By day, Central Park is 843 acres of bucolic splendor in the midst of the city. But by night, the park has frequently become the setting for unspeakable horror.
The Sunday-night murder of Matthew Herman was the first homicide in the park this year. There have been no rapes there this year, and crime is down 42 percent from last year.
But the perception of the park as a dark, foreboding place after nightfall has been fixed into the minds of most New Yorkers ever since the preppie-case murder of Jennifer Levin in August 1986 and the brutal rape and beating of a jogger three years later.
That attack put the work “wilding” into the urban lexicon.
Following is a list of serious crimes in Central Park, beginning with Levin’s murder.
1. Aug. 26, 1986: Eighteen-year-old Jennifer Levin is strangled by so-called Preppie Killer Robert Chambers, a man she’d met earlier at an Upper East Side bar. Chambers claimed at trial that he was merely defending himself during rough sex. He is serving a five-to-15 year sentence.
2. April 19, 1989: A 28-year-old Wall Street banker, who became known as the “Central Park Jogger,” is raped and beaten by a roaming gang of youths near East 102nd Street. Five teens were sentenced to five-to-10 year terms.
3. June 13 – Oct. 15, 1994: Eight women are raped in various locations.
4. Sept. 17, 1995: Maria Isabel Monteiro Alves is killed during an early-morning jog in the northeast corner of the park.
5. June 4, 1996: A 32-year-old piano teacher is beaten during an attempted rape near the Diana Ross Playground. John Royster later confesses.
6. June 16, 1996: A homeless woman is raped as she sleeps near Wollman Rink.
7. May 23, 1997: Babyface butchers Daphne Abdela and Chris Vasquez kill drinking buddy Michael McMorrow and toss his body in The Lake.
8. Sept. 19, 1998: Jose Soriano of Harlem is fatally stabbed near East 79th Street.
9. Oct. 10, 1998: A would-be robber grabs a 6-year-old boy and holds a screwdriver to his neck while the youngster’s family watches in horror. The father chases off the suspect.
10. May 3, 1999: A 23-year-old woman walking her dog is the victim of an attempted rape at 5 a.m. She’s also robbed. A 15-year-old boy is arrested for the crime.