Robert Chambers: The Preppy Killer Case and Where He Is Now

Robert Chambers, known as the Preppy Killer, is the man who strangled 18-year-old Jennifer Levin behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York’s Central Park on August 26, 1986. He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in 1988 and served 15 years. After his 2003 release, he was arrested again in a 2007 cocaine sting and sentenced to more than 19 years. He was paroled from Shawangunk Correctional Facility on July 25, 2023, and remains under post-release supervision through 2028.¹

What Happened in Central Park in 1986

Chambers, then 19, and Jennifer Levin, 18, left Dorrian’s Red Hand, an Upper East Side bar, together in the early hours of August 26, 1986. Levin’s body was found later that morning near the 84th Street entrance to Central Park, behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She had been strangled.²

Police arrested Chambers the next day. Officers noted deep gouges on his face consistent with Levin clawing at him during a struggle. After first denying he had been with her, he gave a taped confession in which he said he had killed her, but claimed the death was an accident during sex that became “too aggressive.”²

Both Chambers and Levin came from the same Upper East Side social world, and Chambers had ties to elite Catholic prep schools. Tabloids labeled the case the “Preppy Murder.” A Daily News front page on August 29, 1986 ran the headline “How Jennifer Courted Death,” a tone of victim-blaming that shaped coverage for months.³

The Trial and the Rough Sex Defense

Chambers was charged with second-degree murder. His attorney, Jack T. Litman, built the defense around the claim that Levin had died accidentally during consensual rough sex. Litman challenged the physical evidence of a prolonged struggle, pointed out that her shirt buttons were intact and her fingernails unbroken, and suggested a loose watch clasp had caused the injuries to her neck. He also sought access to Levin’s personal datebook to argue she had “aggressive sexual habits,” but the judge denied that request.⁴

The 13-week trial was presided over by Justice Howard Bell of the New York State Supreme Court.⁵ Prosecutor Linda Fairstein, who headed the Manhattan District Attorney’s sex crimes unit, ran into significant evidentiary obstacles. The judge excluded a denim jacket prosecutors believed had been used to suffocate Levin, ruling that DNA analysis techniques were not yet sufficiently accepted by the scientific community. Because Chambers did not testify, the jury never learned of his drug history, including his expulsion from a Hazelden treatment facility.⁶

The Plea Deal

After nine days of deliberation, the jury appeared headed toward a deadlock. On March 25, 1988, fearing a mistrial, Fairstein moved for a lesser charge. Chambers pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and second-degree burglary. In entering the plea he admitted he had lied throughout the trial and stated he had “meant to hurt her.”⁷ He was sentenced to 5 to 15 years. A second-degree murder conviction could have carried up to 25.⁶

The Slumber Party Videotape

Weeks before the January 1988 trial began, while Chambers was free on $157,500 bail, a home video was recorded at an Upper East Side slumber party. It showed him smoking marijuana, apparently holding a vial of cocaine, and twisting the head of a small female doll while saying in a falsetto voice, “Oops, I think I killed it.” Fox Television’s A Current Affair broadcast the tape in May 1988, reportedly paying $10,000 to one of the women present.⁸

The tape surfaced only after sentencing, so the jury never saw it. Jennifer Levin’s grandfather, Arnold Domenitz, called it the “most damaging indictment of how he killed Jennifer.”⁸

First Release and a Second Prison Term

Chambers served the full 15 years because of prison infractions, including a 1997 incident in which heroin was found in his cell. The parole board denied his release five times, citing a “failure to show remorse.” He was released in February 2003.⁷

Within two years he was arrested on drug and traffic charges in Harlem, and in 2005 he pleaded guilty to heroin possession and driving with a suspended license.⁷ On October 22, 2007, Chambers and his girlfriend, Shawn Kovell, were arrested at their Manhattan apartment in an undercover sting involving the sale of cocaine.⁹

In August 2008 Chambers pleaded guilty to criminal sale of a controlled substance and assault on a police officer. He was sentenced to 19 years and four months in prison, with a concurrent six-year sentence for the assault, followed by five years of post-release supervision.⁹

Where Robert Chambers Is Now

Chambers was released from Shawangunk Correctional Facility on July 25, 2023, after serving 15 years of the drug sentence. He left prison with a commissary check, $40 in cash, and a bag of personal items.¹⁰ He remains under post-release supervision scheduled to run through 2028.¹

In 2025, author John J. Lennon published The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us, based on hundreds of hours of interviews Lennon conducted with Chambers while both were incarcerated at Sullivan Correctional Facility. Asked to describe what happened in Central Park, Chambers told Lennon: “I said, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ Then she didn’t move. And I looked at her and her eyes were open. And then I freaked out, backing up, all the way to the rock wall by the path.” Pressed on why he could not fully acknowledge what he did, Chambers went silent.¹¹

On remorse, Chambers said after reading an apology letter Lennon had written to the family of his own victim: “I guess I feel like, how could I not have figured out how to do that? I think it was always something I felt like I needed to earn.”¹² Reflecting on his years of addiction and reincarceration, he added: “Even though I was, like, 36 when I got out, I was still 19 in my mind.”¹¹

The McCarrick Connection

Chambers’ godfather was Theodore McCarrick, then the Archbishop of Newark. During the 1986 proceedings McCarrick wrote a letter to Judge Howard Bell advocating for Chambers’ release on bond. Defense attorney Roger Stavis called the letter “extremely helpful,” and Bell granted a $150,000 bond.¹³

McCarrick was later accused of sexually abusing at least seven boys between 1970 and 1990 and was defrocked by the Vatican in February 2019. Media speculation followed about whether Chambers himself had been abused by McCarrick. Chambers has denied it, telling Lennon and a prison chaplain: “It never happened.”¹²

Jennifer Levin’s Mother and the Laws That Followed

The killing set Jennifer Levin’s mother, Ellen Levin, on decades of advocacy. She founded a political action committee called Justice for All and successfully lobbied for 13 crime victims’ rights bills in New York State. Among them: a law preventing a homicide victim’s sexual past from being introduced at trial, the classification of stalking as a felony, and the right of victims or survivors to give impact statements to the Parole Board.¹⁴

She also established the Jennifer Dawn Levin Victim Memorial Fund, which provides small grants to crime victims in financial need. On the durability of Chambers’ account, she has said: “The whole story came from the words of her killer, nothing was ever proven to back up what he said. As a matter of fact, the one thing that they were quite certain about is that there was actually no sex at all in the killing.”¹⁴

1
CBS News. Robert Chambers Preppy Killer Released Second Long Term
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CrimeReads. What We Miss When We Talk About the Preppy Killer
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Rolling Stone. Preppy Murder Doc AMC Trailer
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UPI. Defense Lawyer in Preppie Murder Trial Attacks Police Testimony
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New York Daily News. Bell, Judge in Preppie Murder Trial
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The New York Times. Prosecutor Recalls the Chambers Case
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The New York Times. Robert E. Chambers Jr.
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UPI. Victims Family Shocked by Chambers Video
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NBC News. Preppy Killer Pleads Guilty to Selling Cocaine
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CNN. Robert Chambers Preppy Killer New York Release
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New York Post. What Preppy Killer Robert Chambers Confessed in Prison
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Esquire. Preppy Killer Robert Chambers Tragedy of True Crime Excerpt
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Oxygen. What Was Preppy Killer Robert Chambers Connection to Catholic Church
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New York Daily News. For the Victims She Toils