Chandra Ann Levy
(April 14, 1977 – c. May 1, 2001) was an American intern at the Federal Bureau
of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in May 2001. She was presumed
murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002.
The case attracted attention from the American news media for several years.
Due to a miscommunication, the Metropolitan Police
Department of the District of Columbia (MPD) failed to follow its own search
parameters in Rock Creek Park, leaving Levy's body to decompose for a year.
Further, the MPD had been informed, but soon dismissed the information that
Ingmar Guandique, already arrested for attacking women in Rock Creek Park, had
confessed to attacking Levy. The MPD instead put much of its focus on the
revelation that Levy had been having an affair with Congressman Gary Condit, a
married Democrat then serving his fifth term representing California's 18th
congressional district, and a senior member of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence. Condit had an overwhelming alibi (he was in meetings
with the Vice President), was never named as a suspect by police, and was
eventually cleared of any involvement in the disappearance. However, due to the
cloud of suspicion raised by the intense media focus on the missing intern and
the later revelation of the affair, Condit lost his bid for re-election in
2002.
Following a series of investigative reports by The
Washington Post in 2008, the MPD followed up and finally obtained a warrant, on
March 3, 2009, to arrest Ingmar Guandique, the illegal immigrant from El
Salvador identified and dismissed by the MPDC eight years earlier. He had been
convicted of assaulting two other women in Rock Creek Park around the time of
Levy's disappearance and was still in prison on those convictions when the
arrest warrant on Levy's death was issued. Prosecutors alleged that Guandique
had attacked and tied up Levy in a remote area of the park and left her to die
of dehydration or exposure. In November 2010, Guandique was convicted of
murdering Levy; he was sentenced in February 2011 to 60 years in prison. In
June 2015, however, Guandique was granted a new trial. On July 28, 2016,
prosecutors announced that they would not proceed with the case against
Guandique and would, instead, seek to have him deported. In episode 3 of
"An American Murder Mystery" on the case, it is mentioned that in
March 2017 Guandique lost his bid to remain in the United States and was
deported to his native El Salvador on May 5, 2017. The murder remains unsolved.
Life and background
Levy was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Robert and Susan Levy;
the family moved to Modesto, California, where she attended Grace M. Davis High
School. Her parents are members of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative
Jewish synagogue. She attended San
Francisco State University, where she earned a degree in journalism. After
interning for the California Bureau of Secondary Education and working in the
office of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, she began attending the University
of Southern California to earn a master's degree in public administration.
As part of her final semester of study, Levy moved to
Washington, D.C., to become a paid intern with the Federal Bureau of
Prisons. In October 2000 she began her
internship at the bureau's headquarters, where she was assigned to the public
affairs division. Her supervisor, bureau
spokesperson Dan Dunne, was impressed with Levy's work, especially her handling
of media inquiries regarding the upcoming execution of Timothy McVeigh,
convicted of bombing the Oklahoma City Federal Building. Levy's internship was abruptly terminated in
April 2001 because her academic eligibility was found to have expired in
December 2000. She had already completed her master's degree requirements and
was scheduled to return to California in May 2001 for graduation.
Homicide case
Disappearance and
search
Levy was last seen on May 1, 2001. The Metropolitan Police
Department of the District of Columbia was first alerted on May 6, when Levy's
parents called from Modesto to report that they had not heard from their
daughter in five days. Police called hospitals and visited Levy's apartment in
Dupont Circle that day, finding no indication of foul play. On May 7, Levy's
father told the police that his daughter had been having an affair with a U.S.
congressman, and said the next day that he believed the congressman to be U.S.
Representative Gary Condit. Levy's aunt also called the police and told them
that Chandra had confided in her about the affair. Police obtained a warrant on
May 10 to conduct a formal search of Levy's apartment. Investigators found her
credit cards, identification and mobile phone left behind in her purse, along
with partially packed suitcases. The answering machine was full, with messages
left by her relatives and two from Condit. A police sergeant tried to examine
Levy's laptop computer and inadvertently corrupted the internet search data, as
he was not a trained technician.
