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

[00:18] And I'm Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City, where we still live.

[00:28] Meg: And where we are podcasting about New York City in the '80s. I do do Ripped from the Headlines.

[00:33] Jessica: And I handle Pop Culture.

[00:35] Meg: And today is our Back to School Special.

[00:39] Jessica: Yes, it's a very special episode of Desperately Seeking the '80s.

[00:45] Meg: It is our most requested story. We are going to be speaking to each other the entire time, we're going to take up the entire episode. And actually, it's a two episode special.

[00:57] Jessica: Right? So mixing up the format, Meg. It's our Back to School new pencil cases, new lunch boxes, and thermoses and a whole new attitude for us.

[01:10] Meg: So should we just get started? Let's do it. So, Jessica, we have so much to cover, and I think you're engaged. I sense your engagement.

[01:29] Jessica: I'm very engaged. I'm present.

[01:31] Meg: So I think we should just dive in. I'm going to tell this story. And again, we're going to cover two episodes. And it's going to be four chapters total. And we're going to do chapter one and chapter two today.

[01:48] Jessica: Excellent. And are we ready to reveal this number one requested topic?

[01:54] Meg: I think it's time. Go for it.

[01:55] Jessica: We are going to cover the murder of Jennifer Levin by Robert Chambers.

[02:02] Meg: Yes. And we should probably tell people that... This is what I want to say. It affected a lot of people that we care about very deeply, and we want to tell the story right.

[02:14] Jessica: That is exactly right.

[02:16] Meg: And there's so much misinformation out there. Trust me, I've been reading a lot of it in the last couple of months.

[02:23] Jessica: And we're very anti the glamorization of this entire story on that.

[02:31] Meg: And the fetishization of it.

[02:32] Jessica: So boo! Boo on that. But yay on a real story from two alumni of this time period and this social group. So, Meg, you're going to start. We're going to have this new format where we're just going to jump in together and have a conversation, start to finish. So you begin with your perfect research.

[02:54] Meg: Okay, cool. So this is chapter one. It was Monday, August 25, 1986, and Jennifer Levin had just come back into the city from the Hamptons to hang out with friends in the few days she had before she left for her first year at Chamberlain Junior College in Boston. She lived with her dad and stepmother on Mercer Street in Soho. She'd grown up in Long Island with her mom and sister, but wanted to live in the city, so she moved to her dad's place for high school and went to the Baldwin School on the Upper West Side.

[03:27] Jessica: And we've talked about this before, but just a reminder, moving to Soho was not moving to Glamorland. It was moving to gritty, funky, weirdness. So it's interesting that she wanted to be not just in the city, but also in this really sketchy artistic kind of out there place.

[03:52] Meg: Mostly like, it's so populated now. And I don't think it was so populated then.

[03:59] Jessica: You're absolutely right. It was deserted.

[04:03] Meg: It was a little more deserted. It was a little more empty. And that could make it a little more sinister if you're on the wrong street at the wrong time of day.

[04:11] Jessica: Hello, Griffin Dunne in After Hours. So anyway, I think that's an interesting little tidbit.

[04:18] Meg: Completely. While her mom didn't have a lot of rules, her dad was pretty strict. So she went from kind of a loose situation in Long Island to some rules.

[04:31] Jessica: Knowingly also.

[04:34] Meg: Yeah. She and her dad thought a lot about curfews, but like a lot of kids, including us, she successfully managed to have a social life that included the bars on the Upper West Side, McGowan's and West End.

[04:49] Jessica: You know, I never went to McGowan's. It had, like, a mythical status for me. That's where our friend Kathy – you and Kathy would hang out there, and I was just like, what is this mystical West Side you speak of?

[05:01] Meg: And Amanda. Yeah, that's actually where I met Jennifer Levin. And clubs like the Peppermint Lounge and Palladium. You get those free passes to teenagers then.

[05:11] Jessica: Yeah.

[05:11] Meg: And hangouts like Hard Rock Cafe on 57th.

[05:14] Jessica: Oh, my God. I got a creepy, bad gut feeling for the very first time from a much older man at the Hard Rock Cafe. And I was with our friend Sasha, and it was really like, oh, I have to go home and cry.

[05:34] Meg: Well, actually, you bring up a good point because a lot of places there were lots of grown ups, so there were kids hanging out in a grown up spot. Hard Rock Cafe is a great example of that.

[05:47] Jessica: And this was before it was every place, so it was still considered like, edgy to go there.

[05:53] Meg: Yes, it was, actually, but places like McGowan's, places like West End, places like Dorian's, which we're about to talk about, the kids outnumbered the adults, and so it had more of a kind of clubhouse feel to it.

[06:10] Jessica: Exactly.

[06:11] Meg: And so what would you do? You would tell your parents you were sleeping over at a friend's house, or maybe your parents were at their country house. And without cell phones,

[06:27] Jessica: Anything went.

[06:28] Meg: It just really wasn't hard to dodge your parents.

[06:25] Jessica: No. You just have to make sure that your parents didn't call the parent of the person who you were supposed to be staying with.

[06:30] Meg: Right. And again, without cell phones, people would just, like, leave a message that probably wouldn't even be, it would be on the answering machine and people wouldn't even hear it until the next day. People weren't being tracked quite so much.

[06:43] Jessica: And if you were lucky enough to have a sibling who still lived at home, you could just leave a message with them, tell mom so and so.

[06:52] Meg: Jennifer worked at French Connection in Soho.

[06:56] Jessica: Very cool.

[06:57] Meg: I loved French Connection. I still remember two particular outfits that I bought at French Connection that I wish I still had.

[07:07] Jessica: I think I feel that way about most of my wardrobe from high school, except for–

[07:12] Meg: Yeah, I think I could pull it off.

[07:15] Jessica: Of course you could.

[07:17] Meg: Thank you, Jessica. I appreciate it. And she also worked at Flutie's, which is a restaurant at South Street Seaport, which was totally a teenage Mecca as well.

[07:28] Jessica: So for anyone who follows sports, I'm now going to really upset you. So it was Doug Flutie's restaurant. Was he football or hockey?

[07:38] Meg: You are asking the wrong person.

[07:40] Jessica: Well, you're the queen of research, so I thought maybe you would know. He was what we'll call a sportsman, a sporting enthusiast for money.

[07:54] Meg: And so that was his restaurant. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, she worked there. And during her high school years, she started breaking away from her childhood friends on Long Island and she became a bona fide city girl. And like I was saying earlier, I would see her out and about and she had, like, really great style. And as it turns out, she wanted to go to fashion school.

