[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City.

[00:28] Meg: Where we still live and where we podcast about New York City. I Do Ripped from the Headlines.

[00:34] Jessica: And I handle Pop culture.

[00:37] Meg: And Jessica!

[00:38] Jessica: Yes, ma'am.

[00:39] Meg: We're about to do part two. Yes, I am aware.

[00:46] Meg: Of our back to school special. And we got so much interesting engagement this week. Some people were writing in saying, you really need to check out this other source material, and did you know about this and did you know about that? So that was very useful.

[00:59] Jessica: Your research always is amazing, but the amount of research you have done on this particular episode, I mean, both parts of this episode. A tip of the hat, my friend.

[01:12] Meg: Thank you. I appreciate it.

[01:13] Jessica: It's not my forte, as you well know. Meaning, not research in general, but preparation.

[01:21] Meg: Oh, stop.

[01:23] Jessica: But I'm quite serious. You've really pulled out all the stops. So A+.

[01:29] Meg: Thank you. And it's not easy to live in this world or to go back to this particular time period, and it affected me more than I thought it would. I've got to say.

[01:40] Jessica: I am so interested to hear what that means exactly.

[01:44] Meg: As we get into the story, let's put it into context. But I also want to say I had lunch with Cathy, fabulous Cathy, who is back from Italy.

[01:54] Jessica: Hi, Cathy.

[01:55] Meg: And she wanted to remind me of two things that I thought were definitely worth mentioning and that you will appreciate. One was, after this entire incident happened, we're talking about the Preppy Murder, the murder of Jennifer Levin by Robert Chambers, by the way. After this happened, it was really hard to get a drink.

[02:21] Jessica: Get a drink!

[02:22] Meg: And she remembers sitting at a bar, and on either side of her, there were these very suspicious-looking, quote, teenagers who had handlebar mustaches and Members Only jackets. And she's like, oh, man.

[02:35] Jessica: Oh, stop it right now.

[02:37] Meg: Under cover guys. Just, ridiculous.

[02:39] Jessica: Oh my God. The NYPD gets a lot of airplay with us, and that's just another example of amazing police work.

[02:53] Meg: And the other thing she wanted to remind me of was emergency breakthroughs. If you did, in fact–

[03:00] Jessica: Oh my God, Cathy,

[03:06] Meg: If you were on your family's phone for hours with your friends, which you probably were, and another friend wanted to talk to you.

[03:16] Jessica: And had simply had enough of your diet of busy signal or your call waiting? And 'I'll be right there.'

[03:25] Meg: Right.

[03:26] Jessica: Click, click. Click, click.

[03:27] Meg: It was very easy to just talk to the operator and make an emergency breakthrough. That happened.

[03:34] Jessica: I would not say it was frequent, but it was not infrequent. Crazy stuff. All the telephonic systems prior to the what are they? Cellular? I was about to say WiFi, and I'm like, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.

[03:51] Meg: All right, so let's get back to the '80s. Let's take a short, short break, and then we will dive in with chapter three.

[04:11] Jessica: Before we dive into chapter three, I think it is worth mentioning because we just talked about our dear friend Cathy. Our dear friend Alé has actually been with us today. She's not joined us in the studio, but another Nightingale Girl.

[04:28] Meg: Who just moved back to New York City.

[04:30] Jessica: And now her daughter is a Nightingale Girl! Eee!

[04:38] Meg: Very exciting.

[04:39] Jessica: But she made a very interesting point about how when this all was happening, we didn't really understand how much this was affecting our worlds. And I said to her, do you mean, like, as a national story? We didn't realize how big it was. She's like, no, just the way that this incident changed the way that everybody operated. And when you're a teenager, you live in the moment. You're not getting a sort of broader perspective.

[05:10] Meg: And she also brought up the fact she's got a teenage daughter. I have a teenage daughter. I think that's one of the reasons, too, why it's hit me particularly hard being immersed in this story. It's one thing to put yourself in her shoes. It's another thing to put your daughter in her shoes. It takes a toll.

[05:33] Jessica: Well, on that bright and cheerful note, let's launch into chapter three.

[05:36] Meg: Yeah, I've got two more sources to add. Preppy Murder Trial, that's just the name of the book by Bryan Taubman. And it was basically a transcript and a Village Voice article from 1987 that was a lot more balanced than a lot of the other tabloid media that we will discuss. Chapter Three. The next morning, the tabloid press was already churning out the lurid headlines and wouldn't let up for the next couple years. Newspaper people say you're golden if you have kids, animals, famous people, violence, or sex on your front page. And the Preppy Murder had three out of five. The Daily News offered "Sex Play Got Rough."

[06:34] Jessica: I remember that.

[06:36] Meg: And "How Jennifer Courted Death," the New York Post wasn't any better, with "Jenny Killed in Wild Sex" and "Ladies' Man Held in Slaying."

[06:48] Jessica: I just have to take a moment. I'm nauseated hearing that. Despicable isn't a word I think I throw out that frequently. But that's despicable.

[07:01] Meg: It's interesting, too, in that the detectives didn't believe a word he said, and the press were like, sounds good to me. Meaning they bought his story.

[07:14] Jessica: Oh, they bought his story. Yes, yes, yes.

[07:15] Meg: I mean, he's the one who said wild sex.

[07:18] Jessica: I get it. I see what you're saying. And yes, I mean, if it's the other way, it's not a story, really, right? It's a tragedy.

