NEW YORK -- The family of a young woman strangled by a prep school graduate said a home videotape of the killer apparently mocking her death by twisting a doll's head proves Jennifer Levin died at the hands of 'an animal.'
Part of the videotape, made weeks before Robert Chambers' murder trial began, was aired Monday evening on Fox Television's 'A Current Affair.' A second portion was scheduled to be broadcast tonight.
The home video shows Chambers, 21, frolicking at a slumber party with four scantily clad young women, including his girlfriend, 19-year-old Shawn Kovell.
On the tape, he acts out two strangulations, once with a chokehold on himself during a game of charades and once on an a small female doll.
Looking into the camera with a smile, Chambers says in a falsetto, 'My name is ...,' and twists the doll's head.
He then looks down and says in a serious voice, 'Oops, I think I killed it. Both eyes are like ...'
Chambers, a prep school graduate with a history of drug abuse, is currently serving a five-to-15-year prison term for strangling Levin, 18, in Central Park on Aug. 26, 1986.
Levin's sister, father, and grandfather were beside themselves with anger and pain over the videotape mocking her death.
'To have absolutely no regard for her life, it's so disgusting. He's not even a person. He's an animal,' said the victim's sister, Danielle Levin Roberts, 23, of Long Island.
'It's a particularly sensitive time for us because Jennifer's birthday is on May 21,' she said. 'All I have to say to Robert Chambers is 'Why don't you kick some more dirt over her grave?''
Levin's father, real estate developer Steven Levin, refused to watch the show.
'Although I was shocked and devastated (by news of the tape), it confirms what I already knew. He's a low-life, drug addict, murderer and he should be in prison for the rest of his life,' he said.
Levin's grandfather, Arnold Domenitz, said the videotape of Chambers twisting the doll's head was the 'most damaging indictment of how he killed Jennifer.'
'To say we're surprised at the revelation of the psycopathic character of this murder, we are not,' Domenitz said. 'Shocked at how and what transpired, yes. Disappointed that someone didn't have the conscience to reveal this at trial time, yes.'
Chambers claimed in a videotaped confession he accidentally choked Levin during rough sex, but sources said he told a convicted thief shortly after the killing he strangled her when she caught him rifling through her jacket.
The young man abruptly interrupted deadlocked jury deliberations in his murder trial March 25 to plead guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and an unrelated burglary charge.
At one point in the home videotape, the former altar boy - alternately wearing jeans, T-shirt, sweater and a wig -- smokes marijuana and at another time, he appears to be holding a vial of cocaine.
His girlfriend, an aspiring model, is shown wearing a black bra and a negligee.
Reached at her Upper East Side home, Kovell said she was 'upset' about the release of the videotape but would not elaborate.
In an interview with the television station, she said she thought her boyfriend was charming and she would serve his prison time with him if she could.
'It's his personality. He cares,' she said. 'My mother loves him.'
'A Current Affair' reportedly paid one of the young women on the tape, Melissa Bushell, $10,000 for it, sources said. It was made in her Upper East Side apartment just weeks before Chambers' trial began on Jan. 4, while he was out on $157,500 bail.
The State Parole Board said the videotape would not have much of an effect on Chambers' possibility of being released after five years.
'It might be representative of his attitude as he was getting ready for trial, but the board deals with his attitude when he took his plea and when he comes up for parole,' said executive director Edward Elwin.
