Crime Junkie - INFAMOUS: The Preppy Murder in New York

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

This episode was originally released in October 2019, and is one of sixteen episodes from the archives we'll be bringing you every Thursday, now through end of year... for good reason! ;) We highly recommend you listen to each episode between now and end of 2024, and follow us on Instagram @crimejunkiepodcast so you're the first to know what's coming next!

Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and we are heading back to the Big Apple, New York City. And we can't wait to get back here in person soon. There's truly nothing like walking the streets of Times Square, seeing the Statue of Liberty, or crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. But as we all know, danger likes to hide in beautiful places, including the concrete jungle. So today, we're going back to October 2019 when we first told you the story of how in 1986, danger found its way to Central Park. Hi Crime Junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers.

And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is a time capsule. We are going back to New York City in 1986, where one case went from a local homicide to a media firestorm all across America. And though this is far from our first episode, there is a first here. The team over at AMC reached out to us to collaborate on this episode. They asked us to watch their upcoming docu-series

called The Preppy Murder, Death in Central Park, and use it as our source material to tell you guys about this case. So if you get as enthralled in this story as I did, you can watch the five-part series on AMC and Sundance Channel over three consecutive nights starting Wednesday, November 13th at 9 p.m. Eastern. And I'm telling you, you're going to be so invested because this case horrified and captivated the public while setting off bitter debates about sex, privilege, legal ethics, parental responsibility, socioeconomics, victims' rights, and so much more. Because before there was the O.J. Simpson trial. There was the Preppy Murder. Our story begins in the early morning hours of August 26, 1986.

A woman named Pat Riley is on her bike riding through Central Park on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. As she's riding along near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, something catches her eye. It looks like a young woman who's laying under a tree. Instantly, Pat knows something is wrong. She can tell just by the way the woman's body is positioned. It doesn't feel right. She's got one leg up, one arm up,

and as she gets closer to the woman, she can tell that she isn't moving and all of her jewelry is missing. Horrified, Pat hurries to call police, and by six o'clock in the morning, the area is swarming with law enforcement. They cordon off a large area all around the body and instantly start to

work on figuring out who their victim is and what happened to her. As they survey her body, they see vicious red marks around her neck and bruises on her face that are so bad one of her eyes has been swollen shut. Her blouse and her bra are pushed up over her breasts and her skirt has been hiked up to reveal that she isn't wearing any underwear. It's a grim, grim scene, but police react accordingly. They shut down the entrances and exits not just to the park, but to the entire city, all bridges, all tunnels, everything. By the time morning rush hour is over, the woman in the park is positively identified as 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. McGee Hickey, who was a reporter who actually covered this case in the story, said, quote,

if something happens in Central Park to a white person in the 1980s, everybody pays attention to it. And he went on to say that basically back then in the 80s murder was basically like chalked up to only being related to gangs or crack epidemics like bad things happened in bad neighborhoods and Obviously, we all know that bad things happen everywhere to everyone regardless of race or religion or economic status but this was kind of the attitude back then. And this murder was rocking the community. And especially Jennifer's close-knit community of friends. They'd never known anyone who'd been hurt like this.

Stuff like this, again, didn't happen to people like them. They were young and rich and carefree, and youth often carries with it a sense of invincibility. Bad things happen to other people. Death is so far in the distant future and there's no reason to be afraid of it. They were basically all these like private school elite kids of the Upper East Side and they lived in these glass houses of wealth and privilege and access. Now, though Jennifer hung out with this crowd, she wasn't like these other kids in the friend group. She actually grew up in Long Island. She was Jewish. She lived in this downtown SoHo apartment area

rather than on the Upper East Side where they were. And her friend Peter said, everything that was different about Jennifer is what attracted me to her. And she's really just like fresh faced with her cute little 80s hair and just the sparkle in her eye that is amazing. Jennifer was popular.

She had a lot of friends. And her best friend in 1986 is a girl named Jessica. They met back in 84 when they were both working at a clothing store, and they hit it off right away. Now, while they might have had their differences, they did have one big thing in common. They both liked to party and, like, hard. Alcohol is everywhere

in this community and drugs are easy to get. Plus everyone's parents are away a lot. Like there's always some nice empty apartment to throw a little weekend rager and then clean up the mess before mom and dad get home. Uh, wait, where are these kids parents? You're, you're telling me that they just leave their teenagers for days at a time by themselves. Apparently this was like super common. Like it is a far cry from the uber religious Midwest background you and I grew up in.

