NYC's 'Preppy Killer' Is Released From Prison a 2nd Time

Robert Chambers was serving time on drug and assault charges
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 30, 2023 1:30 PM CDT
NYC's 'Preppy Killer' Is Released From Prison a 2nd Time
Robert Chambers is led in handcuffs into Manhattan criminal court for his arraignment, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007, in New York.   (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano, File)

Robert Chambers, better known to some as the "Preppy Killer," was released after spending 15 years in prison for drug and assault charges, according to state records. Chambers spent a similar amount of time in prison after pleading guilty to strangling Jennifer Levin in New York City's Central Park during the summer of 1986. Chambers entered the plea to killing 18-year-old Levin as part of a deal when a jury could not reach a decision after nine days of deliberations. He was released in 2003 for that crime but again ran afoul of the law soon after, reports the AP.

He was arrested in 2007 for selling drugs out of his apartment and sentenced to 19 years in prison but was released Tuesday—four years early—from the Shawangunk Correctional Facility in New York, according to online inmate records maintained by the New York Department of Corrections. Chambers, now 56, will remain under supervision for up to five years, records show. People and Fox News take a look back at the Levin case, in which Chambers claimed he killed her during "rough sex" after leaving a bar together. A bicyclist found her half-dressed body. In addition to a 1989 made-for-TV movie starring Billy Baldwin and a 2019 AMC series on the crime, the case has been referenced in songs by The Killers and Sonic Youth and was mentioned in Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho.

(More Robert Chambers stories.)

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