Manhunt Leads To Two Arrests In Levin Killing
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After an intensive manhunt for the killers of Jonathan M. Levin, an adored high school teacher who was the son of a leading media executive, the police arrested two men yesterday in his murder, a former student with a history of drug arrests and a career thief. Corey Arthur, 19, who met Mr. Levin as a student at Taft High School in the Bronx before being sent to prison for drug possession, was tracked down at a housing project apartment in Brooklyn at 1:30 P.M., less than 24 hours after police officials identified him as the prime suspect in the slaying. The second man, 25-year-old Montoun T. Hart, who has seven prior arrests for robbery and larceny, was arrested early yesterday morning, and provided the police with some details of the May 30 murder, according to investigators familiar with the case. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, announcing the arrests last night, said both men would be charged with robbery and murder. Police Commissioner Howard Safir said, ”Everybody who was involved in this robbery is in custody.” He said the police believe that robbery was the motive in the murder of Mr. Levin, the 31-year-old son of Gerald M. Levin, the chairman and chief executive of Time Warner. Mr. Levin’s body was found in his apartment on the Upper West Side last Monday, a fatal gunshot wound in the back of his head and his hands and feet bound with duct tape. Mr. Safir said the two suspects were friends who ”knew each other for a while.” He said it did not appear that Mr. Hart knew Mr. Levin. Mr. Arthur was arrested three times in 1994 for drug possession and spent seven months at a shock incarceration program in upstate New York before being paroled. Mr. Hart had been arrested twice for robbery in New York and five times for larceny in Pennsylvania. Mr. Arthur appeared to have used his friendship with his former teacher to gain access to Mr. Levin’s apartment under the guise of making a visit, and then was aided by Mr. Hart in carrying out the robbery and murder. Police sources said they believed the two men subdued and bound Mr. Levin, then tortured him by slashing him with a knife until he revealed the code number for his automatic bank teller card. As one of them scurried to an automatic teller machine, the other waited in the apartment to see if the access code was correct, police sources said. Police officials said last night that they believe Mr. Arthur fired the fatal shot. He will be charged with first-degree murder, they said, and Mr. Hart will be charged with second-degree murder. The police focused the investigation on Mr. Arthur after finding a fingerprint matching his on a roll of duct tape and also because he left his name on Mr. Levin’s answering machine when he called the day of the murder, to arrange to see Mr. Levin. Also, last week, Mr. Arthur tried to use one of Mr. Levin’s credit cards. Mr. Giuliani said ”hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of detectives were involved in this investigation.” And Mr. Safir said that Mr. Hart was found at his mother’s house in Brownsville, Brooklyn,through ”good old-fashioned police work,” which he declined to elaborate on. The police were led to Mr. Arthur by a call to a police TIPS line. He was found alone in apartment 8B of the Sumner Houses, a housing project on Lewis Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, after the police had spent a hectic day chasing reports that their suspect was at various locations in his neighborhood. William H. Allee Jr., the chief of detectives, said arresting Mr. Arthur was simple once they found him. ”We knocked,” he said. And Mr. Arthur went quietly. Lisa Rivera, 24, who was at the housing project when Mr. Arthur was led away, said he was dressed in a navy blue shirt, baggy pants and a baseball cap. ”He didn’t say anything,” she said. ”He was just looking around.” Neighbors said they were not aware that Mr. Arthur had been at the apartment and could not say how he knew the people who live there. Ms. Rivera said teen-agers often gathered in the apartment. ”Everybody goes up there to hang out, to chill,” she said. More : query.nytimes.com |