[07:28] Meg: And in New York City, you can't escape the huge tabloid headlines. You're walking down the street, they're on display on every corner and all over the subways and buses.

[07:39] Jessica: Which is something that I think that, again, people who are younger than we are, really don't have any understanding of our exposure to. Nothing was online, and nothing was opt in. It was there whether you wanted to see it or not. So it was on every newsstand. It was in every newspaper. You put a quarter in Kiosk vending machine. It was left on the subway, on the bus next to you at a restaurant. Those tabloid newspapers. If you could get through a day without seeing a headline, that was remarkable.

[08:19] Meg: And what are the odds that you're going to read the entire article and that it isn't going to be just as biased as the headline? So that's what was out there.

[08:29] Jessica: Oh, no. It was screaming headlines. Sex. She got what she deserved.

[08:34] Meg: Pretty much. And given all this, it was going to be hard to find an unbiased jury. Robert was indicted on two counts of murder: intentional murder, and murder committed under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life. Phyllis and Robert Sr. engaged Jack Litman, a celebrated charismatic criminal defense lawyer who charged $350 an hour, which was a lot. Phyllis called every influential person she knew and managed to raise the money to pay him. And actually, he reportedly did not charge them his going rate. He wanted this case. He was very skilled at, and this was called this at the time, blame the victim tactics, in his efforts to defend his clients. Side note, he defended Richard Heron, the Yale student who beat his ex-girlfriend, Bonnie Garland, to death with a hammer while she slept. Litman argued Heron was crazed by her rejection, and ultimately, Heron was convicted of merely manslaughter.

[09:50] Jessica: Wow.

[09:51] Meg: And Litman got some flak for it because he tarnished her name. He said, oh, she was dating someone else in addition to Heron? Like, well, yeah, she dating someone else. She broken up with him. And in response to that flack, Litman said, quote, it was necessary to taint her a little bit in an effort to make his clients seem sympathetic.

[10:17] Jessica: No one loves a criminal defense lawyer.

[10:19] Meg: No. When stories about Robert's burglaries began to surface, Litman launched what amounted to a PR campaign. He pitched to Michael Stone of New York Magazine. And this is one of the pins that I left from last week's episode, who published a story that highlighted Robert's days as an altar boy and Jennifer s dating history. It ran with a cover photo of Robert that could have been from a Ralph Lauren ad. Litman spoke to the press frequently, pushing his version of events. Jennifer was fast and loose and was throwing herself at Robert. She had sex with boys. She wanted to go to the park. She even had a sex diary. In the meantime, Linda Fairstein was chosen to prosecute the case. She was head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan DA office. But this was her first murder case. In fact, she was the second woman to be allowed to prosecute a murder case.

[11:27] Jessica: Allowed?

[11:28] Meg: Allowed. It was too taudry for women.

[11:31] Jessica: Wow. Well, Fairstein was definitely a tough cookie.

[11:36] Meg: Now you're saying Fairstein, and I'm saying Fairstein. Do we know?

[11:40] Jessica: I think it's Fairstein.

[11:41] Meg: Okay, then I'm going to say Fairstein.

[11:42] Jessica: Okay. And I'm sure someone will call in and tell me that I'm wrong and you were right.

[11:47] Meg: I feel like we said them both, so we're both in the clear. All right. By the way, it was Litman's 36th murder case.

[11:58] Jessica: Little imbalance. Linda has something to prove.

[12:01] Meg: And we should probably mention that Linda's reputation has suffered enormously in the last few years over how she handled the Central Park Five case, but we will cover that in a future episode.

[12:16] Jessica: Yes.

[12:17] Meg: Linda Fairstein and Jack Litman were actually pretty friendly with each other before their trial. They'd even double dated. But things went sour between them quickly over pretrial hearings. One kerfuffle was over Jennifer's date book that had lots of personal notes in the margins. Litman wanted to subpoena it, and the Levins refused to hand it over. The judge read it and said that there was nothing in it that was material to the case. But Litman had already said to the press that it was a sex diary. Do you remember?

[12:53] Jessica: I do. Sex diary. And you know what I'm remembering also is how all of that stuff was so foreign to me. I mean, I was a young 16.

[13:05] Meg: Yeah, I mean, I don't think she was doing anything that anyone else wasn't doing in our circle of friends.

[13:12] Jessica: No, but you didn't talk about it.

[13:14] Meg: I think we talked about it.

[13:16] Jessica: You that's what know entirely true. Yes. You know what? Scratch the entire previous comment. I guess I'd just say I remember reading this and being a little taken aback by how she was portrayed.

[13:33] Meg: And I think that that speaks to not the behavior, but the way that it was being discussed. The way that it was being presented.

[13:40] Jessica: It was being, you know what? That's it. You're very smart and very right. It was that it was being presented as filthy.

[13:48] Meg: Yes. When it was kind of normal. I mean, think about it. She went to the park with her friend who she wanted to have sex with, but ultimately he wasn't a stranger. He was a friend!

[14:01] Jessica: No, he was far from that. He was in her circle.

[14:05] Meg: So that's not courting death. I'm just saying.

[14:08] Jessica: No.

[14:11] Meg: So yeah. And the Post, after Litman leaked sex diary, which was a lie, the Post ran, Jennifer kept sex diary, says lawyer. So then of course, it becomes fact. The headline makes it seem like it's fact.

