The Chandra Levy case, bedevilled by police mistakes and media frenzy, is back in the news, write Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham in Washington
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA police are seeking an arrest warrant against a Salvadoran immigrant in connection with the eight-year-old killing of federal intern Chandra Levy, one of the most famous unsolved homicide cases in Washington history, according to law enforcement sources.
Levy’s parents said DC police officials told them on Friday that they planned to make an arrest within “the next couple of days”.
In an interview on Saturday, Susan Levy, Chandra’s mother, said she was told by police chief Cathy Lanier and Lieut Michael Farish, a cold-case squad supervisor, that investigators had made a breakthrough.
The case has been bedevilled by furious media attention and costly police mistakes. Levy, who was a 24-year-old intern for the federal Bureau of Prisons, was having an affaire with Gary Condit, a married congressman from California, when she vanished. Police initially focused on Condit. He was not charged and lost a re-election bid in 2002. He has long maintained that he had nothing to do with Levys disappearance.
Sources with knowledge of the case and speaking under the condition of anonymity said police are moving toward arresting Ingmar Guandique (27). About the time of Levy’s disappearance in May 2001, Guandique, a day labourer, attacked two women at knifepoint in Rock Creek Park, where Levys remains were found a year later. Guandique is serving a 10-year sentence at Victorville prison in Adelanto, California, for the two attacks.
Levy said Lanier told her that “in all her 19 years of police work, this is really big – ‘We really came down with a break.’ They’re very proud.” Levy said she and her husband, Robert, were still processing the information.
“It’s a bittersweet relief,” she said. “Not that we’ll ever get our daughter back, but we need the truth.” Local television stations in Washington and California began reporting late on Friday that an arrest was possible.
The Levys said Lanier did not tell them who the suspect is. Lanier issued a statement on Saturday declining to comment.
“The Metropolitan Police Department has no information available for release in this ongoing investigation. This case generated bits of information, which we continued to follow up on.”
The police probe into Levy's killing ramped up in recent months after the Washington Postin July published a 13-part serial narrative investigation into the case that pointed to Guandique as the most likely suspect.
He has denied any involvement in Levy’s death. “Regarding the girl, Chandra Levy: I don’t know anything about that case,” he told the Post in an interview from prison last year.
“I had never seen her, and I don’t understand the reason why the police started to suspect me . . . I have nothing to do with the death of that girl. I am innocent, and I am not afraid of the police investigation.”
The Postreport contained numerous revelations. The newspaper interviewed a US Park Police detective who questioned Guandique at the time of his arrest and said he had shown the suspect a photograph of Levy. The detective said Guandique admitted seeing Levy in the park before she vanished. Since the end of last summer, DC detectives and prosecutors have been building a case against Guandique.
Prosecutors have convened a grand jury in the district, and new detectives and a prosecutor assigned to the case have been interviewing witnesses and examining evidence. The detectives submitted some of Guandique’s belongings for DNA testing, and at least one of his victims has testified before the grand jury.
Condit’s attorney during the case, Abbe D Lowell, said reports of an impending arrest vindicate his client.
"While very good news, it is a tragedy that the police and media obsession with former congressman Condit delayed this result for eight years and caused needless pain and harm to the families involved," Lowell said. "This should give the Levys the answer and closure they deserve and remove the unfair cloud that has hung over the Condits for too long." Condit told an ABC Newsaffiliate on Saturday he was "glad" for the Levy family and his own.
“It is unfortunate that an insatiable appetite for sensationalism blocked so many from searching for the real answers for so long,” said the former congressman, who now spends much of his time in Arizona. “I had always hoped to have the opportunity to tell my side of the story, but too many were not prepared to listen. Now I plan to do so, but I will have no further comments on this story at this time.”
Within weeks of Levy’s disappearance, police, prosecutors and the media trained much of their attention on Condit. News of the affair between the congressman and the intern transfixed them. Two women came forward to tell the FBI about their relationships with the congressman, and details were leaked to the media.” – (LA Times-Washington Post service)