So it's a little hard for me to wrap my head around it, but I guess like these parents would go on vacation or they'd go out to the Hamptons for the weekend or to a country house somewhere. And they would just leave their kids behind in the city with no supervision, and it's just not a big deal to them. But like I said, Jessica didn't grow up like them. This wasn't her norm, although she did really embrace this after her parents divorced,

and she moved in with her dad in SoHo. Jessica and Peter and her prep school classmates were kind of her getaway into a new scene. All of it's new and cool and like prep school classmates were kind of her getaway into a new scene. All of it's new and cool and like an adult, right? Like it's very grown up thing to have all this freedom and this whole crowd makes the most of their freedom. Now as police start learning about this friend group, they also start piecing together where she was and who she was with the day before she was found.

What they learn is that on August 25th, Jennifer is out in the Hamptons staying with her friend Peter. Now she's getting ready to leave New York and head to Boston for college, so she's basically like making her round. She wants to make sure that she sees everyone before she goes and says her goodbyes. So once she has a chance to see Peter in the Hamptons and see her friends out there, police find out that Jennifer was going back into the city to spend the night at her friend Alex's house. So they go talk to Alex and retrace Jennifer's steps the night that she died.

Alex tells police that she and Jennifer went to Dorian's Red Hand Bar. And this is like the place to be. This is the preppy hangout if you're one of the kids in the upper class crew. Everyone knows that it's easy to get served alcohol there. Pretty much all you need to buy a drink is a fake ID, and it doesn't even have to be a good fake ID at that. And they might not even ask for an ID at all. And it isn't just like a Dorian's thing.

These kids could party almost anywhere. And we're talking like super exclusive nightclubs, like Studio 54, where there's like money and beautiful people and again as I'm watching this I cannot believe that this is like really happening. Yeah. But these kids had access to any place and anything. I mean they're in these clubs like drinking, smoking marijuana, doing ecstasy, cocaine, pills, you name it. Again we grew up in a completely different world so I might just be like totally oblivious to this But this doesn't feel like normal high school partying.

Like the kinds of substance you're talking about, they're like some really hard drugs and the amount that these kids are partying, I feel like there could be like some legit substance issues. Oh, listen, and you're not wrong. And even some of the people who were in that crew can see that looking back. Like Jennifer's best friend, Jessica said, quote, we were having a great time, but we were not okay, end quote. So to go back to police like piecing together her night, Alex gives a bunch of names to

the police about who all was at Dorian's that night. And police go talk to those people to get more names and start building a timeline of who was there at what times, who left early, who stayed late, who left with who. And as they talk to more and more people, one name keeps coming up over and over and over. Robert Chambers. Robert knew Jennifer because he also knew Jennifer's best friend Jessica. And Jessica is actually the one who introduced them back on Valentine's Day 1986 at a mutual friend's quote champagne birthday party What is their life seriously if this isn't a sign again of how rich these kids are or were and how much they party

I don't know what is so police go over to Robert's mom's apartment To talk to him and get his story about what happened last night. As soon as he comes to the door, they see that he has scratches on his face, like fresh, deep scratches. He also has a weird hand injury, which the lead detective recognizes as being common among boxers who like hit wrong. Now, initially, Robert's like super polite, super cooperative, and he even volunteers to go to the police station so that they can talk there at the precinct. When they go to the station, they begin their formal taped interview. And police ask Robert about the scratches on his face. And he actually like jokes about it and lifts up his shirt to show them matching

scratches on his chest. And he says that all of these scratches like face and chest are from his cat. And police are like, okay, well, then let me ask you about a specific friend of yours. When is the last time you saw Jennifer Levin? Now Robert tells the police that yes, I was at Dorian's, I saw her there, and the last time, though, that I saw her was, like, right outside of Dorian's, but we said goodbye, kind of, in our separate ways, and I didn't see her again. Now, the whole time that they're talking, Robert is uber-calmed, like,

not nervous like you think he would be sitting in an interrogation room, but almost his attitude is like kind of mildly annoyed about this whole thing. Like it's just so inconvenient that he's there. And after a couple of hours, he actually starts to get rude. And basically, like he's put out by the police disturbing him for something as silly as a murder investigation. And it's then, hours later, among his annoy annoyance that he starts to change his story.