[14:31] Jessica: Do you think that people are any more sophisticated now about tabloid headlines than they were?

[14:37] Meg: I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, we should definitely talk about that, like when we get through all of this. Has anything changed? The Daily News ran sex diary kept by Jen. At least they put a question mark. Appalled by the slut-shaming and double standards feminists and the Guardian Angels...

[15:00] Jessica: Oh, Curtis Sliwa, back in the saddle.

[15:04] Meg: Started organizing Justice for Jennifer protests. And they had buttons, if you remember, while some in the Dorian's crowd supported Robert.

[15:16] Jessica: I remember that being a rather vitriolic group, being very behind him.

[15:21] Meg: Yeah. Well, not all of them, but there was definitely that voice, which was, there's nothing we can do for Jennifer. We have to fight now for Robert's rights.

[15:31] Jessica: Why?

[15:31] Meg: I don't know. It kind of reminded me of Heather's a little bit.

[15:43] Jessica: Doesn't everything boil down to Heathers.

[15:43] Meg: A couple of years later. But this weird kind of opportunists sweeping in and going, well, I was best friends. I was at the bar that night. Everyone needs to have their moment in the spotlight over this. Which feels distasteful is kind of tame word for it.

[16:00] Jessica: Yes. Well, it's a quick way to be seen, to have value.

[16:05] Meg: Nice. Many blamed Jennifer for her own death, for going to the park with him at 4:30 in a short skirt. Alex Capp was blamed for enraging him.

[16:18] Jessica: Oh, you can't get a break if you're a gal in this town.

[16:22] Meg: No. And his mother was blamed for pressuring him.

[16:28] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[16:29] Meg: There was a story palatable by some that Robert shouldn't be blamed for one bad night. Which reminded me, you mentioned Brock Turner last week, the Stanford student who brutally raped the woman by a dumpster while she was completely unconscious. And that was in 2016. And Brock Turner blamed drinking, peer pressure and sexual promiscuity for his actions. His father complained that his son's life was ruined for, quote, 20 minutes of action.

[17:10] Jessica: I know. That was so absolutely vile.

[17:13] Meg: And that is kind of similar. Let's not ruin this guy's life. It was 20 minutes. He made a mistake. And I don't know about you, but I have heard on many occasions grown men getting very anxious over the reputations of younger men.

[17:32] Jessica: I wonder what that's about. What do you think?

[17:35] Meg: Well, the assumption is that his life has value and her life isn't even in the picture.

[17:42] Jessica: But the way that they get so jacked up about it, it becomes personal.

[17:47] Meg: Oh, yeah. Men protecting men.

[17:49] Jessica: And my feeling is always there's... Okay. I can't say this with absolute, 100% certainty. So I'll ratchet it down to 90% that every guy who is not brought up what, from 2000 onward, looks at himself and says, what did I do?

[18:07] Meg: Yeah.

[18:08] Jessica: And that's the thing. I'll bet you anything, some horrible night, I did something and I do or I don't remember it or whatever. They're not fighting for the kid. They're fighting for themselves.

[18:20] Meg: Yeah, I think you have a point. Speaking of which, after his arrest, Robert stayed in jail for a month before he was let out on $156,000 bond. Phyllis raised $20,000 for Mrs. Hammerstein and other wealthy friends. Jack Dorian put up his $600,000 townhouse as collateral for Robert's bail. Jack Dorian called Steve Levin to explain why he had done this. And I'll just say that that call didn't go so well. But, yeah, men protecting men. Like I said last week, I do think that Jack Dorian tried to help out young men who he felt needed assistance. It didn't go over so well with 11th, and we don't have to talk much more about that if we don't want to.

[19:13] Jessica: What do you mean, if I don't want to? I'm ready to get it.

[19:16] Meg: I couldn't tell what your eyes were like getting out of this.

[19:20] Jessica: No, that was me. Like going off into the distance of how much rage shall I bother accessing at this moment? Look, I know that there are people listening to this who knew Jack Dorian quite well. I also understand these are different times, all of that stuff, but that is putting himself in some kind of financial risk for a kid who murdered another kid who was his patron. She was no less part of the scene at his establishment than Robert Chambers was. And the absolute, evident, completely boldfaced misogyny is so repellent that I have, I would say I have no words, but clearly I have many. I find it to be so disturbing and I want so badly to be able to explain it away. I'm looking for ways to say, but it's a different time. But there is no explaining it away. And the fact that he had the balls to call Steve Levin. The balls! Could you imagine being like, and on top of it, I'm now going to just call, why would you justify your actions? Because you know they were shit. So that's what I have to say about that particular nuance in this story. Was it what you were expecting, Meg? I'm a little pissed. I don't like it.

[21:09] Meg: By the way, the Levins sued the Dorians for $25 million, suggesting that, in fact, they encouraged Robert to sit at the bar in order to pull in female patrons, which I do not think is accurate, but in any case, they settled it out of court. Phyllis gathered 40 letters from people who had lovely things to say about Robert, mostly from his St. David's days. Side note, and I don't know how you're going to take this.

[21:46] Jessica: Oh, God. Gear up again?

[21:48] Meg: No, you don't have to gear up. It's good. Well, I don't know what it is. I'm not going to put a value judgment on it. By all accounts I've come across, he was a good kid when he was younger. Our friend Alex from Flaming Pablum, was a year younger than Robert at St. David's and remembers how he stood up for the younger boys, unlike most of the other guys in his class. Quote, he never treated us like a dick.

