Robert Chambers – also known as the ‘Preppy Killer’ – will be on parole in Rockland County, New York, after being released from prison after 15 years and may be back with his flame.
After his release, he may be reunited with his longtime girlfriend Shawn Kovell, 54, who is believed to have remained loyal to the killer throughout his final stint in prison.
Chambers, 56, strangled 18-year-old Jennifer Levin to death in Central Park in 1986 and served an initial 15-year prison sentence for manslaughter.
The New York Post reported that a woman answered Kovell’s phone over the weekend and said she and Chambers were “still talking,” though she denied she was actually Kovell, who still resides at a Manhattan address, according to the archives.
Chambers was released last week from New York’s Shawangunk Correctional Center after serving 15 years of a 19-year sentence for operating a cocaine and heroin operation in a Manhattan apartment in the mid-2000s.
Robert Chambers, 56, aka the Preppy Killer, went to jail for the second time in the mid-200s for running a drug operation from his Manhattan apartment
Chambers at the time of his second arrest had a serious girlfriend, Shawn Kovell, 54, who had stayed with him throughout his first stint in prison, which he served for killing teenager Jennifer Levin in 1986.
At the time of his arrest in 2007, Chambers was living with Kovell.
After he was first incarcerated in the 1980s, Kovell reportedly rode the bus upstate for years to visit him in prison for years.
Kovell’s defense attorney, Franklin Rothman, told the Post that it was hard for him to forget Chambers or Kovell.
Kovell did not serve any prison time after the drug trade, but Chambers, he said, received an unusually harsh sentence.
“I don’t know if it’s loyalty or love,” Rothman said of the couple’s long-term romance.
“She really had important feelings for him. She seemed to genuinely care about him. Maybe they were fine or maybe it was the drugs, but it seemed to go pretty far.
“I don’t know if she’s still expecting it this time, but maybe they both got better.” She had real issues, she was battling demons at the time,” he said.
According to the outlet, Chambers’ mother, a 92-year-old woman who now goes by the name Mary but reportedly used to be called Phyllis, lives a reclusive life on Long Island.
Chambers will be under state surveillance in Rockland County, New York, and may attempt to reunite with Kovell
It’s unclear if Chambers and Kovell stayed in touch during his second 15-year stint behind bars. According to records, she still lives in Manhattan
Jennifer Levin was 18 when she was strangled to death by Chambers, who initially denied involvement but later said she had been the victim of rough sex in Central Park.
Kovell stayed with Chambers throughout his first trial in the 80s – the two had met shortly before the start of the 1988 trial
Jennifer Levin, 18, was just weeks away from leaving college when her body was discovered by a cyclist in Central Park on August 26, 1986.
Police soon arrived and began a citywide manhunt for all suspects in the case, going so far as to close all of Manhattan’s bridges and tunnels.
Unbeknownst to them at the time, the man in charge was sitting nearby watching it all unfold.
Chambers would later confess to murdering Jennifer, saying it was an accident that happened when she demanded rough sex.
Levin had gone out with her friends the night before at Dorian’s, a popular bar a few blocks east of Central Park.
These friends were quick to tell police they remembered the young woman talking to Robert outside the bar, with a few recalling the pair being seen walking away together late in the night.
Police attended Chambers’ home the same day. Her face was covered in scratches similar to those found on Levin’s own neck from which she tried to rip her killer’s hands off.
He initially blamed the marks on his cat, but agreed to accompany police to the station for further questioning about Levin’s death.
Chambers first told police he saw Jennifer late that night outside the bar, but the two parted ways shortly after saying their goodbyes.
Prior to the murder, Chambers had attended several prestigious Northeastern prep schools and run with a high-society crowd in New York City.
Chambers with her mother on March 25, 1988, walking to their Upper East Side home
It was when the police presented him with the fact that eyewitnesses had seen the two leave together that his story began to change, and he told the police that not only did he and Levin go to Central Park that night- there, but that he was also the one who had killed the teenager. .
He claimed Levin asked him for “rough sex” and then tied his hands together with his underwear when stimulating his genitals.
At some point, things got too difficult, said Chambers, who was more than a foot taller than his victim.
He claimed that after he managed to unhinge his hands, he threw Jennifer out of his body and she was killed when she hit the ground.
The police then informed Chambers that he would be booked, but allowed him to see his parents before being sent to prison.
When he saw his father he said, ‘That fucking bitch, why didn’t she leave me alone?’
Chambers faced two second-degree murder charges at trial, during which prosecutors were unable to present evidence they uncovered linking Chambers to more than 30 robberies.
Turns out he had been stealing for some time to fund his cocaine addiction after he was expelled from Boston University after just one semester at the institution.
Murder defendant Robert Chambers hides under a police line in Central Park near where he admits to killing Jennifer Levin
The defense presented Levin as a promiscuous young woman despite no evidence to support the claim beyond the fact that she was a popular student.
It was enough to stall the jury, however, and after nine days without a decision, Chambers and his lawyers agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and burglary.
He was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison and eventually served his full sentence and extensions for his offenses behind bars.
Chambers maintained after his release that he strangled Levin to keep him from hurting him during “rough sex”.