Computer experts took a month to reconstruct the data to
determine that the laptop was used on the morning of May 1 to search for
websites related to Amtrak, Baskin-Robbins, Condit, Southwest Airlines, and a
weather report from The Washington Post. Her final search at 12:59 p.m. was for
Alsace-Lorraine, a province in France. A
particular search at 11:33 a.m. was for information about Rock Creek Park in
The Washington Post "Entertainment Guide", then at 11:34 she clicked
a link to bring up a map of the park. Detectives later theorized that she might
have met someone at the Pierce-Klingle Mansion which houses the park
headquarters. On July 25, 2001, three
D.C. police sergeants and 28 police cadets searched along Glover Road in the
park but failed to find evidence related to Levy. Later, a second attempt found
nothing.
Levy's parents and friends held numerous vigils and news
conferences in an attempt to "bring Chandra home".
Relationship with
Condit
Controversy surrounding Levy's disappearance drew the
attention of the American news media.
Condit, a married man who represented the congressional district in
which the Levy family resided, at first denied that he had had an affair with
her. Although police stated that Condit was not a suspect, Levy's family said
they felt Condit was being evasive and possibly hiding information about the
matter.
Unidentified police sources alleged that Condit had admitted
to an affair with Levy during an interview with law enforcement officers on
July 7, 2001. Condit described her to
police as a vegetarian who avoided drinking and smoking. He thought that Levy
was going to return to Washington, D.C. after her graduation and was surprised
to find out that the lease on her apartment had ended. Investigators searched Condit's apartment on
July 10. They questioned flight attendant Anne Marie Smith, who claimed that
Condit told her she did not need to speak to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation about his personal life.
Federal officials began investigating Condit for possible obstruction of
justice, as Smith was also involved in an affair with him. (She was not
acquainted with Levy.) Upset by leaks to
the media, Condit refused to submit to a polygraph test by the D.C. police; his
attorney asserted that Condit passed a test administered by a privately hired
examiner on July 13. He avoided answering direct questions during a televised
interview on August 23, with news anchor Connie Chung on the ABC News program
Primetime Thursday. Intensive coverage
continued until news of the September 11 attacks superseded the media's
coverage of the Levy case.
In a nationwide Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of 900
registered voters conducted in July 2001, 44 percent of American respondents
thought that Condit was involved in Levy's disappearance and 27 percent felt
that he should resign. Fifty-one percent of the respondents believed that he
was acting as if he were guilty; 13 percent felt that he should run again for
office. A poll sample taken from Condit's congressional district held a more
favorable view of Condit. On March 5,
2002, Condit lost the Democratic primary election for his Congressional seat to
his former aide, then-Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, with the Levy controversy
being cited as a contributing factor. He
was subpoenaed to appear on April 1, 2002, before a District of Columbia grand
jury investigating the disappearance. The date was kept a carefully guarded secret
to avoid further leaks. Condit left
Congress at the end of his term on January 3, 2003.
Discovery of remains
On May 22, 2002, around 9:30 am, skeletal remains matching
Levy's dental records were discovered by a man walking his dog and looking for
turtles in Rock Creek Park, near Broad Branch Creek. Detectives found bones and personal items
scattered, but not buried, in a forested area along a steep incline. A sports bra, sweat shirt, leggings and tennis
shoes were among the evidence that was recovered. Although police had
previously searched over half the 1,754-acre main section of the park (2.74
mi2, 7.10 km2), the wooded slope where Levy's remains were eventually found had
not been searched. Police commanders ordered the search perimeters to 100 yards
of each road and trail but a miscommunication had the officers only searching
within 100 yards of every road. The remains were found about four miles (6 km)
from Levy's apartment.
After a preliminary autopsy was performed, District of
Columbia police announced that there was sufficient evidence to open a homicide
investigation. On May 28, D.C. medical examiner Jonathan L. Arden officially
declared Levy's death a homicide, but said, "There's
less to work with here than I would like. It's possible we will never know
specifically how she died." Arden found damage to her hyoid bone,
suggesting possible strangulation, but did not deem it to be conclusive evidence
of such a cause of death. On June 6,
after the police completed their search, private investigators hired by the
Levys found her shin bone with some twisted wire about 25 yards (23 m) from the
other remains. Police chief Ramsey said, "It
is unacceptable that these items were not located."
