Several thoughts: Always remember this is not just a case, but involves a real person. Also most situations will be made clear by non-stop incredible attention to detail and follow-up.
I've done a lot of searching for people and information and I wish the Post reportage well.
kretchet@comcast.net

The story of Chandra's murder is more than an investigation involving a romantic relationship with a powerful politician. It is a flashback to a near-innocent pre-9/11 world when relationships with interns could be ubiquitous frontpage news.
I lived as a single guy in DC during that time; since then I have wondered if I ever was at the same bar as her, or saw walking around town, or running at the towpath. Her story is one that could have happened to my female housemates, who also worked on the Hill.

Sari, Chandra was not able to cancel her membership the previous evening. She had to give a 30 day notice.

Yes, it was a beautiful day, as are many in DC, and she still had a membership and had never been known by her friends to do anything like this.

Chief Ramsey made the same mistake in an interview. It is critical details like this that make all the difference in understanding what happened, and more importantly, letting your readers understand what happened.

I wish I had been given the opportunity to factcheck this series. It won't do anyone any good if fundamental misunderstandings like this are presented. Clearly the reader is left with the impression that Chandra went to the park for exercise after looking it up on her PC. In every regard, that is the wrong impression for anyone to come away with.

regards,
Ralph Daugherty
author, Murder on a Horse Trail: The Disappearance of Chandra Levy
(book is posted for public to read on www.justiceforchandra.com)

Ralph: I just read the piece and that's not the impression I get at all. This is the first article in a long series. The reporters are laying out possibilities, not drawing conclusions. Perhaps now that you've self-promoted you can wait to reserve judgment.

>>>>The case showcases everything that is wrong with pack journalism and 24-7 cable news stations. What do you all think?

Bingo! the corporate media sets narratives - whether they are true or false.

Much of the public believes the Clintons stole items from the White House when they departed. Totally false!

Much of the public believes the Clintons made racist remarks during the past year.
Totally false! But Obama was silent as his supporters and Obamedia made ridiculous charges of racism against the Clintons - WHILE Obama was attending a race-baiting hatemongering church.
Yet another reason - we'll never vote for Obama.

well first of all, jumping, I was referring to the text above on this page for the comment, not the first chapter.

secondly, there is no other way to take it when they say the membership was cancelled and it was a nice day. If they said it was a nice day and she gave a 30 day notice to cancel her membership, I wouldn't have said anything. That would have been acurrate reporting.

thirdly, posting my bonafides of having written a book on it, free to the public without even advertising income, constitutes where I come from on this. If you want to call it promotion fine, we can also call anyone who uses a university degree title promoting themselves as well, whatever you wish. It's your game.

lastly, I just read the first chapter and there are several interesting new pieces of information, and some I'm having a problem with. I comment on it my site.

just for the record, I also made no assumptions in Murder on a Horse Trail. But I got the facts right, which makes all the difference in the evaluation.

and, after all, that's what is important here. Informing the public.

Ralph Daugherty

A nagging question has always been why did she pick a set location in Rock Creek Park when it could be entered in many places, and did she really go there to exercise or to meet someone who did her in or accidentally encountered somebody else?

My gut feel is that she was purposely done in to silence her for something and we need to take another look at the Condit connection while he may not have done it, he might have arranged it.

One troubling thing about this case is that some of the top search and rescue teams east of the Mississippi are in Virginia and Maryland. They offered on more than one occasion to help train MPD on how to search effectively. There had been flubbed searches in the past. If a trained search manager (and perhaps trained searchers) had been involved in that original search, the whole thing would have likely turned out quite differently.

The case showcases everything that is wrong with pack journalism and 24-7 cable news stations. What do you all think?
Bingo! We see that in how the Post repeats the McCain "hero" narrative over and over without examining the facts. They refuse to investigate McCain's womanizing, his lies about his first divorce -- and the fact that he got a marriage license while he was still married to his first wife! They refuse to investigate his 3 years of making propaganda for the Communists and have withheld the video and audio from the public. They refused to even mention that his medical records show he tried to kill himself when Eagleton was driven from the race simply for getting treatment for depression! They refuse to tell us that his records show he may have a stage 2 cancer, deadly. And now the Post, instead of spending money and time investigating the myths of McCain's immagination, simply ape Black's bs and give us a 12 -- 12!! part series on a dead intern! Where is the series on the unsolved anthrax attack on our Congress by elements of the Bush Mafia?