Now he says, well, I actually left Dorian's with Jennifer. He tells police now that they decided to leave at the same time. They didn't just like part ways outside of Dorian's. Now he has them walking together up 86th Street in the direction of Central Park. Now at this point, the police pump the brakes for a second. Like it's usually a sign of something big when statements start changing and they're thinking, okay, we may have our prime suspect in our hands right here right now, which would

be great because the media is already all over this thing. So to make sure nothing is missed, they call in the assistant district attorney and they ask Robert if he's willing to make another statement and they want this one recorded. So he's like, yeah, for sure. Let's have the tape start rolling. So watching the video, the thing that gets me the most is Robert's whole attitude. I don't know if you've ever watched any of the Brat Pack movies from the 80s, but he's got this very entitled air about him. Like if you've seen Pretty in Pink, he totally reminds me of like the James Spader rich boy attitude, like

consequences are for other people. And even in the second recorded interview, he's still super calm as he starts to tell his story about what happened the night before. Now according to Robert, he does see her at Dorian's. They do leave at the same time. But this time, they aren't just like walking up the street together. This time, his story is that Jennifer wanted to go into Central Park with him. And he says he wasn't interested in any of it and he just wanted to go home but Park with him. And he says he wasn't interested in any of it, and he just wanted to go home, but went with her anyway.

And he goes on to tell police and the ADA that she went to the bathroom, like somewhere off in the shadows when they got to the park. Then she came back and started putting the moves on him, even tying up his hands behind his back with her own underwear. Because according to him, she says that she thinks

he looks cuter if he's tied up. As Robert continues with his story, he tells police that Jennifer then sits on his chest facing away from him, reaches into his pants, and sexually assaults him, scratching his chest while she did it. And he says he's in pain, he's scared, he couldn't get away because his hands were tied. And now right away, red flags are going up for the cops in the ADA

because they don't buy any of this. Now, a lot of their skepticism came from the idea at the time that they believed men couldn't be raped, which we know is totally false. Right. It can happen to anybody anybody regardless of gender. But I gotta say I'm kind of with the police on this one. I'm having a hard time buying the story that he like couldn't get away. Was Jennifer like super tall or strong? Like I guess I'm wondering how was she able to overpower him? So no, she wasn't like super tall or strong. She actually had a pretty slight build when you see pictures of her.

Meanwhile, Robert's over six feet tall, nearly 200 pounds. Like realistically, he'd have no trouble getting a girl of Jennifer's size off of him. And I'm gonna get, again, you're not like tied up with handcuffs or zip ties, like a single piece of underwear if that's really what happened. And both the ADA and the police don't think that there's any way she could have done

what Robert's saying unless he let her do it. And both the ADA and the police don't think there's any way she could have done what Robert's saying unless he let her do it. Now Robert continues with his story and it doesn't become any more believable. According to him, eventually he gets one hand free and manages to toss Jennifer off of him. He says after he pushed her off, then she just doesn't move. And at first he says he thinks that she's just like kidding around. But here's the thing, when he's talking about her to police, like telling them this story, I push her off, he says something really strange.

He doesn't use her name. He calls her the body, like the body didn't move, which is super strange, but it's also a contradiction because if you thought she was joking around and kidding... Like then she's not just a body. Yeah, like you wouldn't think she was a dead body. It doesn't make sense. So when police ask him what he did next, no one could have expected his bizarre response. No one could have expected his bizarre response. Robert says he didn't try to do CPR on her. He didn't call the police. He didn't even leave the scene.

He says after all of this, he just stayed in the park. Wait, what? Yeah, apparently he just hung out there in Central Park and watched police show up. And he's saying this on tape with nothing in his voice to suggest that he gets how this could sound weird. The police arrest Robert right then and there and they're feeling really good about it. They've got a prime suspect in custody. He's on tape confessing this is a home run. It seems simple. But we know no case is ever simple. The

murder of Jennifer Levin in Central Park is already a media circus. But once Roberts arrested, it gets even worse. It is front-page news all over New York City because it had all the hallmarks of a case that they knew the public would eat up. Young, wealthy, privileged, good looking kids caught up in drugs and sex and now murder. And the thing that the media latches on to the most was the good looking part. Over and over again, you'd see them talk about how handsome Robert was. What does his appearance have to do with any of this?