[08:24] Jessica: I never knew that.

[08:25] Meg: And she was very popular. Like, I would show up at these places and I just remember this sense of anxiety, like, oh, my God, what if I don't see somebody I know? Because that would be the worst thing in the world.

[08:39] Jessica: Oh, my God. It's like showing up in the lunchroom with a tray and a hostile environment.

[08:45] Meg: And I got to tell you, I don't think Jennifer Levin was ever in that position. At least, it seemed like she knew everybody. Do you remember all those little inside jokes and pet names that we used to have for each other?

[09:01] Jessica: Of course.

[09:02] Meg: Like Consuelle.

[09:05] Jessica: Yeah, that was Regina. And Margaret was Consuelle.

[09:09] Meg: And Hart? Bean.

[09:11] Jessica: Yes. Bean.

[09:11] Meg: Okay.

[09:12] Jessica: Yes. Schmengy. There is also Schmengy.

[09:19] Meg: Well, it's sort of like a little cute little secret language. Well, for Jennifer and her friends, it was Snausages.

[09:25] Jessica: Okay.

[09:26] Meg: Do you remember Snausages?

[09:29] Jessica: It's a dog treat. It was the rival of "There's only one thing that smells like bacon, and that's bacon!" Bacon strips. Yes, I do remember.

[09:40] Meg: They did a little like "snausage, snausage" to each other. And according to her friends, although she looked so pretty and popular from across the room, like I just said, she kind of felt like an outsider.

[09:50] Jessica: Who didn't.

[09:52] Meg: Well, I know.

[09:56] Jessica: Isn't that just the hallmark of teenagehood, that you feel you don't fit in any place, you're not fitting into your own skin, for God's sakes.

[10:06] Meg: And I would argue that maybe in the '80s, it was particularly bad because there really was this, seemed like there was only one way to be, there was one ideal to strive for.

[10:19] Jessica: Yes.

[10:20] Meg: And everyone's going to fall short of that.

[10:22] Jessica: Well, I literally fell short. All of our friends were 5'7" and willowy and I was like, "Hi, I'm not even 5'2" yet."

[10:33] Meg: Right. And Jennifer Levin wasn't either. She felt like she wasn't rich enough. She didn't go to one of the really good schools. She was Jewish and she thought she was fat, which is ridiculous, but I guess girls think they're fat. It sucks.

[10:53] Jessica: Is this when we should bring up their trigger warnings throughout this entire very special episode? Okay. Done and done.

[11:01] Meg: And the term imposter syndrome did not exist then. I don't think. I love it now, because it's just a nice little reminder.

[11:10] Jessica: When you're feeling that way, you're not the only one. There's a whole syndrome.

[11:15] Meg: It's a syndrome!

[11:17] Jessica: Yes.

[11:17] Meg: Yes.

[11:18] Jessica: I remember the first time I read about that was in some women's magazine when I was at my job as a lawyer. So this is in the very early '90s. No, mid '90s. And I cut it out of a magazine and I put it in my filofax. Remember how we had that? You still have a filofax. I put it in the little clear plastic thing so I could look at it all the time as a reminder that this was not just me.

[11:50] Meg: Also, yes, you belong. Yes, you belong.

[11:53] Jessica: Well, especially in New York City, which is land of everybody who didn't fit in anyplace else. And they come to the city to find acceptance.

[12:05] Meg: We love the weird!

[12:06] Jessica: Exactly. The home of the weird.

[12:07] Meg: Do you remember talking about wannabes? I remember that was like a really big deal, and it was the worst thing in the world to be considered a wannabe.

[12:15] Jessica: But I think that we used the word poser much more, didn't we? And it was even P-O-S-E-U-R. You're a poseur.

[12:24] Meg: Right. I guess the thing about wannabe that makes me particularly sad is that it's totally feeding into that anxiety. Because of course you want to be. Of course you want to belong. Of course you want to feel comfortable in a room full of people who look really cool, but God forbid you actually want it.

[12:47] Jessica: God forbid you want it. God forbid you show that you want it. And God forbid you try too hard, which is so arbitrarily. It's like some stinker who happens to show up at that moment can brand you. So she suffered from that like every other teenager.

[13:08] Meg: Exactly. Robert Chambers was among her many friends. He was very much a part of the scene that met up at Dorian's and hung out at empty apartments. He had grown up on the Upper East Side, but not in one of those fancy apartments. His mother, Phyllis, was an Irish immigrant who worked as a private nurse for listen to this, fancy, fancy people. JFK. Jr., Dorothy Hammerstein, Millicent Hurst.

[13:37] Jessica: Good gravy.

[13:38] Meg: Cardinal Cook.

[13:40] Jessica: Yes.

[13:41] Meg: So she was like the nurse that the rich people call if they needed a nurse. And that's just a few I mean, that's what she did. Her entire career. She was a private nurse to really wealthy people, often when they were on their last legs.

[13:56] Jessica: Oh, interesting. I, of course, instantly, in a jaded way, assumed that it was like if they were drying out or it was plastic surgery time.

[14:05] Meg: No, I mean, the one thing, JFK Jr. She was a nurse to him when he was a little boy because I think he broke his collarbone. So these were not long term. She wasn't with a family for years and years and years. She would be with a family for a year. A year or two, yeah. Robert's dad was an alcoholic and he hung out at Shehan's Bar. Now I should have looked up the address. It's right near Dorian's. It's really not far.

[14:33] Jessica: It's actually a good moment to highlight the difference between Irish bars and Irish bars in New York City.

[14:42] Meg: Go for it.

[14:42] Jessica: So Dorian's, on its face, Irish bar. And I think anyone who's not a New Yorker would think, okay, Irish bar, no bar restaurant with Irish heritage. But the real Irish bars of New York were pretty much down and dirty, a bit divey, dark, and there was one like on every corner. It was a place to go to drink, full stop.

[15:14] Meg: And there are guys who would just hang out all day.

[15:17] Jessica: They would be there from the moment it opened till the moment it closed. And the thing though that was my big exposure to them was actually my first job out of college. I was working at Simon and Scheuster, and the editorial assistance made $15,000 a year, and in publicity we made a whopping $18,000. So all of these kids who were not subsidized by their parents would, they had to economize. The Irish bars at that time would still, and this was a holdover from the 19th century, they were still serving hot meals at happy hour to draw people in and get them drinking. So every like 5:00, you could get lasagna or hot dogs at these Irish bars, free of charge.

