The former girlfriend of Preppy Killer Robert Chambers is breaking her silence about their relationship as a docuseries airing on Sundance and AMC takes a new look at the infamous murder.
Alex Kapp, who many would later come to know from her role opposite Julia Louios-Dreyfus on The New Adventures of Old Christine, was with Chambers in the days and hours before he killed Jennifer Levin on August 26, 1986.
In an exclusive clip from her two-part interview, which will begin airing tonight on the syndicated show All Access, Kapp reveals the moment when the spell of young love was broken by the realization that her Prince Charming was a cold-blooded killer.
‘I looked under the desk and he had newspapers piled up from the floor all the way to the other side of the desk. And I was joking and I said, “Oh well, the good news is I guess you finally got what you wanted . You got to be famous,”‘ says Kapp.
‘And he looked at me and he had this look on his face like it was a smirk or a smile and he didn’t say a word. And in that very split second I just froze and knew: Oh my god, he murdered this girl.’
Her initial shock quickly turned into something else though according to Kapp – fear.
‘I’ve never felt so strongly anything in my life, probably ever, than when I thought in that moment I got to get out of here,’ reveals Kapp.
Speaking out: Robert Chambers’ ex-girlfriend Alex Kapp (above) sat down for a two-part interview which will begin airing tonight on the syndicated show All Access
Back in the day: Kapp (above circa 1986) is featured in the new AMC and Sundance docuseries The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park, about her then-boyfriend’s 1986 trial
Defense: Chambers (left) said that Jennifer Levin (right) tied up his hands with her underwear and began to stimulate his genitals in the park as she demanded ‘rough sex’
‘I was like, “Oh my god! I could be dead in 5 seconds,”‘ remembers Kapp.
‘For some reason something shifted in that look in his eye. There was no remorse, there was no like, “yeah, I’m saving all these newspapers about myself.” It’s insane.’
She then began to try and get herself out of the apartment while also making sure to not let Chambers now she was terrified for her life.
‘I sort of stood up, backed out of the room, opened the door. He gets up with me,’ says Kapp.
‘I walk out of the living room, press the elevator button and you know I’m trying to seem relaxed and cool.’
Kapp says that she was able to exit without incident, but the entire time imagined that Chambers might shove his hand into the elevator just as the doors were closing, and possibly do to her what she now ‘knew’ he did to Levin.
She speaks more about her time with Chambers in the lead-up to the death of Levin on Thursday night’s episodes of The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park, airing on Sundance and AMC at 9/8 central.
‘The night before the murder he spent the night. My parents had gone on vacation and it was the end of summer,’ revels Kapp.
‘I was supposed to be staying with friends. I did not stay with friends, I stayed in my own apartment alone with him. I felt very grown up.’
On that night, Kapp says that Chambers bolted out of bed around 2am and said he had to go, asking her for cab money.
She told him that there was a five and a fifty dollar bill in her wallet, and to take the five.
Instead, according to Kapp, he took all her money. And when she called to confront him, he told her that he had not taken any of the money.
‘He just stole money out of my wallet and it wall hit my in a terrifying way. Like I was scared,’ recalls Kapp.
She decided to confront him hours before he killed Levin, at the same bar where he would meet up with his victim, Dorrian’s.
‘He said he would meet me at 8, but he was late,’ remembers Kapp.
It was while waiting that she was approached by a girl who gave her a friendship bracelet, a move that she found to be odd and borderline offensive at the time, as if she were being mocked.
That girl was Jennifer Levin.
Chambers eventually arrived around 11pm says Kapp, and ignored her as he walked into the bar, causing her to snap.
‘I took the condoms [i had with me] and I threw them in his face,’ says Kapp.
‘You just lied to me, you stole from me, screw you,’ she remembers telling him at the time.
Chambers did not react well according to Kapp, who comments: ‘He was mad and embarrassed. He did not like that.’
Some of those in attendance and others who heard about the incident would later blame Kapp for the death of Levin.
‘After the murder, about 50 percent of the people said if it hadn’t been for you he wouldn’t have snapped,’ recalls Kapp.
‘It was terrible to feel in some way that i had some responsibility for this.’
Time has taught her however to disregard that notion, and be grateful she did not suffer a similar fate.
‘It wasn’t the circumstances that led him to kill her,’ states Kapp.
Onwards and upwards: Kapp, who many now know from her role alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus on The New Adventures of Old Christine (above), recalls the moment she knew Chambers was a killer
Youth: Kapp (above circa 1986) remembers being in his apartment and seeing he had all the newspaper clippings that mentioned him, saying she feared she would be his next victim
Sign of the times: Once Chambrs got his hands free he tossed Levin off and him and killer her he would claim, a defense that was good enough to only get him convicted of manslaughter in the end
Chambers initially told police that he had seen Levin at the end of the night outside the bar, but that the two parted ways shortly after saying their goodbyes.
It was when police presented him with the fact that eyewitnesses had seen the two walking off together that his story began to change, and he told police that not only did he andLevin go to Central Park that night but it was also him who killed the teenager.
He claimed that Levin had asked him for ‘rough sex,’ and then tied his hands with her underpants when stimulating his genitals.
At one point things got too rough said Chambers, who was more than a foot taller than his victim at 6’5″ and had over 100lbs on the teen.
He claimed that after managing to untie his hands he threw Levin off his body, and that she was killed when she struck the ground.
Police then informed Chambers that he would be booked, but did allow him to see his parents before he was sent off to jail.
When he saw his father, he said: ‘That f***ing b****, why didn’t she leave me alone?’
In the lead-up to his trial, Chambers’ face was splashed across the papers and his detailed allegations were printed in full.
He was also out and about in the lead-up to his trial, after Archbishop Theodore Edgar McCarrick wrote a letter in support of his bail application.
Chambers faced two second-degree murder charges at trial, during which the prosecutors were not able to present evidence they had uncovered linking Chambers to more than 30 robberies.
It turned out that he had been stealing for some time to fund his cocaine addiction, after being kicked out of Boston University following just one semester at the institution.
The defense meanwhile presented Levin as a promiscuous young women despite no evidence to support this beyond the fact that she was a popular student.
This was enough to deadlock the jury however, and after nine days with no decision, Chambers and his attorneys agreed to enter a guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter and burglary.
He was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison, and ultimately ended up serving out the full term and and extra time for his infractions behind bars.
Chambers would maintain even after his release that he strangled Levin to stop her from hurting him during ‘rough sex.’