[22:15] Jessica: There was a turning point. There was a turning point for this kid.

[22:19] Meg: I think so. And also, I mean, we're going to talk about this more later. Everybody can be complicated people. We don't have to have pure evil and we don't have to have pure good in order for the events to happen.

[22:33] Jessica: I agree with you. It's not pure evil. What I really do have a problem with is explaining away murder.

[22:42] Meg: Yes.

[22:44] Jessica: You can be a wonderful person who fucked up royally, and then you have to pay your price, pay your dues. Fine. But it's staring you in the face. It didn't really happen.

[23:05] Meg: Yeah. Oh, it did happen. And we will not be excusing. Trust me.

[23:10] Jessica: Yes, it's practically Trumpian in its fake newsiness, but go ahead. Like, it didn't happen. It didn't happen. If I say it didn't happen or he's a wonderful person enough times, then it becomes real.

[23:24] Meg: Right. Okay. And just to be clear, we're talking about St. David's days. And what I took from that, too, was they couldn't find anyone to write a letter after he was 13 years old.

[23:39] Jessica: Yes. And my question is, what happened?

[23:45] Meg: We're going to get there, but that's going to be in chapter... we're in chapter three.

[23:51] Jessica: I understand that, I'm just putting a bookmark in. What happened.

[23:53] Meg: The letter that impressed Judge Bell more than any other was from Archbishop Ted McCarrick. Archbishop Ted McCarrick was a close family friend of the Chambers and godfather to Robert. And we will get back to him in chapter four. Judge Bell made Monsignor Leonard personally responsible for Robert while he was on bail and said he would live in his rectory in Washington Heights. Now, remember last week when I told you about how he left his ID on the fire escape during a burglary?

[24:29] Jessica: Yes.

[24:30] Meg: But managed to talk his way out of it? Well, after his arrest for Jennifer's murder, they took his fingerprints. Now they have his fingerprints and they matched them to the medicine cabinet in that apartment. So he couldn't just say, oh, I lost my ID. He was in the apartment. David Fillyaw, we're going to talk about David for a second. Had gone to McBurney and hung out with the York Prep kids, which is how he met Robert. He also had a doting mother and also went off the rails when he started doing cocaine. Reportedly, he was a member of–

[25:14] Jessica: The bombers?

[25:15] Meg: Yep. 84th street bomb bombers. In 1985, he was arrested for attempting to rape and ultimately stabbing a Columbia student in the face, chest, abdomen, and legs at 06:30 A.M. in her dorm room.

[25:27] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[25:28] Meg: Fairstein said David represented the evil side of Robert. David's mom thought it was the other way around. He got 10 to 20 years for the stabbing.

[25:41] Jessica: Did he murder the girl?

[25:43] Meg: She lived. Thank God. Miracle. It's a miracle she lived. Robert told the police David had forced him to commit the burglaries. So again, deflecting blame. No one bought that. But it is interesting to compare their two cases. Robert was certainly awarded more leniency despite their similar cases and backgrounds. The big difference, David was Black. For the 19 months before the trial began, he was carousing all over town, going to parties, being photographed by the paparazzi, and regularly getting high. On January 3, the night of the first day of the trial, he was videotaped playing with a Barbie doll.

[26:30] Jessica: Wasn't it a bit bigger than a Barbie doll? Or was it actually a Barbie doll? I remember the head being bigger. Anyway, go ahead. A doll. I'm being pedantic. Go ahead.

[26:42] Meg: Twisting the doll's head off and saying, oops, I think I killed it.

[26:50] Jessica: Yeah.

[26:51] Meg: That tape was sold to A Current Affair by the York Prep friend who hosted the party for $10,000. But no one saw it until after the trial was over. But this is when it happened. He actually went out that night after the first day of the trial.

[27:13] Jessica: I thought that was before the first day.

[27:14] Meg: The night of the first day of the day.

[27:18] Jessica: Oh, my freaking God. And I remember that video, and there were, like, girls carousing behind him. He was in a bedroom. There was some... and it was very sinister. Like, he used this very creepy voice. And he was like, did he say, I'm Jennifer?

[27:36] Meg: I don't know about that.

[27:37] Jessica: He said... Yes, it was chilling.

[27:41] Meg: But yeah, nobody saw so this videotape, this event has happened, but nobody sees this videotape until months later. He ended up moving out of the rectory and back home with his mother. Don't know why they allowed that to happen or if he just did that on the sly. And he was doing odd jobs for an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Murphy, who lived upstairs. That is, until Mrs. Murphy's grown kids accused him of forging her signature on checks amounting to $7,000. Again, this is all when he is out on bail.

[28:18] Jessica: Cocaine is a powerful drug.

[28:21] Meg: It seemed to take forever before they are ready for the trial to begin.

[28:24] Jessica: So what happened? Did the Murphy children get him out of there? Like, I assume that he was not allowed to...

[28:31] Meg: He was not allowed to talk to Mrs. Murphy anymore. He got pretty offended at the accusation.

[28:38] Jessica: How dare you accuse me of robbery while I'm robbing your mother.

[28:42] Meg: Right. And his mother, Phyllis, almost had a nervous breakdown because she knew that, of course, he was doing all this.