[16:11] Meg: That's great.

[16:12] Jessica: So that was like a thing.

[16:14] Meg: Yeah. Robert's father was one of the guys who would just be at the bar all day, and specifically at Shehan's Bar. So remember that name because it's going to come back. I'll look it up during our break. This was a Yorkville Bar. Another note about his alcoholism. It made him distant rather than violent. He was one of the alcoholics who was in a bit of a stupor rather than one who raged.

[16:49] Jessica: Got it.

[16:50] Meg: Phyllis wanted the best for her son.

[16:53] Jessica: Were they still married?

[16:55] Meg: They were indeed. They are Catholic, my friend.

[16:57] Jessica: Oh, that's right. Okay.

[17:01] Meg: And Phyllis was an incredible mover shaker. And she's got all these connections because she's working for these families and she knows everybody. She worked twelve hour days for these fancy families. So she also wasn't home very much, but she wasn't home because she was working so hard, and she got, listen to this. She got Robert into the Knickerbocker Graze.

[17:29] Jessica: What?

[17:30] Meg: Which is do you know? This is so crazy. It's New York's version of the Cub Scouts, but they're like cadets and they do military jobs.

[17:38] Jessica: There was a kid in my class at Fleming named, I think it was Jeremy, who was so into it. He was in it, which was also, by the way, just down the block from Fleming, the Knickerbocker Club. But he was so into it that at one point he organized our fourth grade into, like, a paramilitary group.

[17:57] Meg: Yeah, they do drills, and apparently I saw pictures of Robert when he was in it. He was kind of a fat kid, actually, which I was surprised by. But he did very well at the Knickerbocker. He liked all the discipline and the drills and stuff. But, yeah, it's hard to get into. Or it was once upon a time, I think around the '80s, it was probably less hard to get into. It had lost its sheen. But still, once you're in it, you're in it.

[18:22] Jessica: It was still a thing because it was also part of the cotillion world, and it fed into debutante world and Gold and Silver.

[18:33] Meg: Yes, it is definitely elite. We'll call it elite. She got him into the Gold and Silver Junior Committee, which he had no interest in whatsoever, because by that point, he was a bit dissultery. He was confirmed at St Thomas Moore under Ted McCarrick's sponsorship.

[18:53] Jessica: Is that a thing? So you have to explain to me if that's a big deal.

[18:57] Meg: Yeah, that's a big deal.

[18:58] Jessica: Okay. Why?

[18:59] Meg: Well, Ted McCarrick ended up being the Archbishop of Newark, and let's just put a pin in that. We will come back to Ted McCarrick.

[19:07] Jessica: All right.

[19:08] Meg: She got him into a bunch of great schools. St. David's, Choate, Browning, York Prep. Why so many, you may ask?

[19:22] Jessica: I would imagine if you start with Choate, there was some cocaine use.

[19:27] Meg: Yes. There was a big scandal at Choate in the '80s with cocaine. But in addition to that, Robert just didn't do his homework. So he was not asked back to Choate because of grades. But that is the first time that we start hearing about him having a cocaine problem. He was asked to leave Browning because he stole a teacher's purse.

[19:52] Jessica: Interestingly, the red headed Rubenstein twins were not asked to leave Browning, to the best of my knowledge. So we can only imagine what Robert was up to.

[20:02] Meg: Wow. Yeah. He was given a blank diploma at his York Prep graduation.

[20:09] Jessica: Ouch.

[20:11] Meg: Which brings up the question, why don't New York schools just expel kids? What's all this like, not asked back, asked to leave. It's like, they're expelled.

[20:22] Jessica: It's a rose by any other name.

[20:24] Meg: Right. I just think it's so funny. He was expelled. And it's about time we say this. He was exceptionally good looking.

[20:32] Jessica: He was ridiculously good looking.

[20:35] Meg: Yes. He had that JFK prep boy look. He's tall and strapping, 6'4" 190 he had dark, thick hair, piercing blue eyes. He pulled off the white polo Khaki Pant GQ look to a T. And this is an embarrassing story.

[20:58] Jessica: Oh, I'm so excited. Do I know this already?

[21:01] Meg: I don't think so. I'm going to share it with you, even though it definitely like, you're probably going to not look at me in the same way anymore.

[21:09] Jessica: Oh, I already look at you terribly. Don't worry.

[21:12] Meg: I spotted him walking down the street one day, and I just followed him. I followed him for a number of blocks.

[21:24] Jessica: What?

[21:25] Meg: I know. It was like a Pied Piper effect.

[21:28] Jessica: Oh, my God. Wait, what year was it?

[21:31] Meg: Well, obviously before '86.

[21:33] Jessica: He was so good looking that you were hypnotized?

[21:37] Meg: Well, I knew who he was, and God knows he never gave me the time of day in any of the bars. But when I saw him walking down the street, I was like, oh, my gosh, it's him. Oh, my gosh, it's him. As though he were like Paul McCartney or something.

[21:51] Jessica: Alé and I had that with a boy named Richard Adams who lived on East End Avenue, so I can't fault you.

[21:57] Meg: Okay, thank you. It's so embarrassing. I bet your Adams guy wasn't a murderer, though.

[22:02] Jessica: No, a ne'er-do-well, but not a murderer.

[22:07] Meg: God, it's a little embarrassing. Anyway, he seemed quiet and mysterious, kind of a loner. He'd sit alone at the bar when the place was packed.

[22:19] Jessica: Meaning Dorrian's.

[22:20] Meg: Yeah. Turns out he had a raging drug habit, pot and cocaine. Which may be why he seemed like an introvert. He was just stoned, but from the outside, he just looked like he was brooding.

[22:36] Jessica: Well, again, that's the curse of being a teenager. You have no ability to analyze what's going on around you. You've got zero instinct, so.

[22:46] Meg: To finance his drug habit, he started stealing from his friends. He'd rip them off at the parties people had in their parents' apartments. He'd steal the parents stuff, too, and sell it. Now, this isn't normal teenage stuff anymore, right?

[23:02] Jessica: Now it's a felony.

[23:04] Meg: Yeah, everyone kind of knew what he was up to, but nobody called him out on it. Like, nobody wanted to be like, but they did say, like, maybe we shouldn't invite Robert to this party. And then someone would say, like, what are you talking about? Of course we have to invite him.

[23:18] Jessica: Peer pressure.

