I. Introduction: A Tale of Two Youths and a City in Flux In the late summer of 1986, the city of New York, already grappling with the excesses and anxieties of the decade, was captivated and horrified by a crime that seemed to crystallize its deepest social fissures. The brutal strangulation of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in Central Park and the subsequent arrest of 19-year-old Robert Chambers became more than just another homicide in a city that recorded over 1,500 that year. It became a media-fueled saga of class, sex, and privilege, immediately branded “The Preppie Murder”. This moniker, however, proved