‘Preppie Killer’ Is Released from Prison

Robert Chambers, the “Preppie Killer” who strangled a young woman during a tryst in New York’s Central Park in 1986, was released from prison Friday after serving his full 15-year sentence for manslaughter.

Wearing a red sweater and green pants, Chambers, now 36, ignored reporters as he walked out of prison.

Chambers admitted strangling Jennifer Levin, an 18-year-old he had met at a trendy bar in New York City. He claimed he killed her accidentally during rough sex; prosecutors said he was drunk and high on drugs and killed her in a rage when he was unable to perform sexually.

On the eve of his release, he issued a statement of regret through his lawyer.

“There has not been a day since Jennifer Levin’s death that I have not regretted my actions on that day,” he said. “I know that the Levin family continues to suffer her loss, and I am deeply sorry for the grief I have caused them.”

He also said he would like to pursue a college degree and begin paying the $25 million won by the Levin family in a wrongful-death lawsuit.

Chambers could have been released up to six years ago, but he amassed 27 disciplinary violations behind bars, including violations for heroin possession and assaulting a guard. He spent a third of his time in solitary confinement and was rejected for parole five times.

Levin’s relatives dreaded the prospect of Chambers’ release. “I don’t think you can teach a person in any prison situation or anywhere how to have a conscience, and Robert Chambers does not have a conscience. And that makes him dangerous,” Ellen Levin, the victim’s mother, said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show.

The slaying was splashed across New York City’s tabloids in the summer of 1986 as a story of privileged youth gone bad. Chambers, a college dropout with a taste for cocaine, was Hollywood handsome. The victim was a pretty private-school student from a well-to-do family. And the rough-sex defense produced lurid headlines.

Chambers pleaded guilty to manslaughter after the jury in his murder trial deliberated for nine days and prosecutors feared a deadlock.