[23:19] Meg: Yeah. He and his friend David Fillyaw had a system. Robert would get the doorman to let him into the buildings on Park or Fifth or Central Park West. He'd tell them he was going to a friend's apartment. Then he'd try a bunch of doors until he got in one, steal jewelry and furs, and dropped them out the back window into the air shaft to David, who was waiting below because David was black and would not have been able to sweet talk the doorman.

[23:49] Jessica: That encapsulates so much of the social ills of the time.

[23:55] Meg: Right? I mean, just that little story.

[23:58] Jessica: Unbelievable.

[23:59] Meg: When Robert accidentally left his ID on the fire escape of one place,

[24:02] Jessica: Robert!

[24:05] Meg: He managed to talk his way out of it. Cool as a cucumber.

[24:12] Jessica: You know why? Because people like pretty people.

[24:15] Meg: Yes, this is true. And by the way, we're going to revisit David Fillyaw. We'll put a pen in him too.

[24:24] Jessica: Okay?

[24:24] Meg: We'll talk about him probably in our next episode.

[24:28] Jessica: I just want to highlight, we're racking up some syndromes here. We have imposter syndrome and we have to do this research. What is it called that pretty people get away with pretty much everything.

[24:42] Meg: Robert would also steal credit cards from his friends. He and his friend Ralph Destino Jr. Took one girl's credit card to Fifth Avenue and spent $3,000 at stores like Bergdorf's and Saks. Her mother figured out what had happened and confronted Robert's parents. Phyllis begged her not to go to the police, told her about Robert's debilitating drug problem, and promised to send him to rehab. Ralph Destino Sr., the father of the kid, was the president of Cartier.

[25:19] Jessica: What?

[25:20] Meg: And he paid the $3,000 credit card bill.

[25:25] Jessica: Okay, that's really juicy. Oh my God.

[25:29] Meg: Incidentally, I should say Robert's father went to rehab in the early '80s, and it actually took he came back to New York City, stopped going to Shehan's, and he split from Phyllis. So I don't know if they got divorced divorced, but they were definitely separated.

[25:46] Jessica: Interesting.

[25:46] Meg: But his relationship to Robert did not warm up, unfortunately. So Phyllis and Robert Senior, because even though they're separated, she calls him up and says, we got a problem. And just one note about Phyllis, there's a lot of chatter out there. That because she wanted something for her son, that she was demanding and she turned him into the person that he was.

[26:17] Jessica: Oh, that's nonsense.

[26:19] Meg: I would like to say screw that. She was a disciplinarian. She was not a perfect person. She did her best, what she felt was the best for her son, she did not create that monster.

[26:29] Jessica: Being pushy, strict mother doesn't make you a murderer. Doesn't result in a murderer.

[26:35] Meg: Exactly.

[26:35] Jessica: So let's just do the math properly, shall we?

[26:39] Meg: The whole thing of blame the woman is going to definitely come up more in this story. And I would just begin by saying I don't like that. And we're certainly not going to blame Phyllis.

[26:50] Jessica: Duly noted.

[26:51] Meg: Alright, so Phyllis and Robert Senior sent Robert to Hazelden for a six month program in April 1986.

[27:02] Jessica: Really?

[27:03] Meg: Really? A six month program. Had he stayed the full six months, Jennifer would be alive today. But he didn't. He left and came back to the city.

[27:16] Jessica: How long did he stay in rehab?

[27:18] Meg: I couldn't get an exact amount of time.

[27:20] Jessica: Well when did he come back to the city?

[27:23] Meg: Nobody remembers exactly, but it was in the spring. So I'm going to make a calculated guess and say a month.

[27:30] Jessica: Yeah.

[27:30] Meg: Phyllis was very upset and wouldn't let him live in their two bedroom apartment at Eleven East 90th street. She arranged for him to have a servant's apartment in the basement of the building and a job helping the super. You know those rooms some apartment buildings have.

[27:49] Jessica: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[27:50] Meg: Do you want to talk about that at all? It's a holdover from I don't know, when the buildings were built. And they're small windowless apartments where the help lived. There you go. So he was living in one of those that summer.

[28:06] Jessica: By the way, those are now rented out as office space.

[28:09] Meg: That's better.

[28:10] Jessica: Just letting you know.

[28:11] Meg: That summer he was seeing at least two girls. Jennifer Levin and Alex Kapp. He and Jennifer had met at a mutual friend's party but he didn't remember meeting her because he was so stoned. But the second time they met, he said she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.

[28:30] Jessica: Love bombing.

[28:32] Meg: Totally. Right?

[28:33] Jessica: Yes.

[28:34] Meg: And they hooked up at least three times over the summer at his mom's and at their friend's parents' places. So they had friends who were like well, my parents are out of town. You can use their room.

[28:46] Jessica: But he had his own apartment. What was this nonsense about using people's apartments? That's crazy.

[28:52] Meg: Yeah. I hadn't even thought about that. I mean, apartment. He had his own closet. Jennifer was having a great summer. She was seeing a few guys, including Brock Pernice, who she'd been dating on and off throughout high school.

[29:07] Jessica: Okay. Timeout.

[29:07] Meg: Yeah.

[29:08] Jessica: Has anyone really great ever been named Brock?

[29:13] Meg: Yes. Brock Pernice.

[29:15] Jessica: Oh, really?

[29:15] Meg: It's a person. He's a guy.

[29:17] Jessica: No, I know that. I'm just saying Brock is one of those names where one gets concerned. I suppose my association is that rapist?

[29:29] Meg: Oh, God, let's not do that. Because...

[29:30] Jessica: This one was a good one.

[29:33] Meg: Apparently super sweet guy. Really nice.

[29:37] Jessica: Dear Brock Purnice, I apologize. Love, Jess.

[29:42] Meg: Alex Kapp. The other girl. One of the other girls. We don't know how many people Robert was seeing but one of the other girls Robert was seeing that summer was younger than Robert and Jennifer, she was going into her senior year at Chapin. Robert had swept her off her feet earlier that year.

[29:59] Jessica: So Robert and Jennifer, they had just graduated.

[30:03] Meg: Yes.

[30:04] Jessica: Okay.

[30:05] Meg: Right. And Alex is a year younger. She's our year.

[30:08] Jessica: Yeah.

[30:09] Meg: He kept staring at her at Dorian's, and finally told her she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.

[30:17] Jessica: Son has a line.

[30:19] Meg: And it worked. He was her first love, and she thought they were exclusive.