[28:50] Jessica: What a nightmare when you have a kid who's a bit of a bad seed. And as a parent, I've seen this in various situations, having to determine, when do you say to your kid, you've now got to do this on your own because I am enabling all of your shit. And Phyllis doesn't seem to have reached a breaking point.

[29:19] Meg: Litman was great at delays, which he believed helped his client. 19 months after the murder, the trial commenced. 19 months. The prosecution had lost quite a few pre-trial hearings on admissible evidence. Linda Fairstein was not allowed to tell the jury that Robert had been caught in many lies to the police before he settled on his videotaped rough sex story, that he had a cocaine problem, and that he'd been indicted for felony burglary. She wasn't allowed to tell them any of that. She was allowed to present photos of Jennifer before and after her murder. One caveat, she had to cover Jennifer's earrings with tape in the photo taken earlier that night because the jury might wonder why the earrings were not in evidence.

[30:16] Jessica: What?

[30:17] Meg: Yeah. So there's a picture of her earlier that night at Dorian's, and you can see she's got cubic sarconia earrings in, and they had to put a piece of tape over that because the jury might go, but what happened to the earrings? And they'd be right. He stole them. Litman actually leaned into the photos. He decided that wasn't such a bad idea, that she was showing all these photos. He figured if he showed them often enough, they would lose their power. The vibrant, happy young woman would sparkle less, and her garish wounds would shock less. Many of Jennifer's friends were underage, and their parents didn't want them anywhere near the trial. And the ones who did testify were cross-examined about Jennifer's sex life and drinking habits. And reading the testimony, it's true. It's like this Litman guy was so good at making them feel bad about things that were just completely normal, like what we were talking about earlier. She wanted to have sex with him? Like yes. The implication being that's a bad thing. That's not weird. Teenage girls want to have sex with boys. That is a thing.

[31:22] Jessica: Yeah.

[31:23] Meg: Robert's cocaine use was inadmissible, but Litman made a big deal about Jennifer using diet pills.

[31:30] Jessica: Are you shitting me?

[31:31] Meg: No. Dr. Garber was a jogger who had spotted them in the park that morning as he headed towards the reservoir. He said he thought he saw a white man on top of somebody. When he jogged back again 20 minutes later after circling the reservoir, the man was still on top. So are you tracking this time period? But he didn't stop. Dr. Garber did not stop to see what was actually happening. The prosecution's case centered on the time it takes to strangle someone. Their medical examiners said at least 30 seconds, possibly more than a minute. Also, there were multiple actions rather than the one Robert described in his video confession, because he was just like, oh, I just flipped her over with this chokehold thing. And it was over like that. But her body: multiple punches, scrapes, choke marks, there was dirt in her nose. What Linda Fairstein wanted to tell the jury was that Jennifer's jean jacket had blood and saliva on it and that they believed Robert used it to silence her screams. But the DNA evidence they wanted to introduce was too new and the judge didn't trust this brand new technology.

[32:52] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[32:53] Meg: It was inadmissible. The defense countered that the police were like Keystone Cops. They hadn't locked down the crime scene, so who knows what happened to those earrings and the money in her wallet? Defense witness Dr. Ronald Cornblum, a coroner from California and an expert on hot tub injuries and chokeholds. I had to put that.

[33:17] Jessica: I mean, you know, that's like bringing me all the joy in the world right now. The California coroner. It's like Quincy. Okay. Hot tub man.

[33:27] Meg: He backed up Robert's story. What he didn't say, though, was that while a chokehold can render someone unconscious in 9 seconds, if the perpetrator then releases the hold, the person will regain consciousness. So you can't kill somebody in 9 seconds. Litman also pointed out that Robert never changed his story. Of course, the jury didn't know about the stories he told before they started the videotaping because that was all inadmissible. Most compelling was the visual of the nice young man in court with a cadre of clergy seated behind him. The video, like I said before, the video of the doll party hadn't surfaced until after he was sentenced. In the closing statements, Litmann reminded the jury they hadn't heard a reasonable motive for the murder. And then the jury was given kind of confusing list of options. They could find him guilty of intentional murder or one of three lesser counts: first degree manslaughter, which means he did not intend to kill her. Second degree manslaughter, did not intend to hurt her. But he was consciously disregarding actions that would cause harm. Or criminally negligent homicide, which would make it an accident. How are they supposed to agree on anything, right? The jury was sequestered in a third rate hotel on Staten Island.

[34:53] Jessica: And they will come to any decision to get out of that!

[34:56] Meg: But they didn't. They were there for over nine days and they lost their mind. They'd been told the trial would last a couple of weeks. It had lasted ten weeks. Then they went into the deliberation room and everyone disagreed with each other. There was just too many options. That's what I think. One jury member feigned a heart attack to get out. Others started physically threatening each other.

[35:21] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[35:22] Meg: One jury member insisted no one as good-looking as Robert needed to hurt anyone.

[35:28] Jessica: Oh, genius at work.

[35:31] Meg: Most contentious was the definition of intentional. Some assumed it meant he had planned to kill her before they entered the park. When in fact, intention can be formed in the midst of an attack.

[35:45] Jessica: Yes, yes, yes. I'm just looking at you. I know, but we need to start videoing these things because my jaw is just hanging down.

