Overlooked: Preppy Murderer Back in the News — Oct 30th 2007

By Dakota Smith

In a new weekly feature, NewsQuake will highlight posts that were lost in the shuffle, attracting little in the way of votes or comments. Perhaps the post in question was nudged out of the way by bigger news--or perhaps the community disliked the story enough to give it a silent burial. In any case, feel free to message the anchors with more suggestions for this feature, which will appear every Wednesday.

One story that failed to hit the home page was the news that Robert Chambers Jr., aka the "Preppy Killer," was arrested in New York on drug charges. Chambers served 15 years in jail for the 1986 strangling of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. According to the New York Times, the 41-year-old and his girlfriend Shawn Kovell, 39, were the subject of an undercover drug sting over three months, during which police purchased 246 grams of cocaine, worth about $9,600, from the pair at their 57th Street apartment.

While the arrest brought his face back into the news, the real story was less about rehashing the sordid Levin trial and more about reexamining Chamber's addiction problems. Many newspapers noted his drug and discipline problems as a high school student. As his father, Robert E. Chambers Sr., told the New York Post: "He is sick. He has a disease, an addiction." He added: "Between his mother and I, we have spent well over six figures to straighten young Robert out."

Chambers was released from prison on Valentine's Day in 2003. Due to disciplinary problems behind bars, notes Newsday, including dealing drugs, he served his full term. Linda Fairstein, who was the chief prosecutor in the 1988 murder trial, spoke about Chambers in a CNN interview with Paula Zahn. "He's a sociopath," she said, "and I think he's never shown any remorse for killing this friend of his with his bare hands. And he's had this terrible record in prison of drug addiction, of possession of cocaine and heroin. I think that he hasn't used this time to detox, to rehab--that he comes out still a substance abuser, still without remorse--is a bad sign."

And his drug use continued: In November 2004, Chambers was arrested for misdemeanor heroin possession and unlicensed driving, and sent to jail for 100 days, notes the New York Times.

Last week, the paper once again caught up with Fairstein. "I'm not the least bit surprised that it's drugs that would ultimately lead to his downfall," Fairstein told the Times. "But when I did get the call last night, I was shocked at the level--that he was dealing, stupid enough to be dealing out of his home to undercover cops on multiple occasions and that it was a high amount of cocaine. I was shocked at the brazenness."

If convicted, he could face 150 years behind bars, meaning that he would spend the rest of his life in prison. NewsQuake asks: Why didn't this story interest Propeller users? Are people simply tired of hearing Chambers' name, or has so much time passed that the Preppy Murderer's squalid resume is no longer familiar to Propeller users?

Tags:

3 Comments