Tragic case.A bright and pretty young woman at the start of life brutally murdered .

Very human too, although young Chandra was no REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM with a history of older married men leading up to Condit . In talks with a aunt you could tell she had NO second thoughts about being a homewrecker .

Am wondering to if we wud have ever heard of this case if her name was Chandra Smith ........

I look forward to the series. I routinely dog walk in that area of Rock Creek Park, and am very familiar with the area and the trails above where her body was found. Its an especially remote place, almost ideal for this purpose, and I have always thought whoever committed the murder had to have a detailed knowledge of the specific location, whether it was a random action or part of a larger plan.

On the matter of fact checking noted above, one of the most prevalent misconceptions involves the horse trail. Indeed, both the north and south entrances to the portion of the Ridge Trail above the location where her body was found have signs expressly prohibiting horses from that section. The horse trail proper is a separate trail east of the Ridge Trail.

Wow! I hope the Washington Post keeps doing this. This kind of work makes a difference.

I fwe are going to hijack this precious murdered girl's space to try to slime Obama and promote the Clintons, let's point out that Bob Herbert wrote a fact-checked opinion piece for teh New York Times about the Clinton White house exit. i invite you to read it

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/opinion/10herbert.html

and then make up your mind as to whether taking national historical items from the White House when you leave that are returned only under duress is borrowing or stealing.

i wish the Post the best in helping to shed light on this case.

I do think a writer who wrote a reasearched book should have been canbassed for this series.It weakens the Post's coverage.

I was just speaking with a friend about this unsolved case. It's sad that so many mistakes were made which may have hampered bringing her killer to justice.

I look forward to reading the rest of the series and thank the editors and reporters of The Washington Post for following up on this case.

I wish the Post would spend this kind of effort on documenting the impeachable offenses of the Bush administration rather than on a single white womans death. I feel for her family but the only thing sensational about the case was that the media went crazy over the disappearance. Most of us did not read the coverage. Why is it only when a young, wealthy white woman disappears that it makes the news?

I wish people like Joshua Gen would keep on topic rather than going off on the 2008 political race. We all can read about that stuff elsewhere. Stay on topic here!

Murphie, it's great to read a comment from someone that knows that area well. It's important for people to be able to understand and visualize how remote that place is up there where Chandra was found to try to figure out how Chandra ended up there.

You of course know what I'm about to say here, but for clarification for the readers, I want to clarify given I titled my book Murder on a Horse Trail.

If the site were at a bullseye, the crosshair coming up from the bottom is the Western Ridge horse trail coming up a steep hill beside Ridge Road, the horse trail being off to the side in woods above a steep wooded drop to Broad Branch Road below, off a ways but within sight through the trees.

The crosshair coming from the right is a steep partially gravelled hiking/horse trail coming up from Beach Road, below and quite a distance away.

As the crosshair crosses the center and to the left, that becomes a "No Horses Allowed" walking path around the peak and back to the horse trail as it continues on along Ridge Road.

The key is that Chandra was found off this crossroads, of horse trail extending back down the hill and along a busy Beach Drive back to Klingle Mansion atop another steep hill, of Ridge Road running alongside the horse trail, and a walking path diversion from and back to the horse trail.

Chandra was found a few yards off this crossroads, downhill from the walking path. It is directly behind grove 18, a picnic table with a spot to pull a vehicle back and unload a horse... or a body.

It is indeed a Murder on a Horse Trail, although the body was found pulled off to the side and downhill, similar to a person pulled off the street into an alley, if one believes that a person was walking that street versus being dumped in the alley from a car.

regards,
rd

datdawuf wrote: "Why is it only when a young, wealthy white woman disappears that it makes the news?"

LaToya Taylor, an IRS employee, made the news in a similar situation (governemt employee or recent intern if you will disappearing.) I assure you the same hysteria would have ensued had she not been found and was linked to a congressman.

On my site www.justiceforchandra.com, we have a large percentage of the missng women in similar circumstances to Chanda are black. They are covered by the local news, but it takes a more extraodinary set of exotic circumstances and a continued disappearance to really get traction in national news coverage.