Memorial services
On May 28, 2002, the Levy family organized a memorial
service at the Modesto Centre Plaza that drew over 1,200 people, some from as
far as Los Angeles. Speakers at the
90-minute ceremony included Levy's brother, grandmother, great-aunt and
friends. In a eulogy delivered in Hebrew
and English by Rabbi Paul Gordon, Levy was described as "a good person taken
from us much too soon". About a
year later, on May 27, 2003, Levy's remains were buried in Lakewood Memorial
Park Cemetery at Hughson, California, near her home town of Modesto. Attended
by about 40 of Levy's friends and family members, the private ceremony
concluded with the release of 12 white doves.
Identification of the
prime suspect
In September 2001, D.C. police and federal prosecutors were
contacted by the lawyer of an informant, held in a D.C. Jail, who claimed to
have knowledge of Levy's killer. The informant, whose identity was protected
for his safety, said that Ingmar Guandique, a 20-year-old illegal immigrant
from El Salvador also being held in the jail, told him that Condit paid him
$25,000 to kill Levy. Investigators ruled out the story about Condit, because
Guandique had already admitted to assaulting two other women in the same park
where Levy's remains were found. Guandique failed to show up for work on the day
of Levy's disappearance. His former
landlady recalled that his face appeared scratched and bruised at around that
time. The investigators on the Levy case
did not interview the other Rock Creek Park victims. Police Chief Ramsey avoided calling Guandique
a suspect and described him as a "person of interest", telling
reporters not to make "too big a deal" about him. Assistant chief
Terrance W. Gainer said that if Guandique had been considered a suspect, D.C.
police would have been after him "like flies on honey".
Guandique was incarcerated at the U.S. Penitentiary,
Victorville for assaults against two other women in Rock Creek Park.
Guandique denied attacking Levy. On November 28, the FBI had the informant take
a polygraph test, which he failed. A polygraph test on Guandique, administered
on February 4, 2002, returned inconclusive results that were officially ruled
"not deceptive". Because neither the informant nor Guandique was
fluent in English, D.C. chief detective Jack Barrett said that he would have
preferred polygraph tests to have been administered by bilingual examiners, who
were unavailable at the time. When Judge
Noel Anketell Kramer was asked about Guandique's potential connection to the
Levy homicide, she responded, "This is such a satellite issue. To me it
doesn't have anything to do with this case." Kramer sentenced Guandique to
10 years in prison for his attacks on two other women at Rock Creek Park. Guandique was sent to the U.S. Penitentiary,
Big Sandy near Inez, Kentucky, and was later transferred to the U.S.
Penitentiary at Victorville, California.
D.C. police Chief
Cathy L. Lanier in 2009
The Levy homicide remained listed as a "cold case"
until 2006, when Cathy L. Lanier succeeded Ramsey as D.C. police chief. Lanier
replaced the lead detective on the case with three veteran investigators who had
more homicide experience. In 2007, the
editors of The Washington Post assigned a new team of reporters to take a year to
re-examine the Levy case. The resulting
series of articles, published during the summer of 2008, focused on the past
failure of the police to fully investigate Guandique's connection to the
attacks in Rock Creek Park. In September 2008, investigators searched
Guandique's federal prison cell in California and found a photo of Levy that he
had saved from a magazine. Police interviewed acquaintances of Guandique and
witnesses of the other Rock Creek Park incidents.
On March 3, 2009, the Superior Court of the District of
Columbia issued an arrest warrant for Guandique. He was returned to the custody of the District
of Columbia Department of Corrections on April 20 via the Federal Transfer
Center in Oklahoma City. Two days later,
Guandique was charged in D.C. with Levy's murder. He was indicted by a grand jury on six counts:
kidnapping, first-degree murder committed during a kidnapping, attempted
first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree murder committed during a sexual
offense, attempted robbery, and first-degree murder committed during a robbery.
Guandique pleaded not guilty at his
arraignment, where a trial date was initially set for January 27, 2010. His lawyers argued that Guandique's federal
prison cell was outside the jurisdiction of a court-ordered search. After errors in processing contaminated some
of the gathered evidence with DNA from employees of the prosecution, the start
date of the trial at the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse was moved to October 4,
2010.
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