[35:53] Meg: Both Litman and Fairstein were freaking out that the deliberations were going on for so long. Fairstein was worried there would be a mistrial and the Levins would collapse under the strain of another trial. And. Litman knew Robert's burglaries would come out in a new trial, so they compromised on a plea. First degree manslaughter, five to 15 years. He wouldn't be prosecuted for the felony burglary, and he had to say he meant to hurt her in open court. When he did say that in court, he was shaking his head and for some insane reason, he was allowed to go home that night to his mother's house.

[36:41] Jessica: What?

[36:42] Meg: Okay, that is the end of chapter three. We're going to take a break. Chapter Four.

[36:44] Jessica: Dun Dun Dun.

[36:45] Meg: The Aftermath.

[37:04] Jessica: I feel like we should have a lot of Law and Order, like Chung Chungs going on.

[37:10] Meg: So the question still remains, why did he do it? I mean, Linda Fairstein was not able to do storytelling that worked well for the jury, and they needed to hear a story. So a number of motives have been posited by those intimately involved.

[37:30] Jessica: Yes.

[37:31] Meg: There is no doubt that he was under a lot of stress in the weeks before the murder. Rehab was a bust. His addiction was raging. He was being questioned in these burglaries. He wasn't altogether welcome in his mother's apartment. Remember she made him, you know, for a short period of time, live downstairs, and most of his friends were headed back to school. He had tried taking some classes at B.U. and Hunter. I think I implied last week that he had just graduated. He didn't. He graduated in 1984.

[38:06] Jessica: In '84.

[38:08] Meg: Yeah. We're in '86. Okay, so he's been out and yeah, he tried school, but he wasn't a student. That wasn't going to work. His future looked pretty bleak. On the Friday before the murder, he called Monseigneur Wilder, who he'd known from the St. Thomas Moore days when he was little, and he left a message that he would try and call him again on Monday. But he didn't call him again on Monday. He went to Dorian's Monday night. So the police believe the main attack happened where her underwear was found and that she ran or was dragged to where her body was found. So theory one, when Jennifer went to pee in the bushes, he started rifling through her wallet and she caught him. When she got angry, that set him off. But that doesn't really account for her underwear being off.

[39:10] Jessica: Not at all.

[39:11] Meg: Theory two, she started lecturing him about his drug use and that set him off.

[39:17] Jessica: Based on what? Why would anyone come up with this?

[39:21] Meg: These are old people going like, why would this happen? I don't know. Look, it's 4:30 in the morning. They wanted to fool around. I'm not buying that she was trying to save him from himself.

[39:32] Jessica: No, she had been after him to have sex with her all night and she had stated that intention.

[39:40] Meg: Now it's going to be lecture time. I don't think no.

[39:41] Jessica: So now it's take off your underpants time, which is fine.

[39:47] Meg: Yes. And happened. Okay, theory three, and this is the one from John Douglas from Mind Hunter. The Mind Hunter guy.

[39:57] Jessica: Oh, this I believe.

[39:59] Meg: Right. And actually, it really makes a whole lot of sense to me.

[40:02] Jessica: Okay. Oh, my God, I'm so excited.

[40:04] Meg: And this is not like a hot take, honestly, I'm not going to say something that people haven't thought for a long time, so don't get too excited.

[40:14] Jessica: He's confirming a thought.

[40:15] Meg: Yes. They were fooling around, and he couldn't get an erection. After all, he'd been drinking all night and God knows what else.

[40:25] Jessica: Well, he even said to the police that she was on top of him and jerking him off, and nothing was happening.

[40:33] Meg: Hold on, though. I don't think she was on top of him.

[40:35] Jessica: Well, it doesn't matter, but he made some admission of not being able to get it up.

[40:40] Meg: Yes. Actually, what he said was that she was definitely manually stimulating him. I guess I am gesturing right now. Oh, God, we can't laugh during this segment. That she was manually stimulating him, but what he said to the police was that he definitely had an erection. And he said I read the transcript. He said it a few times. It was very important to him that the police know that he had an erection. Now, you know that there is absolutely no semen found, so we know that he didn't actually ejaculate.

[41:24} Jessica: Ejaculate. Jinx!

[41:25] Meg: But I think he couldn't even get an erection.

[41:26] Jessica: If you've been drinking all night and you're out of your head on drugs and....

[41:28] Meg: Remember the jogger? The jogger said he saw a guy on top, and then 20 minutes later, he saw a guy still on top. Also, her back was just covered in scratches. And from being on the ground in his back, they took pictures of his whole body...

[41:47] Jessica: Zero.

[41:48] Meg: I don't think he was ever on the ground. Okay, so John Douglas thinks he couldn't get an erection. Maybe she was trying to help him out manually, but it's not working. He's getting more and more agitated. And we just talked about how he kept telling the police that, I was erect, I was erect, I was really erect. Whatever happened between them set him off. She was on the ground when he punched her, and he punched her at least three times. Then can't you imagine? She started screaming, and he silenced her screams with her jean jacket, and she fought for her life. Her fingernails were broken, and there were scratches on her mouth where she's trying to pull something off of her mouth and on his face and chest. And I think then when she was dead because he strangled her with her jacket.

[43:00] Jessica: I though he strangled her with her bra.

[43:02] Meg: I mean, that is not in my list of theories.

[42:58] Jessica: I thought that was, like, part of the evidence in the case. So isn't that interesting? Because that's part of how this is my Mandela Effect moment. I remember that being the thing that he strangled her with.

