American Notes NEW YORK CITY

The defendant, Robert Chambers, 21, is 6 ft. 4 in. and 220 lbs. His victim, Jennifer Levin, 18, was 5 ft. 7 in. and 120 lbs. Yet when Chambers was arrested for killing Levin in August 1986, he claimed that the girl's death was her own fault: she hurt him so badly during a kinky sex act, said Chambers, that he inadvertently struck her, crushing her windpipe. Chambers had met Levin in an Upper East Side bar; later they went to Central Park, where her battered, partially nude body was discovered. The "preppie murder" drew national attention to underage drinking and sex in New York's prep school set.

Last week, at the opening of Chambers' trial, angry demonstrators protested what they called the defense's "blame the victim" strategy. Prosecuting Attorney Linda Fairstein, labeling Chambers a "consummate liar," promised to introduce evidence that the couple did not have intercourse. "There was no sex," she told the jury. "Only death." If convicted of second-degree murder, Chambers faces a possible life sentence.