Marilyn Thipthorpe
What do you do when a kid goes wrong? Can you bring him back from the path of destruction? How do you even recognize the signs? The following story just goes to show that you cannot judge a book by its cover.
This was the case with 6’5″, handsome as pie Robert Chambers. Robert was a first generation Irish catholic with the looks of an altar boy, he was on a scholarship and raised by a single mother. His movie star looks made him popular amongst his peers. However, as is the case with peer pressure, Chambers was soon involved with petty pilfering, alcohol and drugs, willful bad grades and experimentation.
With his classic good looks and devil may care attitude, it was easy for Robert Chambers to attract the girls. One August, in 1986, he met up with 18 year old Jennifer Levin at Dorrians Red Hand, a local pub in New York’s Upper East Side. They were reported to have left together at about 4:30 am and no sign was seen till Jennifer’s body was found by a bicyclist on that fateful morning. Levin was naked, bitten, scratched and had contusions while her lifeless form lay in Central Park for all to see.
Manhattan South Detective, William McNeely, in charge of the case, said that murder in New York was not uncommon but murder in the nicer towns around was. Chambers was immediately arrested as a prime suspect having been the last person sighted with Jennifer. He denied all the allegations, pleading innocent and explaining away the scratches on his face by saying that they were done by his cat. With pressure he soon confessed to the crime but not in the way one might expect. He said that he and Jennifer were having consensual rough sex when things began to go astray. One thing led to another and he killed Levin accidentally in self defense.
Linda Fairstein, the chief prosecutor of the case stated that in more than 8,000 cases of assaults in the history of the last 10 years, there was not a single report of a man allegedly assaulted by a woman. The news spread like wildfire through the United States and Robert was dubbed “the preppie killer” due to his prep school look and sparkling smile.
As is classic in certain mindsets, various people began to blame the victim Jennifer Levin, saying that she must have acted promiscuous and asked for it. They were not willing to believe a ‘good boy’ like Chambers, a catholic boy, could possibly commit such atrocities.
This led to a rift in the jury itself and both sides were steadfast and could not come to a an agreeable standpoint. Finally a plea bargain was struck where Chambers agreed to a lesser charge of manslaughter, with time spent in prison being 5 to 15 years. A video shot in prison perhaps shows his unstable, mental condition. He was videoed talking and playing with a Barbie doll, which he suddenly snapped the head off of. While this did not affect his prison sentence in any way, it should have as it portrayed a psychologically unstable human condition which was a threat to other people and himself.
Chambers eventually served 15 years in prison plus a few more for rough behavior and disobedience; he was eventually released in 2003. He continued to have run-ins with the law, and was once more picked up in 2008, where he pleaded guilty to selling drugs he was sentenced to 19 years in prison, which he is currently carrying out and will continue to do so till he turns 61.