Nothing, but the media makes this a huge part of the narrative. And I can't tell you how many voiceovers I heard from news reporters that kept going on and on about it. And it only gets worse when Robert's mom, Phyllis, gets him one of the most famous criminal lawyers in New York at the time. It was an attorney named Jack Lippman.

And Jack takes zealous advocacy to a whole new level. Like hardcore crime junkies are probably familiar with legal ethics, and you'll know that part of a lawyer's responsibility to their client is to promote their client's position, whatever that may be. And they're supposed to do everything they can within the law's boundaries to get the result that they want, and this is supposed to do everything they can within the law's boundaries to get the result that they want.

And this is exactly what Jack does. Right away, Jack sees the media bonanza around Robert, and he sees an opportunity to spin a whole new narrative about what happened the night Jennifer died. He starts a strategic and prolonged public relations campaign to paint Jennifer Levin as a promiscuous sexual deviant and basically paint Robert Chambers as the real victim here. According to Jack's narrative, Robert is this classic all-American success story. Like, he's not from a rich family, but he's working hard to get into society's upper echelons. His mom, Phyllis, is this Irish immigrant who works long hours

as a private nurse for New York's most wealthy family so she could send him to like the best private schools. He tells the public, you know, he's an altar boy growing up. He's a devout Catholic. He's on sports teams at school. He's handsome. Look how handsome he is. And he'd never force himself on anyone. And it's only natural for girls to be attracted to him. And I mean, so much is saying basically like girls already throw themselves at him. Why would he like need to force any girl to do anything? And he just keeps reiterating like he's a good boy. She was a bad girl.

And Jack tells everyone if Jennifer hadn't wanted rough sex, then she'd still be alive and this tragic accident never would have happened. That is the story that he's pushing out to the public. And the phrase rough sex becomes a huge part of this case. And it portrays Jennifer as the aggressor in this scenario instead of the murder victim that she is. And this phrase is everywhere, all over the headlines in huge letters and Jack Lippman runs with it. It's actually appalling. Like Jennifer's family is devastated. Her friends are devastated. It's basically heaping trauma on top of trauma. It kind of sounds like they're saying she was asking for it. Oh,

Robert's defense team is doing everything but putting it in those exact words. Like their strategy feeds into the sexism and misogynistic double standards of the time, but it's controversial too because a lot of people are just totally disgusted by it. Like feminist groups end up getting involved, activists start protesting, and it really does split public opinion about Jennifer and about Robert. So while all of this is going on, the police and the new assistant district attorney on the case, Linda Farstein, are trying to come up with a strategy to counterattack Jack's

version of Robert. Now ironically, it's Robert himself who gives them their best weapon against him because on the night that he was arrested, he brought his phone book to the police station with him. And police have all these names and addresses of people he hung out with. Friends, associates, all carefully documented in his file of facts. Linda and the police start making calls and going through every single number in Robert's book.

And it's not much of a shock that most of his friends get kind of defensive or they don't want to talk. Like none of them want to believe that Robert was capable of murder. Like they just kept saying, oh, you know, it's an accident, or Robert would never do that. He must have had a bad moment. Like excuses, excuses galore. But the calls aren't totally hopeless though.

And little by little, a different picture of Robert emerges. It turns out that Robert had a reputation among the prep school circles because things had a funny habit of going missing when he would be at house parties. Things like fur coats and expensive jewelry would just disappear. Anything valuable that was easy to grab. Robert Chambers was well known for being a thief, but no one had ever confronted him about it because as Jessica says, like, it was the glorious 80s and no one wanted to be responsible was her quote.

Okay, but like, why? Like, is he selling this stuff? Is he like, does he need it for money? Well, it's because Robert had a cocaine habit, a big one, and it went all the way back to middle school when it started. Linda and the police learned that Robert's been in and out of rehab for years, but it didn't stick and his addiction continued. And since he needed money to pay for drugs,

he turned to stealing. He also stole credit cards from girls that he spent time with, even using one to spend over $3,000 with a friend one weekend in early 86. Now, all of the times this happened, like again, people knew he was stealing, but the police were never called and Robert was never held accountable. He went to rehab again, skipped out early, and by August he was back in New York and

back at Dorian's. So by September of 1986, Robert's been in jail since his arrest, waiting for his bail hearing. Jack is still pushing hard on this whole, he's a good kid from a good family with no record kind of angle. And Linda and the lead detective Mike go the total opposite. They know Robert's not the choir boy that Jack wants everyone to think he is, and they're convinced that they'll be able to keep him in jail until the case goes to trial. But Jack has a secret weapon. At Robert's bail hearing, Jack pulls out a letter.

