valid job and all that [ __ ] Don't worry about
it. But that particular tactic just doesn't do it for me. I don't get it. I just think if you can win your case, win
it some other way. Agreed. Agreed. If it's a good case, you'll win it some other way. Agreed. Completely without
having to make like [ __ ] 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'm sorry. The 11 family has gone through hell because of my actions, and I am sorry.
For 2 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 5 years and another sentence of 15 years
for those burglary charges with those sentences to run concurrently. Damn. Yeah. So I the judge was like, "I got
you for that." Yeah. He was like, "Okay." Robert Chambers started his sentence at the uh Shawagong, I think is
how you say it, correctional facility in Olter 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. Cuz people say all the time there's more on the inside than there even is on
the outside. Yeah. Which is wild to think about. Yeah. Two years later after being transferred to Green Haven Prison,
Chambers was again denied parole due to quote the nature of his offense and poor
disciplinary record. Oh, 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. just 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 I don't know about that." Yeah. 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 I mean um in part I'm sure not not at all from that attitude that he came in
with. Oh, cuz if I'm on the parole board and you say that [ __ ] I Yeah, I'm going
to be like you're sitting there. Cool. That's bas consider that a request that I am now granting. That's wild. But his
release was obviously unwelcome news to Ellen Leven. She said, "My concern is that from the minute he gets out of
prison, he will be treated like a celebrity." In his own statement, Robert Chambers expressed his regret and again
apologized to the Levven 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 Levven family continues to suffer her loss, and I am deeply sorry
for the grief that I have caused them." Wow. Yeah. I mean, I mean, nothing you could say can bring someone
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 I don't understand how you reconcile that later. I just don't I like I don't understand what happened
that night and I don't think we ever 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 I we don't need to get into like
opinions here. But yeah, but who knows cuz you know people you know people are walking around here. We don't need to
insert our Well, as it turned out, Robert's freedom was to be shortlived then. Oh. Oh no. In People are walking
around though. In 2005, just 2 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. Have not been learned. You always wonder how that hits someone when they're like, "Hey, by the way, you're
under arrest after selling you 246 g of cocaine." That's got to That's a bad day. That's a lot of cocaine,
dude. A bad day. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, after initially intending to go to trial, which I'm like, what were we
what? But Robert and his lawyer, they 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 4 months in prison with 5 years probation to follow.
Awesome. And on July 25th, 2023, Robert Chambers was again released from prison after serving 15 years of his 19-year
sentence. And he continues to claim that Jennifer's death was accidental and the
result of him trying to defend himself during quote unquote rough sex. Wow. Which I disagree with that. I I
have my own thoughts about that, but um Okay. Wow. That is something. That's an unsettling one on a
different level. It is because like I it kills me that like we will not know what happened. Yeah. And it 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 that
night 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 and it's probably worse than anything that could ever even
occur. That's what's 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. 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 like as far as addiction goes. I'm not going to claim to know that. Put the work in, you
know, do especially but [ __ ] all those years you have to yourself in prison to
work on things. Well, and like he like one thing you can say is like he was just he's an entitled he was an entitled
guy. He was an entitled teenager. He was an entitled or young adult friend said that like that's the thing. And it's
like, and whatever happened that night, something awful happened to her. And whether it was an accident or not, it
was brutal as [ __ ] And I just can't see. I mean, remember like one of her eyes
was swollen. She had blood on her nose. Her tooth was loose. She had dirt and blood
cake to the side of her mouth. Her bra was pulled up around her neck. like this doesn't like you're going to have to
explain to me more like how like I don't get it. I don't understand it. My brain
is not is not putting this onto that side of the but at the end of the day it's on the books says manslaughter.
It's manslaughter. Wow. Which must just if I can't imagine somebody doing that to my family member and having to sit
with that. That's the thing. Like just and then to watch that person get out of prison time and time again. Well, that's
that's the worst part is 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 [ __ ] me. And weirdly, I I didn't know this case. I didn't know it
either, actually. It was a Dave suggestion. Yeah, that that was a that was strange. But I I hate when they give
those kind of nicknames like the preppy killer. Like that's it's very tasteless.
It is. But cuz it also that's also a way of um taking away some of the sting of the reality of it. He's just this
preppy. He just loves vineyard society guy, you know. Totally. Just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hate
that a lot. I do too. Hate that a lot. Hate it. And I feel really bad for Jennifer and really bad for those who
care about her. I know. I agree. I hope I hope they feel like they got some kind
of justice at some point. But I hope so. 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 uh Listener Tales. So, it'll be a nice little Yes. uh palette cleanser. Nice little palette
cleanser if you will. Oh, and this is this is the end of the episode, so hopefully you're still here. Um if you
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like Tobias's Toby. [Music] [Music] [Music]