Not something we wish for anyone.

regards,
rd

did the police ever interview condit himself?

was it the first time that chandra went to the creek park? if so, she would have been meeting w/ somebody over there, as in a tryst, becoz the park was so huge it afforded
privacy & anonymity. vanish the thought that chandra was hypnotized by the beautiful day that day. for a young girl, for a young gullible girl, meeting w/ a man who considered her his paramour is a far more hypnotic reason to go a little hking.

zero in on condit, shake him up--& down. if he's clean, then, there's only one other explanation to chew on: chandra must have been waylaid by rapist/killers who malingered at the park & knew the place like the palms of their hands.

test my theory.

Young,not too attractive, Jewish girl with Ciao suitcases, Dupont circle address and penchant for married men disappears and is found murdered. Is it worthy of this much attention? May involve a congressman! Nothing really unusual when considering those people. Please try journalism as a vehicle for freedom of the press rather than Murdoch-like forays into sensationalism.

While insightful, what of the unfinished investigations of other disappeared persons in the Washington DC area like Joyce Chiang, who washed up on the banks of the Potomac River after disappearing around Anacostia Park in early 1999. Any mention of her in this series or another series on her?

Am wondering to if we wud have ever heard of this case if her name was Chandra Smith ........
Posted by: me | July 13, 2008 8:39 AM

I am curious about the above remark. It reads to me as if this comment suggests that this case is notorious and attention is being paid because Chandra Levy's name might be Jewish. And that sounds to me like a bit of anti-Semitism.

Also, I find it annoying that people keep referring to Chandra Levy as a young girl; she was not. She was 24 years old, a young woman. Calling her a "girl" robs her of her dignity as a woman.

Finally, hello Sari.

"If Chandra was found that first summer, how would police have viewed the case?"

I'm sorry; I'm trying to stay on point but it's difficult when a reader has to read a sentence twice just to figure out the meaning because a journalist's grammer is so poor.

"If Chandra was found ..." We know she wasn't. What you are actually wondering about is the case. Therefore: "If Chandra had been found that first summer, how would police have viewed the case."

Basic English.

It is very sad that this woman died. But why do people care so much about her and not about so many other people who die sad, mysterious deaths? I see many mentions about her serial adultery, and wonder if this adultery is part of what interests people. -If you look at her picture, she really does not appear to be as callous as she apparently was - at least to the poor families of the men she dated.

Ralph,

Thanks for your clarification. I think there is some confusion about the location where the body was found and horse trail manifested by equestrians commenting elsewhere that horses would have noted decomp smell, etc. This is trivial.

What I do think is important is that people realize how difficult it is to find this specific section of the Ridge Trail. You of course know where the body was found is below what is essentially a western bypass to the horse trail. The horse trail is more obvious, broad and well graveled, runs over a hill in a north south direction; this section of the Ridge trail follows the western contours of the same hill.

On the south side starting near Picnic Area 19 for about 150 yards the two trails run parallel, separated by some trees/brush and about 25 feet or so. Many times I have been on the Ridge portion when someone hiked by on the horse trail without appearing to notice me at all.

If one parked at area 18 with nefarious business at hand wanting to head off out of public view, going north on the horse trail is obvious. Going south the horse trail is in the open and provided no cover.

Only someone with a real knowledge of the trail system would know that a second more remote trail heading north lies but a few yards to the west.

Access to this portion of the Ridge Trail is also possible from the north side, the two trails rejoin near Picnic Area 16. Here the Ridge Trail splits off to the right as one heads south and is more obvious than heading north; it immediately starts a steep downhill and is more eroded. I have a hard time imagining carrying a body any distance as the trail heads to the area where the body was discovered, its also about twice as far as from Area 17/18.

One other thought about how I do not see the final location being selected by pure dumb luck. If you look at other Picnic Areas along Ross and Glover Roads, none provide access to trails this remote, particularly if you are heading downhill. No one heads uphill with a burden, dead or alive.

That western loop of the Ridge Trail is the only mapped trail in Rock Creek Park where I have never encountered other hikers, dogwalkers or trail runners.

Is this the random killer vs Condit idea? My guess is the series is moving to the random killer thing.

I'd like to know if her cellphone had calls made to it by Condit between May 1 and May 3. He apparently left two calls on May 3rd at her home phone.