[30:26] Jessica: Don't we always?

[30:30] Meg: When he got back from Hazelden, he told her he'd just been visiting an aunt and they resumed their relationship. On Sunday, August 24, he slept over at her apartment. Alex's parents were out of town and they thought she was sleeping at a friend's place. Suddenly, at 02:00 A.M., he got up to leave. He said he had to get home and did she have money for a cab? She said she had a five dollar bill and a $50 bill her mother left her for the weekend. She told him to take the $5. When she checked her wallet later, both bills were gone.

[31:09] Jessica: Well, of course.

[31:10] Meg: When she called him to confront him about it, he said he hadn't taken either bill. She knew that was bullshit, right? She knew he'd stolen her money, and she told him to meet her at Dorian's at 08:00 P.M., very early. Usually people weren't showing up there until like, 10:30 or whatever. So she wanted to go when there wouldn't be a lot of people there so that they could have this important conversation and she could get to the bottom of it. Jennifer, in the meantime, has come into the city because she was in the Hamptons, partly because she wants to run into Robert. It will be the last time she has a chance to see him before she goes off to school.

[31:46] Jessica: So were they really dating? If she's just trying to run into him.

[31:49] Meg: She wants to just run into him. I mean, dating, seeing.

[31:52] Jessica: So they were hooking up.

[31:54] Meg: Yeah, but she really liked him.

[31:58] Jessica: I'm not saying anything about her or her choices. I'm just trying to understand the nature of the relationship. So they were hooking up.

[32:06] Meg: Yeah. And she wanted to hook up with him that night before she went back to school, before she went to Boston to go to school, she plans to sleep at Alex Legatta's house. And we're going to need to keep track of these two Alex's. We've got Alex LeGatta and we've got Alex Kapp. Alex LeGatta is Jennifer's very good friend, and Alex Kapp is Robert's girlfriend.

[32:29] Jessica: And is Alex LaGatta at school in the city, or where? Is she a Long Island person or a city person?

[32:37] Meg: Oh, no, she's definitely a city person.

[32:38] Jessica: Okay.

[32:39] Meg: Yeah. So she's going to sleep at Alex's place in the city. She borrows clothes from Alex LeGatta, a white camisole and a pink skirt. She grabs her jean jacket and puts in her cubic zirconia earrings, and the two of them head out to dinner with Alex's dad. After that, they meet friends at Juanita's and wind up at Dorian's at midnight. Alex Kapp has been at Dorian's since 8:00 P.M., waiting for Robert, who hasn't shown up. Fun fact, John Zaccaro, Geraldine Ferraro's son, is tending bar that night.

[33:15] Jessica: That's another thing to bring up, is that that whole scene, like the person who was on the door, our good friend Kerry, who was a collegiate student, so that whole scene, even the people who worked there were there to see and be seen.

[33:34] Meg: And also, I do think Jack Dorian really loved these kids and wanted to throw them a bone. I do think that.

[33:43] Jessica: Okay.

[33:43] Meg: All right. We'll talk more about Jack Dorian, obviously, clearly in this story, but John Zaccaro, Geraldine Ferraro's son, happened to be awaiting trial in Vermont for possessing and intending to sell cocaine.

[33:58] Jessica: Are you kidding me?

[33:59] Meg: No. And Jack Dorian gives him a job. I mean, he's throwing a bone to these guys who get in trouble. It's a thing. Robert shows up around midnight, too, but doesn't talk to Alex Kapp. Jennifer spots him and goes over to his table. She talks about her summer and her plans for the fall, but Robert blows her off. She tries again later, and again he's cold and rude. The third time she approaches, she tells him, you are the best sex I ever had. His response, you shouldn't have said that. In the meantime, Alex Kapp is super pissed. He's been so late, and then he doesn't even bother to come over. And then she spots him talking to Jennifer. Alex goes up to his table and throws a bunch of condoms at him, saying, use these with someone else because you're not going to get a chance to use them with me, and storms off. Everyone at Robert's table laughs, and he is noticeably embarrassed and upset. For the rest of the night, he ignores both Jennifer and Alex Kapp. Jennifer gets a friend to ask Robert to meet her outside, and Robert says, I don't want to deal with it. Alex LeGatta, Jennifer's friend, goes home at 02:30 A.M., telling Jennifer that she'll leave the keys under the mat. And a little after that, Jennifer sits down at Alex Kapp's table.

[35:27] Jessica: Do they know each other?

[35:29] Meg: No. They've never met.

[35:31] Jessica: Do we know what motivated her to sit down at that table? Did she know that she was with Robert? Did she know that she was with Robert?

[35:37] Meg: Did Jennifer know that Alex Capp was? Yes, Absolutely.

[35:40] Jessica: Got you. Okay.

[35:42] Meg: So she sits down and she gives Alex a friendship bracelet, and she says, I know this nice girl, and I want her boyfriend. Alex Kapp isn't sure what she means because Alex– turns out everybody knew that he was also hooking up with Jennifer except Alex. Like she's the last one to know. And she kind of felt like people were laughing at her when that happened. But she doesn't ask any follow up questions, and she leaves at 3:45.

[36:14] Jessica: That is so heartbreaking.

[36:16] Meg: Yeah.

[36:17] Jessica: On both sides, everybody.

[36:20] Meg: Dorian's has thinned out considerably by this time, and Robert finally approaches Jennifer at the bar. They talk for a bit, and then their friends watch them leave together at 4:30 A.M., and that is the end of chapter one of this saga.

[36:38] Jessica: You know, that end of chapter one reminds me so terribly of that feeling in your teens and 20s, when you're like, maybe it'll just happen if I sit around long enough, like that hope. It's that hope that's so sad.

[36:59] Meg: Should we take a break?

[37:01] Jessica: I need to refill my drink.

[37:03] Meg: Okay, great. Jessica, I realized I didn't say what my sources were, and that's kind of important.

[37:18] Jessica: That's so unlike you.

[37:20] Meg: I know. My sources are a New York Magazine article by Michael Stone, which is actually pretty controversial, and we'll talk about it later. So remember, I'm putting pins.

[37:32] Jessica: This is our third or fourth pin.

[37:34] Meg: Yeah. Lots of pins. I'll highlight them. I will definitely get back to them. The Truth about True Crime, which is a podcast by Amanda Knox, of all people.

[37:44] Jessica: Really?

[37:44] Meg: Yes. It's so well researched. She's so good.

[37:49] Jessica: That is so cool. I had no idea.

