This episode was originally released in October 2019, and is one of seventeen episodes from the archives we’ll be bringing you every Thursday, now through top of next year... for good reason! ;) We highly recommend you listen to each episode and follow us on Instagram @crimejunkiepodcast so you're the first to know what's coming next! <3
Duration
53m
Broadcast on
12 Dec 2024
Audio Format
other
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
This episode was originally released in October 2019, and is one of seventeen episodes from the archives we’ll be bringing you every Thursday, now through top of next year.. for good reason! ;) We highly recommend you listen to each episode and follow us on Instagram @crimejunkiepodcast so you're the first to know what's coming next! <3
When Jennifer Levin is found murdered in Central Park in 1986, one of her private school friends is arrested for the crime. This catalyzes bitter debates about sex, privilege, legal ethics, parental responsibility, socioeconomics, victim's rights, and so much more. Before there was the OJ Simpson trial, there was the Preppy Murder.
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"Hi, crime junkies, it's Britt, and we are heading back to the Big Apple, New York City, and we can't wait to get back here in person soon. There's truly nothing like walking the streets of Times Square, seeing the Statue of Liberty, or crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. But as we all know, danger likes to hide in beautiful places, including the concrete jungle. So today, we're going back to October 2019 when we first told you the story of how in 1986, danger found its way to Central Park." Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Britt, and the story I have for you today is a time capsule. We are going back to New York City in 1986, where one case went from a local homicide to a media firestorm all across America. And though this is far from our first episode, there is a first here. The team over at AMC reached out to us to collaborate on this episode. They asked us to watch their upcoming docuseries called the Preppy Murder Death in Central Park, and use it as our source material to tell you guys about this case. So if you get as enthralled in this story as I did, you can watch the five-part series on AMC and Sundance channel over three consecutive nights starting Wednesday, November 13th, at 9 p.m. Eastern. And I'm telling you, you're going to be so invested because this case horrified and captivated the public while setting off bitter debates about sex, privilege, legal ethics, parental responsibility, socioeconomic victims' rights, and so much more. It was before there was the O.J. Simpson trial, there was the Preppy Murder. [Music] Our story begins in the early morning hours of August 26, 1986, a woman named Pat Riley is on her bike riding through Central Park on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. As she's riding along, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, something catches her eye. It looks like a young woman who's laying under a tree. Instantly, Pat knows something is wrong. She can tell just by the way the woman's body is positioned. It doesn't feel right. She's got one leg up, one arm up, and as she gets closer to the woman, she can tell that she isn't moving and all of her jewelry is missing. Horrified, Pat hurries to call police, and by six o'clock in the morning, the area is swarming with law enforcement. They cordon off a large area all around the body and instantly start to work on figuring out who their victim is and what happened to her. As they survey her body, they see vicious red marks around her neck and bruises on her face that are so bad one of her eyes has been swollen shut. Her blouse and her bra are pushed up over her breasts and her skirt has been hiked up to reveal that she isn't wearing any underwear. It's a grim, grim scene, but police react accordingly. They shut down the entrances and exits, not just to the park, but to the entire city, all bridges, all tunnels, everything. By the time morning rush hour is over, the woman in the park is positively identified as 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. McGee Hickey, who was a reporter who actually covered this case in the story, said, "If something happens in Central Park to a white person in the 1980s, everybody pays attention to it." And he went on to say that basically back then in the '80s, murder was basically like
Transcription truncated.
This episode was originally released in October 2019, and is one of seventeen episodes from the archives we’ll be bringing you every Thursday, now through top of next year... for good reason! ;) We highly recommend you listen to each episode and follow us on Instagram @crimejunkiepodcast so you're the first to know what's coming next! <3