1. Yet, we've been told she was obsessed with him; so why is he calling her? Didn't he know she was leaving town?

2. If he tried phoning her on her cellphone, then left messages at her home, then he sounds unimplicated. But if he left calls just at her home, then he must have known she wouldn't answer her cellphone. He was merely creating an alibi.

3. The reporters haven't answered RD's point that Levy still could exercise at her club. She had to give 30-days notice, which means if she gave notice on April 30, she still had 30 days to exercise at the club.

So she wasn't just taking a nice walk to the park on May 1 for exercise, because her club membership was gone, like he reporters are suggesting.

The thing is, the DC police were so poor and they're still hiding all information.

It is erroneous to attribute Chandra as a serial adulterer. That was Condit's role. Chandra, like all of Condit's gilfriends/mistresses, was told that his wife was terminally ill and wouldn't last long. Everyone in Washington believed this and understood that to be why Condit ran around like a single guy in DC, albeit extremely discreetly.

There was one report of Chandra telling her friends she was dating a married doctor in Sacramento just before she came to DC to finish her USC Master Degree in Public Administration, but there is a substantial indication that was Condit. In DC she told her friends he was with the FBI or the government, eventually even mentioned Congress, but all along she had a cover story for who she was dating that hid that he was a congressman.

She indeed was not callous. Again, that role was Condit's.

rd

Am I just stupid, or is this tabloid journalism masquerading as investigative journalism?

Murphie wrote: "That western loop of the Ridge Trail is the only mapped trail in Rock Creek Park where I have never encountered other hikers, dogwalkers or trail runners."

That's an excellent analysis, Murphie. I would have quoted you on this in Murder on a Horse Trail if I were just writing it now. I tried to say much the same thing in Chapter Horse Trail, but I'm sure not as well.

Your point cannot be overstated. This was an ideal location for someone extremely familiar with the park to hide a body which when found could be attributed to a stalker, and indeed, her clothing indicated sexual assault and her jewelry and apartment key were missing, all which would be done to stage an assault up in that desolate forest.

I can tell you that not many women would walk into that forest with a shotgun, much less with nothing, not even a cell phone, her pepper spray keyring she left at her apartment, or any id or cards whatsoever. And wearing a 14k bracelet given to her by Condit.

Not to mention how ludicrous it is to suggest she hiked from DuPont Circle to the top of that hill into that forest. Horwitz et al write in this series that the old Pierce Mill, (along Rock Creek about midway between Klingke Mansion and the top of the hill on Ridge Road), is "not far" from where Chandra was found, which is at least better than the reporters who write that Chandra was found "not far" from her DuPont Circle apartment.

Not to be too dramatic, that's about te same as saying the Washington Post building is "not far" from the top of the Washington Monument.

A pretty good analogy, actually.

rd

From what I have gathered from this, it appears she was going to meet someone she knew.

Thank you Ralph and Murphie for your insightful thoughts on Chandra Levy's disappearance and the details of the Rock Creek Park. My husband and I lived in Dupont Circle and were very disturbed over Joyce Chiang and then Chandra's disappearance. Living only blocks from both of them in Dupont Circle, and myself being a young woman and a jogger in Rock Creek, I found the details highly disturbing, having run in Rock Creek in the day of and days prior to her murder. I have to agree, that I never felt safe running in Rock Creek park, at any time of the day, including the more active times like weekends and after work, when more people frequent the park. There were areas that were more remote, and when I entered these areas even on the open jog trail, I sprinted to get through them to a more populus spot. I just wanted to agree with your idea that a woman living in Washington would have this same instinct, and would not choose to hike in a less populated area of the park, unless she were with a friend, and therefore felt more safe. I would also like for people to revisit the Joyce Chiang connection. The INS and the Bureau of Prisons are in teh same building in Washington, and interestingly, Gary Condit's office, and Congressman Berman's office were right next to each other. They could have colleagues in common, in addition to living in the same Dupont Circle neighborhood and frequenting the same Starbucks on Connecticut Ave.

I agree, Rebecca, Joyce Chiang's murder is a similar, and maybe related, mystery that needs a followup cold case investigation like Chandra's. Just as with the BOP in Chandra's case, there are corridors of power involved in these mysteries that a Woodward led team needs to crack open to get at the truth behind events that occurred at work just before Joyce and Chandra disappeared.