Now this isn't totally uncommon. A lot of times, suspects will get character references from people to say like, oh yeah, they're actually super great. They're not a flight risk. Like I know them. They have ties to the community, things like that. But this isn't a letter from an old teacher or a coach. This letter is from Theodore McCarrick,

the Archbishop of Newark. He is a big time player in the Catholic Church and he's on track to becoming a Cardinal and he holds a lot of weight in the New York City politics scene. This guy has so much power that even just the name McCarrick instantly puts people, including the judge, on high alert. And Linda is stunned.

Of all of the people Jack could have gotten to write a letter, this one was so big and so far out of left field that no one could have ever predicted it. She even drives out to Newark to talk to the Archbishop and ask him why he would possibly write this letter for a man that he's seemingly not connected to. And McCarrick admits he's like, I don't know anything about the case, but he basically like points to his faith as the reason for getting involved. I'm sorry, no, there is no way a power player like that is going to get so personally involved

and risk their own career for a defendant in this crazy high profile murder case just because their faith told them to. Not unless they knew the person. And that's what I said. And that's what Linda thought too. So she and Detective Mike do some digging and it just so happens that the Archbishop is also Robert's godfather.

According to New York Magazine, he sponsored Robert through his confirmation as a teenager. Robert's mom, Phyllis, also nursed a cardinal during his last days and knew the New York Archdiocese, so she pulled some strings and got good old Godfather Teddy to throw his political might behind her son. So it looks like there was a little more behind this than just faith. However, the Archbishop's letter does the trick. In front of a packed courtroom, the judge sets Robert's bail at $150,000, which is a lot of money at the time.

And remember, Robert's family isn't like these Upper East Side people. They're not wealthy, so they don't have the $150,000 to spare, or even enough to put up for the bail bond. So Robert's supporters and members of the church rally around him and raise the money themselves. Jack Dorian, the guy who actually owns Dorian's red-handed bar where Robert was that night Jennifer was killed, even puts up his own penthouse as collateral. They get the money and Robert is released on bail, but instead of going home, he goes

to stay at a parish as part of Jack Letman's whole like, look how pious and innocent this kid is thing. As if the letter from McCarrick wasn't enough, Robert being allowed into the parish puts the whole city on high alert that the Catholic Church has chosen a side. As soon as Robert gets out, Jack calls a press conference. Robert reads a statement about how sorry he basically is for this whole tragic accident. Like, he's really piling it all on while still sounding like he did in his confession. Like, he's not even trying to fake empathy at this point, and it's a little

hard to watch. And it's even worse for Jennifer's family and her friends, because as soon as he's out of jail, Robert wastes no time in getting right back to his normal life. He even goes back to Soho, Jennifer's neighborhood, where she lived, strolling around with his Walkman, smirking for the cameras, without a care in the world. Okay, so he's popular and he's free again, but everyone in his friend group knew that he was a thief, right?

Yeah, totally. I guess I'm kind of surprised that they weren't more disillusioned with him earlier on, and I'm shocked that he didn't get caught before this. Well, here's the thing. It goes back to that whole idea of Robert being like handsome and not fitting the mold of a criminal that everyone had in their minds because he almost was caught for a burglary that took place back in 85. So after Robert gets out on bail, Linda gets a call from a detective in another

precinct who's investigating this burglary from 1985. Now during this burglary, over $70,000 worth of stuff was taken from someone's home. So it's actually a felony at this point, not just a misdemeanor. And wouldn't you know it, at the scene, they found Robert Chambers' ID on the fire escape. Now at the time when this initially happened, they asked Robert about it. They tracked him down and Robert's like, oh, you know, I must have lost it. Oops. What a funny coincidence. A thief must have picked it up and then like dropped it at the crime scene. And listen, at the time, they bought it. Like, he didn't make sense as their perp. They never fingerprinted him and they didn't really look at him anymore after that. Like,

it really did seem like a strange coincidence. But now that he's been arrested for something else, they decide maybe they should run his prints against their scene. And he might have had an excuse for why his ID was there, but what he can't explain though, is why his latent fingerprints match those in the medicine cabinet at the apartment