[43:09] Meg: I mean, to be honest, nobody knows what he strangled her with. Nobody knows. It could have been her bra. It could have been her shirt. It could have been her jacket.

[43:16] Jessica: Never in evidence. There was never anything that showed, like, a ligature mark. There were no photographs from Linda Fairstein's office of what she looked like.

[43:27] Meg: Of course there are, but you can't tell what caused that.

[43:30] Jessica: Well, there's a difference between a jean jacket and, like, a string, which is essentially what a bra becomes when you're pulling it across someone's neck.

[43:39] Meg: They had different doctors saying different things about what caused that. I mean, one doctor was saying it was the long sleeve of his shirt that accidentally rubbed against her neck. I mean, it's completely crazy, all the crap that was coming out. The DNA evidence showed that her jean jacket had saliva and saliva and the blood was coming, the only place where she was bleeding was actually from her mouth because of the punches. So that seems to me compelling.

[44:10] Jessica: Yes, it's compelling.

[44:11] Meg: When she was dead, he dragged her body to the tree. This is still the theory. He dragged her body to the tree. That's when she got the dirt in her nose and staged the scene to look like a rape and a burglary. So then that's when he pulled up her clothing and pulled down her clothing and stole her earrings and stole the money from her wallet so that it would look like rape-burglary.

[44:38] Jessica: Good God.

[44:39] Meg: Now, okay, so that's the John Douglas theory, which kind of, I don't know, it holds water. Why did he punch her? Well, the problem with that question is that the answer will be something that she said or did. Right. And that's conjecture, and it's kind of beside the point. Some have suggested that he was actually killing his mother when he killed her.

[45:02] Jessica: Spare me. Spare me.

[45:04] Meg: I hate that shit.

[45:05] Jessica: Spare me.

[45:06] Meg: So I'm not interested in whatever, like, if she said or did or anything that set him off. Look, he's the one who got set off. That is what happened.

[45:20] Jessica: Yes. I am the first one. When there is some lurid situation to be like, let's analyze this into the ground, let's work this into dust. With this case, I just feel like I'm having a visceral reaction of I don't give a shit, he killed her. You're a murderer. Let's move on. Let's bury you in a vault. Go ahead. Sorry. Okay.

[45:46] Meg: I'm going to give you some facts, though, and like you say, oh, my God. So not an excuse, just some context. That is interesting. It's interesting.

[45:58] Jessica: Yes, and I know that he took a turn for the worse mentally and emotionally in his early teens, so I'm sure there's going to be something.

[46:07] Meg: You want me to tell you?

[46:07] Jessica: Yes. I'm just going to keep yammering away in my account.

[46:11] Meg: Let me just tell you, and then you can yammer after and then you'll know what you're yammering about because that would help. Facts.

[46:17] Jessica: Wouldn't that help if I actually knew why I was pissed off.

[46:19] Meg: By most accounts, as I've said, Robert was a decent guy until he hit 13. Confirmation age.

[46:29] Jessica: Did they diddle him?

[46:31] Meg: So he was confirmed in New York and then he goes to Choate. Okay? Do you remember Ted McCarrick, the Archbishop of Newark?

[46:39] Jessica: Yes, I recall him from this story, certainly.

[46:43] Meg: Who sponsored Robert's confirmation?

[46:46] Jessica: Yes.

[46:47] Meg: Close friend of the family?

[46:48] Jessica: Yes.

[46:49] Meg: In 2018 he was defrocked for sexually abusing teenage altar boys in the '80s. It's just a fact. I'm just throwing this out.

[46:57] Jessica: That is in no way shocking, and I'll buy that for a dollar.

[47:05] Meg: Okay. Robert had addiction in his family. We know this. His time at Choate is the first time we hear reports about cocaine. He didn't last long at Choate and once he came back to New York, there was a rapid escalation into addiction and the burglaries to support it. And I think this isn't like again a hot take or anything. He was a full blown addict and it was in his family. A switch flipped.

[47:39] Jessica: Yeah. I mean, as you know, I have experience dealing with a full blown cocaine addict for an extended period of time. And the extent of lying and self delusion, paranoia, like all of that stuff is so overwhelming. It's so huge that, you know, just thinking about that night and I haven't thought about it in this way and I haven't thought about it in the context of this other experience that I had and knowing what that kind of person is like when they're going through their addiction. But it makes the whole exercise of saying, why did he do it? What's behind it? Seem even more fruitless. Because when someone is in a full blown addiction, they will go left just as easily as they will go right. It's what is the circumstance in that second that will push them into a decision.

[48:54] Meg: And they let him out on bail. There are so many opportunities for this guy to actually be incarcerated, either in rehab or in prison. And everyone just kept saying, well, maybe it's better if he's home with his mom. And it was never better that he was home with his mom.

[49:16] Jessica: Well, she was the, I mean I'm not blaming.

[49:19] Meg: Nothing wrong with the mom.

[49:20] Jessica: Nothing is Phyllis's direct responsibility or fault, but–

[49:25] Meg: She didn't know how to deal with a cocaine act.

[49:27] Jessica: No, the enabling was the same as any parent. That's why I brought up earlier, how do you tell your precious child, bugger off? You can't. It's very, very hard.

[49:41] Meg: So epilogue, he served his full 15 years, so he could have gotten out in five.