[37:52] Meg: Obsession by John Douglas, who we love. He's the guy who is the inspiration for Mind Hunter.

[38:01] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[38:01] Meg: He has theories. That's next week. I'm so excited. Wasted, which is a book by Linda Wolf and The Preppy Murder Death in Central Park, which is a very good documentary that came out in 2019 on this subject. But anyhow, are you ready for chapter two?

[38:26] Jessica: Yes.

[38:27] Meg: Okay. At 06:00, a.m. Tuesday morning, the 26th, Pat Riley, a mutual funds trader, rides her bike past Cleopatra's Needle behind the Met.

[38:41] Jessica: Cleopatra's Needle. Giant Egyptian obelisk. Right behind the Metropolitan Museum at around 82nd street in the Park.

[38:50] Meg: Thank you, Jessica, thank you. I was like Cleopatra's Needle, of course. No, that actually needs a little bit of a footnote. And she spots a contorted female body under a tree right behind the museum. She finally finds a working payphone because not only did we not have cell phones, but it was also kind of hard to find a payphone that worked. That was a thing.

[39:18] Jessica: Yes. Was that the beginning of dismantling them because of drug dealers and using beepers?

[39:23] Meg: Possibly. But she finds one at Madison in 90th. Good thing she had a bike!

[39:28] Jessica: And right around the corner from Robert Chambers' house, 11 East 90th.

[39:34] Meg: Interesting. Right, a block away.

[39:35] Jessica: See, I'm listening, Meg.

[39:37] Meg: Wow. And she calls 911, and then she returns to watch over the body. When police arrive at 621, there's a cluster of people at the stone wall looking on.

[39:50] Jessica: Oh, God, how grisly.

[39:53] Meg: Detective Mike Shehan.

[39:56] Jessica: No.

[39:57] Meg: Who grew up at his family's Yorkville bar, Shehan's, examines the body.

[40:00] Jessica: Get out of town. It really is a tiny village.

[40:06] Meg: It is a tiny village we live in. Jennifer is naked and completely exposed. Her shirt is bunched above her breasts at her neck, and her skirt is bunched at her waist. Her neck is covered in red bruises, and her face is dirty. Her left eye is swollen from some kind of impact. Her eyes have hemorrhages. Her teeth are loose. They're are half moon marks on her upper lip from her fingernails. Her pierced ears don't have earrings. And there's a tan line on her finger where a ring once was.

[40:47] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[40:49] Meg: At first, the police think she's been killed elsewhere and dumped until they find her panties 45ft north of the body, along with a lipstick case and a hair bow. Now, they believe the scuffle started there and then she ran or was dragged to the tree. Incidentally, there are not a lot of murders in Central Park.

[41:16] Jessica: Really?

[41:17] Meg: So far, in 1986, there was a homeless man near Lasker Pool, a gay man outside the Rambles, and a sex worker found in a garbage bag at the northernmost tip of the park. And in the springtime, a lot of bodies show up, like in the reservoir, because they've been dumped, but they haven't been killed in Central Park, they've been dumped. And then when the ice thaws, they surface.

[41:49] Jessica: Do we do a quick digression on what the Ramble is?

[41:53] Meg: Sure, go for it.

[41:54] Jessica: On the west side, right on the opposite side of the wall on Central Park West, there's a wooded area that was notoriously used by gay men as a hook up area.

[42:09] Meg: And it really is like walking through the forest.

[42:12] Jessica: Yeah, it is incredibly dense, like a dense thicket.

[42:17] Meg: Yes, I've been there a number of times, and I can get lost very easily.

[42:21] Jessica: Definitely. So it provided a lot of screening and privacy.

[42:25] Meg: Yes, true. The police find a Pierre Cardin wallet in her jean jacket with, listen to this, half a dollar bill.

[42:34] Jessica: That's weird.

[42:36] Meg: Yes. And some free passes to clubs, a pay stub from Flutie's, and a learner's permit with a 1968 birthdate and another ID with a 1964 birth date. Now they know who she is, and they visit Steve Levin at his office on Lafayette Street at 9:37 A.M. to deliver the catastrophic news. Then detectives escort Steve Levin home to Mercer, where the press is already waiting for them. In the meantime, Alex LeGatta had left a key for Jennifer under the mat. But when she didn't show up, she assumed Jennifer either went home or to Robert's. Unconcerned, she goes to the DMV to get her learners permit. When she gets home at 10:00 A.M., she calls Jennifer's private number. Did you have a private number? A private phone? Like a phone separate from your family's phone?

[43:35] Jessica: No.

[43:35] Meg: Me neither. And I friggin wanted one. But that was the thing. That was the closest thing that people had to, like, kind of what cell phones are now, where if your family got sick of your friends calling on the family line at all hours or whatever, they would probably cave and say, okay, you can have a private line, and then, oh, my God, you could talk to your friends till all hours of the night. Awesome. Didn't have one.

[44:04] Jessica: No, me neither. And I actually, in hindsight, I'm very glad that we were forced to speak to each other's parents.

[44:12] Meg: Oh, I liked that, too. It was very good training because it was the worst thing in the world. But you just had to suck it up and do it.

[44:21] Jessica: Sort of became like, hi, Mrs. MacCary. It's Jessica. Can I talk to–

[44:26] Meg: Hi, Jessica. How are you?

[44:28] Jessica: I'm fine, thank you. How are you?

[44:30] Meg: I'm okay.

[44:31] Jessica: Great. That's excellent.

[44:33] Meg: Do you want to talk to Meg?

[44:34] Jessica: I would really like that. Thank you.

[44:36] Meg: Hold on a minute. I'll see if she's here.

[44:38] Jessica: Bye, bye. Yeah, that was it. That was a great role play.

[44:42] Meg: I know.

[44:43] Jessica: Hm, improv.

[44:45] Meg: So Alex LeGatta calls Jennifer's private number. And when Jennifer's dad picks up and then detectives take the phone from him, she knows something is horribly wrong. The detectives say they are coming over to talk to her.

[45:06] Jessica: Oh, my God. She must have been just peeing in her pants.

[45:09] Meg: Freaking the fuck out. She calls Betsy, who stayed late at Dorian's later than Alex did. We haven't heard about Betsy yet. She stayed late at Dorian's. And then Betsy says, call Robert because Betsy stayed there late enough to see Jennifer and Robert at least talking to each other.

[45:33] Jessica: Good Lord.