where all of this took place. And now when Linda has this, she knows this is huge. This isn't Jack Lippman's pristine client. This is a well-established criminal and this is a huge chink in his purity armor. Now they knew for sure that in order to finance his drug addiction, Robert wasn't just stealing from people he knew. He was stealing from total strangers. And what they find out is that

he wasn't alone. Robert had an associate, a young African American man named David, who was already well known to police for raping and trying to murder a student in her dorm room at Columbia University. Yeah, their MO was always the same. Robert being like the white guy who just like fit in in the neighborhoods used his access in his social standing to get into these really exclusive buildings over Park Avenue. And basically he'd walk right past the doorman, he'd go upstairs, and he'd basically start trying doors until one of them open just to see who left their apartment unlocked. Meanwhile, David who couldn't get past the doorman like Robert could, would stay down on the ground and wait for Robert to toss him whatever he could pick up like I said

that's for coats it's pills it's jewelry wait Jennifer's jewelry was missing right yes it was and what was also missing was money from her purse and so really I think this was the first time they had some kind of real connection to what the motive might have been like maybe he was trying to get money from her, maybe she caught him. Again, there's still kind of a question mark, but clearly we're starting to see a pattern and there's just like underlying issue that he has. Armed with this new information, Linda and Detective Mike start looking into other unsolved burglaries around the city, trying to see if they can pin any more on Robert.

And yeah, they're able to find over 30 provable crimes that Robert's connected to. And while this is happening, Robert gets formally indicted for felony burglary. Now, of course, as soon as this happened, Robert's lawyer Jack goes into PR spin mode. And this time he gets Robert on the cover of New York Magazine.

And not just a feature article, but like the full cover story. He's immaculate, like very clean cut, very preppy in his like suit and tie, looking like the 1980s American dream, like going for that full John F. Kennedy Jr. vibe. And listen, I read the entire piece, which was published back in November 10th, I think of 86. It was written by Michael Stone, and it is a puff piece to the nth degree. It is exactly the image the defense wants to portray. Jennifer's best friend Jessica describes it the best, I think.

She said, quote, he was portrayed as the white symbol of beauty, power, intelligence, and money, end quote. Wow. Meanwhile, during all of the pre-trial stuff, Jack's also busy trying to get a hold of Jennifer's diary because they want to use it as proof that like, oh hey, remember how we said this girl's like a bad person for being sexually active and daring and enjoying sex with men? Like, they want to use it as proof of that. And they finally get their hands on this diary, and they tell the press,

aha, like, we've got proof in her own words that she was, like, basically sex-crazed. But the problem is, it's total BS. What they're calling a diary is a freaking date book. And when they give it to the judge to see if it can be admissible in trial, he's like, no, what are you even talking about? There's literally nothing sexual in this thing at all.

Right. But I think it was a total play because by this point, it didn't even matter what was in it. It was all a show and the defense knew that there wasn't anything sexual, but they got enough people talking about it in the press and in the public that all of the headlines started to read sex diary right there alongside rough sex as part of the public narrative about Jennifer Levin. At this point, Robert's defense isn't even pretending that they're not engaged in victim

blaming here, and it kind of backfires on them. The people who were already pissed get even more mad and more are inspired to take action. A group called the Guardian Angels gets really involved in protesting and they accused Jack of basically murdering Jennifer's reputation, which I think is totally fair, especially since one of Robert's other lawyers even says in the documentary, quote, there's nothing illegitimate, end quote, about using a victim blaming as a tactic. Like, are you kidding me? Oh my god, that's awful. Yeah, what a monster. But Jennifer isn't the only one being blamed though.

The night she died, Robert was confronted at Dorian's by a girl named Alex. And this is a different one that Jennifer was supposed to spend the night with. But this Alex basically humiliated him in front of his friends, including Jennifer, and members of their social group turned to her and basically kind of point the finger saying like, you made Robert snap and it's your fault that Jennifer's dead. The lengths these people are willing to go to to shield Robert from his responsibility, it honestly just blows my mind.

Like, it sounds like the prosecution is up against this crazy, huge wall. Like, not only are they trying to build their case, but they have to fight all of this at the same time. Yeah, they totally are, which is why they kind of had to get creative, and they do. So on the night that she was murdered, Jennifer was wearing a denim jacket. It's really light, kind of ashy wash, very 80s.