[49:48] Jessica: But every time that he came up for parole, the Levins and all of their, wasn't it the Levins?

[49:57] Meg: He kept getting in trouble in prison. He kept breaking every rule known to man in prison.

[50:04] Jessica: I thought that he was, that there was, like, a constant presence.

[50:12] Meg: They didn't have to. He kept himself in jail for those full 15 years. When he got out in 2003, he hooked up with Shawn Kovell, who I haven't discussed at all. She started dating him shortly after the murder. After he got out in 2003, he hooked up again with her, and she stayed very loyal to him the entire time. And then they were arrested together in 2007 for selling $10,000 in cocaine and $3,000 in heroin to undercover cops.

[50:58] Jessica: Ever the brain trust.

[51:00] Meg: So he got 19 years. She was emaciated and haggard, completely unrecognizable from what she looked like in the '80s.

[51:08] Jessica: Strung out beyond belief.

[51:10] Meg: And they sent her to rehab for heroin. He's at Shawangunk Correctional Facility and could be released in 2024. But honestly, given, like, his track record, I'm not seeing that happening. You know, what? Would this happen now? Would this particular murder happen now? Have things changed at all?

[51:38] Jessica: Okay. So I think the only nuance here from our perspective at the time and now having been participants in that culture at the time. I think that the big question is the specific culture of underage drinking in New York. Where kids were mixing with adults and there was so much support for kids to be either behaving badly or they simply like. If you're in Gen X and you're in any Gen X group on Facebook or whatever. You get memes all day every day about, like, it's amazing we're alive, we were latchkey kids! Blah blah blah! No, you know what it is? I'm going to say something that might cost us a listener or two.

[52:40] Meg: Oh no.

[52:42] Jessica: The power of the Catholic Church has been removed. The power of the Catholic Church does not exist the way that it did, and so much of the support that he got and so much of the care and the taking responsibility for him and keeping him out of Rikers.

[52:59] Meg: And you're talking about the trial and yeah, actually, there are rape shield laws now. You can't talk about victims the way that she was spoken about.

[53:09] Jessica: Exactly.

[53:10] Meg: Thanks to actually, Ellen Levin had a lot to do with that. Her mom. Yeah, but I was thinking about the murder itself.

[53:30] Jessica: Yes, I agree with you.

[53:33] Meg: The trial would be held differently. The press would be held accountable for all that crap.

[53:27] Jessica: But I think all of that church thing, it all adds up to very strong messaging.

[53:34] Meg: I agree with you. I think that the trial would be... a 2020 version of this trial would look different.

[53:42] Jessica: There's no question. He wouldn't have any place to hide.

[53:46] Meg: Would the murder itself happen?

[53:48] Jessica: Yes, I think murders happen all the time.

[53:52] Meg: We know this particular kind of murder, though.

[53:54] Jessica: I mean, Brock Turner, I think, no matter what you know what? Here's my real honest response to you. Aside from the Catholic church thing. And this, again, goes back to why are we specifically covering this case? Why are we doing this? And I think that my reaction to it is it's just too strong and too visceral for me to be my most analytical self. That's what this leaves me with. That what is this now? How many years later? 37. I lose my shit.

[54:32] Meg: Yeah. And like Alé was saying earlier today and the reason why it's been very difficult, I think, for me to be immersed in it, like, these last couple of weeks is just, I've got a teenage daughter. It used to be about, oh, me. Would I find myself in this situation? And now it's, how on earth could she protect herself from a friend? No one can protect you.

[54:57] Jessica: You don't protect yourself from a friend.

[54:58] Meg: You don't protect yourself from a friend.

[55:00] Jessica: Totally vulnerable. Yeah, it's a very good point, Meg. Yeah. I'm not a parent. My view of this is still from my 16 year old self, which is kind of weird. And that's that visceral response, like, it's really kicking because you've been living with it for a pretty lengthy period of time in a way that I haven't. And I think some of what you've described is your emotional reaction to this and just needing to be away from it. I think it's hitting me now as well.

[55:40] Meg: Yeah, it's awful when there isn't a lesson to be learned, when there's no moral to the story.

[55:47] Jessica: God, you're right. You're totally right. There is nothing to learn.

[55:58] Meg: Well, I'll tell you.

[56:00] Jessica: There was a reason we didn't want to do this story.

[56:01] Meg: But we did it. We did our job, damn it. All right, let's take a quick break.

[56:07] Jessica: Okay.

[56:19] Meg: I have the fluffiest palate cleanser for next week. I cannot wait to tell you. It's a feel-good story. It's also a cautionary tale, but it's a feel-good story.

[56:32] Jessica: I am so excited. And you've inspired me to now find the equally fluffy and absurd. You know I love the absurd. Let's find complete absurdity and fluff.

[56:46] Meg: Yeah. We need it. And thank you, listeners, for bearing with us while we grapple with this very touchy and emotional and historical. Historical?

[57:02] Jessica: Yeah. I mean, you know what? It's been fetishized, and this whole program, episodes one and two, were really about taking away the fetishization of this particular story. And in doing so, as I said just before, I've learned a lot about how I feel about something that I thought I knew exactly how I felt about it, and it's just no, it's quite different. Thank God, it's in the rearview mirror.

[57:38] Meg: Yeah, et's go have some Brazilian food and hug each other.

[57:41] Jessica: Yeah. Good. Yay!