I would like to say we have done a lot of research on Joyce's disappearance, but all that we have is what you point out in your post. There are a lot of questions remaining to be answered.

rd

The local Hamilton, Ontario newspaper has done several similar multi part stories on a number of subjects. I look forward to the next portion of your report.

RD,

You said: Horwitz et al write in this series that the old Pierce Mill, (along Rock Creek about midway between Klingke Mansion and the top of the hill on Ridge Road), is "not far" from where Chandra was found, which is at least better than the reporters who write that Chandra was found "not far" from her DuPont Circle apartment.

Pierce Mill to the spot where the remains were found is about a mile via the Ridge Trail, albeit with a significant uphill component. So I'm siding with the Post on the fact that its "not far", perhaps a half an hour hike at a comfortable pace if - and its a very big if- you know where you are going.

I agree with you that walking up to the general area from Dupont Circle seems completely out of character.

I am looking forward to seeing what news the Post comes up with tomorrow.

Condit left messages on her voicemail. I'm guessing it would not be allowed as court evidence, but could those messages be voice analyzed? How good is voice analysis. Could you pick up stress levels in Condit's voice that might indicate he knew Chandra wouldn't pick up because he was already dead?

Now that you all have completed your investigation into the JonBenet Ramsey case you are restarting on the Chandra Levy case.

Nice work on the first one. Hope you are ready to apologize before opening your mouths on this one.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Most especially the authors of this article. How do you sleep at night knowing you have already killed one woman?

b.

hi Murphie, that's the problem, "not far" is technically correct, and has no relevance. Yes, I passed it on the way from Klingle Mansion to grove 18 when I re-enacted this alleged "walk in the park", and yes it's a historical point of interest, but geting a victim from Pierce Mill to grove 18 is ludicrous. You'd have to do a broad daylight kidnapping and drive up there.

So what's the point of "not far". It's just simply misleading so that reporters can suggest she might have wanted to visit historical sights and ended up a mile away on the side of a mountain.

Plus there's some considerable DC oriented assumptions here no one else in the country has, as in oh yeah, I want to see Pierce Mill. Please. This is simply dreaming up a reason for Chandra to be on the side of that mountain that is not someone she knew placing her there.

rd

Thanks for bringing up Joyce Chiang. I remember her disappearance in the news at that time too. I hope the series does investigate the possible connections between Levy and Chiang, seems relevant.

Having a daughter living in DC, I appreciate the Post revisiting this case. I have been concerned about my daughter's safety since I saw a cable tv program about a year ago that reviewed the murders of Chandra Levy, Joyce Chiang, and another woman, whose name I am sorry that I do not recall. The third woman was a science researcher who disappeared walking home from a going-away party for the students who had worked in her lab that year. Her husband had just finished graduate school in California and was going to join her in DC within a few days. She also lived off of Dupont Circle and frequented the Starbuck's there. The conclusion of the program was that the fact that all three women lived in the same area pointed to a serial killer as the culprit. Have the DC police ever explored a possible connection between these three murders?

This feels like an episode of the Wire where the reporters chase a nonstory in search of a Pulitzer while the real news in the city goes unreported. I guess the corporate puppet masters wanted to break last year's record. You cannot justify this amount of resources on the death of one person, under the guise that you're looking at the investigation. A broader examination of the high number of unsolved murders in the city or region, or the recent rise in murders would have made more sense. I'm glad that the reporters had an opportunity to indulge their personal interests but you have done a disservice to the residents of this region.

Er, it is on target when we have a Post run by Neo-Cons and this "investigative" unit run by the Bush Family pal Woodward wasting enormous space and money and reporters' time to write about a minor unsolved murder case. Where are the 12-part investigative pieces on the fake stories of McCain? on the anthrax attack -- unsolved -- on our Congress? It is very on target to ask that our remaining journalists with half their integrity still intact be assigned to investigate serious stories that impact millions -- billions -- of people. We do not want to have to constantly turn to the European press -- which has been documenting McCain's disgusting private life and his lies about what he did in Vietnam -- yet again to get facts about our own great country!

Ummm...Who is Chandra Levy?

Actually, more importantly, who the heck cares about Chandra Levy? (besides his/her friends/family, of course)

Why would anyone care about some random dead person?