Anyway, so police have this jacket, which happens to have stains on it, stains that look like blood and saliva. And they wanna see if they can get those stains to match Jennifer directly with this revolutionary technique the FBI has called DNA testing. Now this was well before modern DNA analysis, and this is the very, very beginning of this whole science. And at this point, it hadn't been used yet.

But basically, the FBI was super excited about this new science they had and about its potential. And they kind of wanted to get some media attention as well. So they agreed to work with the prosecution and kind of partner on this. So Detective Mike takes the jacket and drives it personally all the way from New York City to the FBI's labs down in Quantico, while Linda gets to work on establishing a motive. Now mind you, nowhere in Robert's videotaped confession did he mention anything about why he might have killed Jennifer. And the public wants to know too.

Maybe he couldn't perform sexually and was embarrassed. It's totally possible for heavy drug users like Robert because long-term cocaine use can have sexual dysfunction effects. But then they think like maybe money was the motive. Like a lot of people speculated that maybe she caught him stealing from her purse. Like if you remember, as soon as they got to the park, he says she went off to use the bathroom.

Like maybe she came back and saw him rifling through her purse, and they had some kind of confrontation. Do they need the motive to go to trial? So you don't, you can go to trial? So you don't. You can go to trial without a motive, but it's more of an uphill battle because like Linda says, it's the thing everybody wants to know. Motive or not though, the prosecution has to move ahead with the case.

Before trial, the preliminary DNA results come back and they say yes, the blood and saliva on the jacket are Jennifer's. Which originally when I like was like watching this and saw that they were trying to do the testing, I thought for a second that they were trying to like link him to her jacket. But then I read that's what I thought you were going to say. No, but then I realized like, duh, he like admits being with her. What they were trying to do was prove that the jacket was the murder weapon that he like held it over her face to try and kill her. Oh, okay.

Now having this DNA and proving that it was hers, proving that it was held to her face is huge for the prosecution because it shows intent and it proves that Jennifer didn't die accidentally, like Robert says. But there's a big problem. The judge won't allow it to be admitted into evidence because the DNA science is just too new. Because it can't be allowed into evidence, they also can't even mention it at trial. And the judge also tells them that they can't mention Jennifer's missing

jewelry either. So when you look at what we know, what the public knows, but what the jury won't hear about, that means we have no DNA, no murder weapon, no theft that night. Like, there's nothing that we can tell the jury. And beyond that, it's really tricky to sit 12 fair and impartial jurors, because of the nonstop media attention that this case got. But eventually they manage it and the trial starts on January 3rd, 1988 with Robert accused of second degree murder. Right from the start, the media goes bananas, like more than they already have. We're talking worldwide coverage. Now Linda focuses on humanizing Jennifer as much as possible so the jury

sees her as this vibrant living person and not just the dead girl in Central Park. Jack on the other hand keeps doing what he's been doing as far as smearing Jennifer's reputation except now the case isn't just about rough sex gone wrong. He also brings the police force into it and says that basically they're an amateur level police force who totally ruined the scene and like botched the investigation. All of this is incredibly difficult for Jennifer's friends and family to watch. Some attend court and some of them take the stand even to tell the jury about the girl that they once knew and loved. The woman who found Jennifer's body testifies, the medical examiner testifies, and both sides

call expert witnesses who pack in a lot of scientific stuff that's really hard for the average person to understand. And this is done on purpose. Jack does this because he wants not only to confuse the jury, but to also place those little seeds of doubt in their mind. Now another part of Jack's strategy to make Robert look good involves him showing up to court every day with a pretty new girlfriend named Shawn. Like, surely no smart, attractive girl like Shawn would go out with Robert

if he was this vicious killer that prosecutors claim. So, he must be harmless, right? Linda's just hoping against hope to get him on the stand for cross-examination, away from Sean, away from Jack, so she can finally crack his facade and show the world who he really is. But unfortunately for the prosecution, Jack never calls Robert to testify. The jury goes to deliberate without ever hearing from Robert himself. One day goes by without a verdict. Then two.

Then three. Then five. No one wants to believe that this case could come back with a hung jury, but it's looking more and more likely and everyone is starting to get really nervous because the stakes are so high here and the longer the jury deliberates, the bigger the chance that they're stuck on something. They're under a huge amount of pressure to deliver a verdict and even the jurors themselves start to crack with all this tension. Fights are breaking out in the jury room, one of the jurors even fakes a heart attack to get

excused. Like there's no doubt that Robert killed Jennifer Levin. I mean he admits it but he says it's an accident. The jury is stuck on his intent. Did he mean to kill her? In the midst of this deliberation, the defense team does something that sends shockwaves through not just New York City, but across the world. On day nine, Roberts defense makes a call to the prosecutor's office. They suggest a plea deal. Instead of second-degree murder, which requires intent, they offer up manslaughter, which doesn't.