[45:34] Meg: And Robert picks up the phone and tells Alex that Jennifer probably went to Brock's place. But Alex knows Brock is still on Long Island. When the detectives show up to Alex's, she tells them all of this. She tells them absolutely everything she knows and gives them a whole list of names and contacts and everything. And the detectives go to talk to Robert. When Robert meets the detectives, he has deep scratches on his face and his fifth metacarpal on his hand is busted up. That's typically called a boxer's injury, by the way.

[46:19] Jessica: Fifth metacarpal is what?

[46:22] Meg: Middle finger. Yeah.

[46:23] Jessica: Okay.

[46:24] Meg: Immediately suspicious, they tell him that Jennifer is missing, and they asked him to come into the Central Park Precinct to help them. Do you have an image of the Central Park Precinct?

[46:36] Jessica: I do.

[46:36] Meg: It's so weird. Do you want to describe it?

[46:38] Jessica: I always think about it, actually, from the backside of it on 79th street on the transverse, exactly. Where you're like, what is this forbidding, weird, Victorian brick thing? But if you come at it from the other end, which is really from the Bridal path side, because they had the police horses stabled there, it looks like a low structure, like a one story, like in a U-shaped sort of Victorian structure.

[47:14] Meg: So he agrees. Robert agrees. And before he leaves his home, he calls Alex Kapp and says, quote, it's been a bad day and it's going to get a lot worse. He tells Alex Kapp he'll meet her at her place in a couple of hours.

[47:31] Jessica: Oh, dear.

[47:32] Meg: At the precinct, they read him his rights immediately, but he declines a lawyer and launches into story number one. They had sex. He and Jennifer had sex earlier in the summer, and that night he saw her at Dorian's, but they didn't leave together. The last time he saw her was in the Dorian's vestibule, which you can picture.

[47:55] Jessica: Wwhich is what, the size of a postage stamp?

[47:58] Meg: Yeah, but there is like a little vestibule there. And she said she was going to get cigarettes at the Korean deli across the street. Do you want to talk about Korean delis? Just very briefly. I mean, basically–

[48:10] Jessica: In New York City, there are two kinds of convenience stores. In the suburbs, there's a 7/11 or a Circle K. I only know that from Bill and Ted's.

[48:22] Meg: Okay.

[48:22] Jessica: But in New York City, you have bodegas, which we've discussed and people know from SNL, from John Mulaney's hilarious bodega cat skit. And there's Korean delis. And there is a proliferation of those in the '80s.

[48:48] Meg: I think we called bodegas Korean delis.

[48:48] Jessica: No. There's Spanish run bodegas. And then when there was a big influx of Korean immigrants, they all helped one another up into the community with this network of Korean delis.

[49:05] Meg: But it's the same thing, though. It is a bodega.

[49:07] Jessica: It's exactly the same thing.

[49:10] Meg: It's the same thing. It's just–

[49:11] Jessica: Culturally different. Like, a bodega is where people in the community hang out, and the Korean deli is more like it's treated more like a convenience store, and they're flowers outside and that kind of stuff.

[49:27] Meg: And they're on practically every corner.

[49:30] Jessica: Okay.

[49:31] Meg: Then Robert says, okay, so he says, oh, she went to the Korean deli across the street to get cigarettes. And then he says, maybe she went to Brock Pernice's. When they asked him about the scratches on his face, he says he was throwing his cat up in the air and it scratched him.

[49:48] Jessica: This is like the people who go into the E.R. who have clearly been shot in the genitals by a crazed, rightfully incensed spouse or a lover, and they're like, I was playing with a knife and jumping on the bed and it happened to stab me through the dick. What? That's a real thing, by the way, my friend, a urologist was like, let me tell you the number of things that come into the E.R. that have happened to people's penises that are absolutely ridiculous. My favorite, by the way, being the one who had a shotgun to the groin, who then put his pants on afterwards and said that he had shot himself. It's like, but, sir, your pants are intact.

[50:40] Meg: Also, who the hell throws a cat up in the air?

[50:42] Jessica: This is my point. It's completely like but that's like, let me take the cat away. No cat for you. No cat for you. Not allowed.

[50:53] Meg: And the deep gouge on his right hand.

[50:56] Jessica: It was the cat!

[50:57] Meg: No, this is from sanding floors.

[51:00] Jessica: By sanding, did he mean punching floors? Robert? Robert. So that's the other thing about being a teenager. Let's just quickly insert this into this narrative. Teenagers are dumb. They're really dumb. They don't realize that whatever lie they're coming up with is so incredibly transparent.

[51:18] Meg: Well, it's interesting, too, because he's talking to these very seasoned detectives, Mike Shehan in particular, who had been around the block just a few times.

[51:28] Jessica: This is my point.

[51:34] Meg: Who are like, that is bullshit. Okay. In the meantime, Phyllis calls Jack Dorrian.

[51:40] Jessica: Interesting.

[51:41] Meg: Who tells her, because she didn't know this, that a dead girl was found in Central Park. And Phyllis asks, what has Robert got to do with that? And Jack Dorian says, I hope to God, nothing.

[51:54] Jessica: So wait, quick rewind. Why did she call Jack Dorian?

[51:59] Meg: Apparently, she tried to track Robert down every once in a while, and she knew that Dorian was a place she could track him down.

[52:06] Jessica: Got it. Okay.

[52:07] Meg: Now she knows that he's gone to the precinct.

[52:11] Jessica: Okay.

[52:12] Meg: She was there that morning when he left with the detectives. But she's just trying to find out what's going on. She's trying to talk to people.

[52:20] Jessica: And she doesn't go with her son to the precinct.

[52:23] Meg: She's going to work. This woman works all the time at this point. She's working for the Hammersteins. She actually is the caretaker for a very old, fragile lady. She can't just like, take off work. That doesn't happen. Also. She doesn't know if it's, she doesn't know what's happening. She calls Jack Duran to find out. By the way, do you know what's happening? And as it turns out, he knows a little bit more than she does.

[52:48] Jessica: Okay.

[52:49] Meg: For 4 hours, Robert is polite and cooperative and very calm and doesn't change his story. Very calm in the face of these seasoned detectives, which I think is very interesting. When they tell him Jennifer isn't missing, she is dead, he acts surprised and asks how she died. Detective Mike Shehan spends some time at this point bonding with Robert over neighborhood stuff. They both grew up in the same neighborhood. Mike went to Xavier. Little do they know at this point, but they're going to figure it out later that Robert's dad spent most of his pre-rehab time at Shehan's Bar. The strange thing for Mike Shehan was like, he never mentioned he had a son. He would complain about his wife all the time, but he never mentioned he had his son.