Oh, cuz its sensational and may sell a few extra papers and its a cheap and easy way to eat up column inches. Instead of actually reporting real news or doing a real investigative report.

I look to the Washington Post for current vital news coverage. Although an interesting read, making this story front page on Sunday was a tacky ploy to sell papers. Leave sensationalism and mystery to the "rags".

anyone know where the interactives of this story are located? The initial article says go to the post web page but I cannot find maps, interivews, etc. Is it b/c i have blocked pop-ups?

Well, I gotta say that it sounds like Gary Condit is a real slime-ball, with his picture of Newt on his office wall... Whatta maroon, as Bugs might say, but then again that was a time when we elected a whole slate of American Taliban, including Dumbya and Cheney. It takes me back to the early days of this tough tough decade for America....not a pleasant experience...

Many people who have posted comments here are callous and shameful. This girl was somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, somebody's friend. And for those of us other "young" women who live and work in DC, this terrified many of us for years. I, for one, am interested in the retrospective and also a better understanding of the incompetency of the DC police, who are supposed to protect us.

Those of you who claim the case has only garnered attention because of the name "Levy" should be ashamed of yourself. That smacks of blatant anti-semitism and is disgusting. Other cases involving women of different backgrounds have garnered much attention too -- remember Natalee Holloway? Lacy Peterson? Yvette Cade (the woman burned alive by her husband)?

Get over yourselves and remember that these are real people -- and all of them deserved a proper investigation and justice.

What about the incomplete investigations of others in DC, Joyce Chiang or the single Mom of 2 who disappeared on the C&O canal near her home in Bethesda, MD? She worked for the Post online. Why no mentions of these two ladies? The Mom was never found, if my memory is correct. They have no idea what happened to her, was a reliable person who would not take off. I feel for Chandra and her family, the case is disturbing, but what about all the other ladies who vanish and are killed/presumed dead? They have families too.

THANK GOODNESS the Post is concentrating on the years-old murder of lovely Chandra Levy -- rather than wasting newspaper space on Obama and McCain's positions on health care, how they would accomplish those things they've proposed, and whether people want those things accomplished.

Chandra Levy's murder makes so much more difference to our lives.

Presidents come and go. But Chandra Levy will always be in our hearts.

I could have sworn I read somewhere that it was later determined that Joyce Chiang committed suicide but I can't find anything to back that up. Does anyone remember a similar missing person's case in DC that turned out that way from around that time?

Along with Joyce Chiang, don't forget that summer grad student at Georgetown (I'm sorry, but I can't remember her name) who left a party at around 10 and was found strangled in Glover Park.

Laura,

The police did say that Joyce Chiang committed suicide (problems at work), but no one in her family -- or who knows her -- believes that.

Allison Thresher was the name of the Bethesda jogger who disappeared. The Post has never done more than short stories inside the Metro section. Her case always haunted me as someone who frequently biked and ran on these trails in isolated spots. Especially since the Montgomery County police originally dismissed it as a suicide and then 6 months later had to release an oops.

And the Chang case was dismissed by DC cops as a suicide though for the life of me I don't understand why a single woman who lived in Dupont Circle would venture to Anacostia to commit suicide.

Why doesn't the Post look into these cases?

Must concur...why waste the huge effort on this poor kid? This deserves a two day effort at the most. Sorry she died but Chandra is not that significant to deserve the effort the Post is putting into this. Condit was a cheat, if not Chandra then he would have hit up some other young lady. Like most in politics, he has an inflated ego that needs continual gratification. I think Chandra went there, met some someone who decided to rape/murder her in a deserted area. Unfortunate, but this series or her death will have no impact but to her own family.

Maybe the Post should look into the Chiang, Thresher, and other similar cases, as a sequel.

If you're unhappy with this series, then read the dozens of other articles in the Post about subjects that meet your approval.

Better yet, please pressure your congressmen and senators to do their jobs in Congress instead of rubberstamping Cheney/Bush.

That might not just offer stories for the Post to cover but also help deal with problems in this country.

As for this series, it's about abuse of power and investigational incompetence and stonewalling -- both things that impact your lives.

If you don't want to read about it in this form, a kind of metaphor, then read some other article.

I'm intrigued by this series that was undertaken to unravel the facts behind the murder of Chandra Levy.

