NEW YORK, June 5 -- Investigators believe Jonathan Levin was tortured with a steak knife until he revealed the secret number for his bank machine card, and then shot in the head. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau tells the New York Post he thinks the slaying of the son of Time Warner Inc. CEO Gerald Levin was a robbery.
According to published reports, investigators say there was no cash in the upper West Side apartment where the 31-year-old Levin was found Monday, bound with tape and shot in the head. An ATM card was missing from his wallet and $800 had been withdrawn from a nearby cash machine. Police are reportedly reviewing surveillance videotapes of that Friday night transaction. They believe Levin was killed late Friday afternoon, even though a local merchant says she saw him with his dog on Saturday. Investigators believe the type of puncture wounds on Levin's chest show he was tortured. They say a steak knife was found on the dining room table near his body. The teacher's dog was found locked in a bedroom on Monday night with no food or water, and a television was turned on to New York One, a Time Warner news channel. The room had not been soiled. Police officials are not commenting on the record about the crime that shook the single Levin's South Bronx students, most of them very poor. Some of the students wore 'We are his kids' signs at Levin's funeral Wednesday. After the service, the district attorney told reporters, 'This is a case that's going to be solved, hopefully quickly.' ---
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