[53:41] Jessica: That is sad

[53:42] Meg: When they tell Robert that Jennifer doesn't smoke, so much for the Korean deli story. Robert finally admits that they did leave together. And as far as those scratches, quote, this is from the detectives. You realize that there are people who can tell the difference between wounds caused by animals and wounds caused by humans. Robert finally caves. Quote, I got the wounds from Jennifer. His second story, so now we're in story number two, makes even less sense. He says they walked towards the park along 86th street. He told Jennifer he didn't want to see her anymore. And apparently in a fit of rage, she scratched his face on the corner of 86th and Lex. Then he changed it to 86th and Park. Then he said, quote, we were in the Park. Quote, she freaked out and she just got up and knelt in front of me and scratched my face. I have these marks here. I got all upset and I stood up and I was saying, I'm going to go, I'm going to go. This is crazy. Apparently she was nice then and said she needed to pee. And after she peed, like in the bushes, he says she came back. Quote, she came up behind me and was giving me a massage. And she said, you look cute, but you'd look cuter tied up. And then he said she tied his hands behind his back with her panties, pushed him flat on the ground, sat on his chest with her back to him. Quote, she started to take off my pants. She started to play with me. She started to jerk me off. She was doing it really hard. It really hurt me. And I started to say, stop it, stop it. It hurts. She kind of laughed in a weird way, like more of a cackle or something. And then she sat up and she, like, sat on my face. And then she dug her nails into my chest. I have scratches right here. At this point, he takes his shirt off. It was non stop. She was just having her way. And then she squeezed my balls, and I just couldn't take it. So I was wiggling around, wiggling around, and she was leaning forward, jerking me off and squeezing my balls and laughing. And I managed to get my left hand free, so I kind of sat up a little and just grabbed at her. It was just really quick. She just flipped over and then landed, and she was kind of twisted on the tree on her side. I stood there for, like, ten minutes, waiting maybe five minutes, I don't know how long, trying to see if she'd move, if she's just trying to, you know, scare me. At this point, he makes it very clear that he was erect during the incident, but that he didn't have sex with her. He says he sat on a bench across the street and watched as the police arrived. And then he went home and he fell asleep. He said, quote, she molested me in the park. I never slapped her or punched her or anything. I've told you exactly what happened. I'm sure that I've heard of other men being raped, other men being tied up. And then he said, quote, I liked her very much. She was a nice person. She was just too pushy. And she liked me more than I thought, more than anyone actually thought. After Mike Shehan checked Robert's penis and balls to see if there was any trauma, there wasn't, Robert left for Central Booking at 02:00 A.M., and that is the end of chapter two.

[57:36] Jessica: I have so many things to say.

[57:38] Meg: Can I say one thing that if I do not say this, I will kill myself. I'll be really, really, really mad at myself.

[57:44] Jessica: Yes.

[57:45] Meg: This is another hearken back to one of our episodes. He's trying to describe what he thinks a chokehold is. He's trying to say that she died when he was doing one of these chokeholds that police use when suddenly somebody dies like that, which I think is interesting and also of the times, right?

[58:11] Jessica: Yeah. I mean, listening to it. I've read this before, but I haven't listened to someone say it. And listening to you, I'm just like, oh, this is another typical thing. He's describing what he did to her, but he's just flipping it. The molesting, the violence, the outbursts. I mean, let's think about it. So he's a drug addict. He's probably been doing coke for part of the night because we know that Hazelden didn't exactly stick. Those outbursts and the violence and then the sudden remorse and the hyper sexuality and all of that, it just sounds like he's describing exactly what he would do.

[59:03] Meg: Well, it's interesting. I won't talk about my theories until the next episode, but I will say that what he described does not line up in any way at all to the wounds that were on her. Not only does it not make sense, like, literally, logical sense at all, what he's saying, it's like, what are you talking about? Her body is the evidence of what happened, and what he's saying does not in any way line up.

[59:43] Jessica: No, of course not.

[59:45] Meg: Yeah.

[59:46] Jessica: It's pretty hard to explain away the ligature on her neck and all of that. The punch to the face.

[59:54] Meg: The punch to the face, right. And also, I want you to just take note that her jewelry was missing.

[01:00:02] Jessica: Yes. I'm bringing this back around like you are to the... this is someone who's been stealing things to feed a drug habit.

[01:00:10] Meg: I mean what the hell?

[01:00:11] Jessica: He must have been really pissed off when he found out those were cubic zirconia earrings and not diamonds.

[01:00:19] Meg: So he sat across the street and watched and remember how she was found completely exposed.

[01:00:27] Jessica: Yes.

[01:00:27] Meg: Some murders, if there is, like, just a little bit of remorse, they cover their faces or something because there's a little bit of remorse. This was the opposite of that. I'm sorry. What the fuck?

[01:00:43] Jessica: Well, we know he's a pretty bad guy, so let's get to next week's episode. And I'm getting excited to break down the definition and the symptoms or qualifications of sociopathy and a few other DSM Five specials.

[01:01:03] Meg: We're leaving it here where he's been arrested. And next week we will talk about the trial, which was a whole other kettle of fish.

[01:01:13] Jessica: The aftermath.

[01:01:14] Meg: The aftermath.

[01:01:15] Jessica: Well, this was interesting and fun to have a conversation.

[01:01:19] Meg: Yeah.

[01:01:20] Jessica: Instead of simply the 50/50 split.

[01:01:21] Meg: I enjoyed it.

[01:01:22] Jessica: I enjoyed it, too.

[01:01:24] Meg: All right, let's just pause for one second and then do a quick closer and...

[01:01:41] Jessica: Yes. All right, Meg, we've had a few requests because we do so much self referencing, and we talk about our other episodes within our episodes. So I know that happened today. Why don't you tell us what we've referred to today?

[01:01:55] Meg: Today, we referred to episode number four, Lisa's House of Horrors and The Bar that Jack Built, which is a great conversation about Dorian's. And episode number 23, Police Porn and Gangs of New York. Yorkville. And episode number 27, which was just last week's episode, Hell on the L-Train and Big Apple Sparks Out, that talks about chokeholds.

[01:02:22] Jessica: All right, well, this was part one. Part one of our very special episode, back to school. And tune in next week for the riveting conclusions.

[01:02:34] Meg: Chapter three and chapter four.