On the morning of August 26, 1986, a cyclist in New York’s Central Park discovered the body eighteen-year-old Jennifer Levin. Among other things, Levin had been strangled, there were superficial injuries on her face, and her shirt was pulled up. Later, the medical examiner reported that Jennifer had died only about an hour before she was discovered.

It didn’t take long for investigators to find Levin’s assailant, after several patrons at a nearby bar reported seeing her with a man the night before. That man turned out to be nineteen-year-old Robert Chambers Jr., a privileged members of New York’s Upper East Side high society. At first, Chambers denied having anything to do with the murder, but soon changed his story and claimed Levin had died during consensual “rough sex” initiated by Levin herself.

Nicknamed the “The Preppy Killer” by the press, a reference to his good looks and obvious privilege, Chambers’ trial became a media circus. Over the course of more than a year, people around the country watched as the defense tried—and with the help of the press, succeeded—to put the responsibility for Levin’s murder on the victim, emphasizing her sexual history and manner of dress, among other things.

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References Associated Press. 1994. "Central park killer is denied parole again." New York Times, December 23: B4.

—. 1997. "Chambers says he is a 'political pawn'." New York Times, Janaury 10: 28.

—. 2003. "In statement, Chambers says he regrets his actions." New York Times, February 14: B3.

—. 1996. "Parole again denied in '86 killing in park." New York Times, December 17: B2.

Freedman, Samuel. 1986. "Darkness beneath the glitter: life of suspect in park slaying." New York Times, August 28: 1.

Fried, Joseph. 1986. "Chambers gives not guilty plea in park slaying." New York Times, September 23: B2.

Hevesi, Dennis. 1988. "Grandfather faults tactics in park trial." New York Times, March 27: 32.

Johnson, Kirk. 1988. "Chambers case turning on truth of confession." New York Times, Janaury 18: B3.

—. 1988. "Chambers, with jury at impasse, admits 1st degree manslaughter." New York Times, March 26: 1.

Nix, Crystal. 1986. "Slain woman found in park; suspect seized." New York Times, August 27: B1.

Raab, Selwyn. 1986. "Lawyer weighs plea of insanity in park slaying." New York Times, August 30: 29.

Rimer, Sara. 1986. "Slaying's notoriety touches young crowd on 'the circuit'." New York Times, August 29: 1.

Stone, Michael. 1986. "East side story." New York Magazine, November 10.

Sullivan, Ronald. 1988. "Chambers gets 5 to 15 years and offers apology in court." New York Times, April 16: 33.

Taubman, Bryna. 1988. The Preppy Murder Trial. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.

Today Show. 2016. "Dubbed by the press as 'The Preppy Killer,' Robert Chambers pleaded guilty." Today Show, 01 01.

Worth, Robert. 2003. "Robert Chambers to be freed after serving maximumu in 1986 killing." New York Times, February 13: B3.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the murder of Jennifer Leven by Robert Chambers and the ensuing trial's complexities.

Key points

Jennifer's Independent Spirit. Jennifer Don Leven, born into wealth, insisted on achieving things for herself from a young age.
Robert Chambers' Struggles. Robert Chambers, despite appearing popular, battled feelings of inferiority and resorted to drugs.
Robert's Downward Spiral. After being kicked out of Boston University, Robert's life spirals out of control with drug use and theft.
Jennifer's New Beginnings. Jennifer finds a part-time job at Fluties and starts to turn her life around after a tumultuous period.
Dramatic Bar Exit. Jennifer confronts Robert at the bar, throwing condoms at him in a bold move before storming out.
The Night in the Park. Robert and Jennifer entered Central Park early in the morning, but what happened next remains a mystery.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She just made people smile by just walking into a room.

A touching description of Jennifer's charm.

5:08WatchApr 21, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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