After consulting with the Levin family and delivering the heartbreaking news, Linda accepts. Wait, that's it? Mm-hmm. Like, after all that manslaughter? Mm-hmm. Did the jury see the same pictures we did? Like the horrific bruises on Jennifer's neck and how badly she'd been beaten? Like, all that and they can't agree on intent. Like, how do you not see that? I know. And truly, that's exactly how Jennifer's friends and family feel. Like, basically they've

been cheated. Jennifer's mom Ellen, who only agreed to this deal in order to avoid the trauma of a second trial, was horrified by this. Robert is sentenced to just five to 15 years in prison. Even if he serves the maximum. Is 15 years fair payment for a life? And everyone everyone agrees absolutely not. Oh my god, no. Like, does the media at least leave them alone now? For a little while, yeah. The trial's over, the press moves on, until a popular tabloid journalist gets his hands on a videotape

that neither the prosecution nor the defense had any idea existed. It was taken while Robert was out on bail back in 87 before the trial when he was supposedly being this like wholesome young man staying in his local parish. And in this video he's surrounded by four girls in their underwear and they're all partying goofing around having a grand old time. And at one point, Robert picks up this doll and starts talking in this creepy high-pitched voice while he pretends to strangle the doll, only stopping to joke about killing it when the doll's head pops off. It is absolutely disturbing.

And there's no universe where this is funny, especially considering like the circumstances around it. And while it does do a lot of damage to the public view of Robert, ultimately, at this point, it doesn't matter because the trial is over and Jennifer isn't coming back. Robert winds up serving his entire 15-year sentence because he gets into a lot of trouble in prison. He's released in 2003 and within a year he's arrested again and this time for drugs. He does a hundred days in Rikers Island and then in 2007 he's arrested for drugs a third time, this time for selling, but he's not alone. He's arrested with a woman named Shawn, the same Shawn who accompanied him to trial every day and who also appeared

in that creepy doll tape. Now, this time, Robert is sentenced to 19 years in prison, which is great, like this guy deserves to be away forever, but it's a little bit crazy to me that he goes away longer for this drug charges than he ever did for the murder of Jennifer Levin. He's currently incarcerated at the Sullivan Maximum Security Correctional Facility in New York State and is scheduled for release in 2024 when he'll be 58 years old. Now, there's still one final twist though, Brett. You remember Robert's godfather. Yeah, the Archbishop, right? Right. So in 2018, Theodore McCarrick, now Cardinal McCarrick, resigns after being accused

of sexually abusing not only adult male seminarians, but also of sexually abusing children, in particular, altar boys. Oh my God. Now NBC News did a huge story about his resignation and a lot of other outlets covered it because McCarrick is one of the highest ranking church leaders in the United States to be removed in connection with the Catholic Church's ongoing sexual abuse scandal. Now if you remember, Robert was an altar boy and also was sponsored by McCarrick for his confirmation as a teenager. Now to be clear, there's never been any suggestion that Robert was among one of McCarrick's victims. But I kind of think it's a question that has to be asked.

Yeah, definitely. Now, partly because of the media attention and the public fascination with Jennifer Levin's murder, this case has become a staple in pop culture references. People Magazine listed a few of them. There was a movie back in 1989, a 1990 Law & Order episode, a Sonic Youth song, and even as late as 2004, the killers put out Jenny was a friend of mine. I hate to say that any good came of this whole thing because Jennifer should still be alive. None of this should have ever happened. But her mom Ellen turned her grief into action.

She became a staunch advocate for victims' rights and got 13 pieces of legislation passed in 10 years to protect victims, including expanding New York's rape shield laws to limit how much of a victim's sexual history can be mentioned. She turned her pain into power and hopefully in the process allowed Jennifer's memory to rest a little easier. Thank you so much to the team at AMC for reaching out and asking us to cover this case. Their reporting was immensely helpful. And you guys, the docu-series is legit amazing.

For a list of other sources we use for cross-referencing and to supplement this story, you can visit our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram, at crimejunkiepodcast. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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