I have a question I hope someone at the Post can answer for me. In the paper, there's a paragraph that directs me to washingtonpost.com "to take a virtual tour of the Chandra Levy crime scene, listen to excerpts of interviews..., examine documents from the case, see photos & view videos." It also directs me to click on an "interactive map of Rock Creek Park." I haven't been able to find any of the above on the washingtonpost.com website.

Please help & clarify how to access the above. Thanks in advance.

Barbara Olson wrote the book on Hillary Clinton, HELL TO PAY. Barbara was hot on the trail of bad boy Congressman Gary Condit (D-Calif.), who was under suspicion in the disappearance of his intern & love interest, Chandra Levy. Two months after Chandra vanished, Condit was interdicted while depositing a zippered Tag Heuer wristwatch container in an Old Town, Alexandria, VA, Safeway store dumpster. A fifteen-foot brick wall surrounds that trash receptacle. The Safeway at 500 S. Royal St. is also located about six miles one-way from Condit's then Washington, DC, address; but only three blocks from James Carville's residence. Barbara Olson was Los Angeles bound, aboard American Airlines Flight 77, as a guest on Bill Maher's popular TV show, Politically Incorrect. Flight 77 was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon. Date: September 11, 2001. Chandra Levy's remains were found May 22, 2002 in Rock Creek Park. Gary Condit kept his seat on the Intelligence Committee, but lost his subsequent bid for re-election.

Dead Drop: Prearranged hidden location for depositing and picking up messages and money in a clandestine manner, without the parties involved being present at the same time. According to Gary Condit, a female admirer gave him the Tag timepiece. Gary crossed the Potomac River from DC to Virginia to dispose of the leather case - but kept the watch. Summer 2008, James Carville and wife Mary Matalin move to New Orleans.

"The Clinton years might seem like a long national nightmare of scandal, sleaze, and ruthless acquisition of power. Hillary herself is the link from the excesses of the Watergate staff, to the Whitewater fiasco, to the abuses of executive power, to the defense of her husband's perjury and obstruction of justice. But now it is Hillary's turn. The Clinton era is far from over and Hillary's ambitions far from satisfied," wrote Barbara Olson. This is but a smattering of the political climate in which Chandra Levy lived. Ms. Levy's criminal justice background may also have predisposed her to trusting someone with a similar background. Hillary has typically had more than a few of these on her payroll, and the Dems could scarce afford to lose Condit's congressional seat. To borrow a phrase from Bill Clinton, "It ought to make the bells go off in your head:" http://theseedsof9-11.com

To Jennifer^^:

You can find the interactive material such as the video links right in the text of the stories online, such as here in Chapter 1: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/chandra/ch1_1.html

And here's a direct link to the Rock Creek Park interactive map:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/chandra/map.html

Thanks for reading the series.

I wouldn't call the Washington Post's, Chandra Levy series, swash buckling or awe inspiring journalism. At best, it's an attempt to take off where the DC Police Cold Case Unit should have done years ago. Let's put Chandra's ethnicity and social back aside, and concentrate on the matter at hand. A woman was murdered by someone; It makes no difference if she was a young or an old woman, a black or a white woman, a Jewish or a Muslim woman. Simply put, I honestly, think that she was going to meet Condit for an afternoon lover's walk, but her fate was sealed by a serial killer who preys on white women. It's an unfortunate outcome for Chandra's parents to have to lay to rest their daughter. If anything, this should shed some light on how piss poor the DC Police Department has handled this investigation from the start. In closing, I would have to agree that this story smacks dab center on tabloid reporting. I mean, you have a weathered and seasoned politician, the Washington power structure, and a young white woman who became intoxicated with Washington's political power structure. Ultimately, Chandra got played by this elder statesman. Hence instead of concentrating on the salaciousness of a steamy and lurid affair, the emphasis needs to be placed on the facts (not speculation) of finding the people who are responsible for this heinous crime. Who knows, the DC Police can then apply this method to all of it's other crimes that happen outside of "political Washington (beyond the Dupont Circle) and concentrating across the Anacostia River where a heavy population of African Americans reside. With much due respect, this series is not Pulitzer Prize worthy.

It's not about Chandra Levy, it is about the DC Police Departments failure to solve a murder case. Should be noteworthy to DC tax payers!

Chandra's case is interesting but why not report on something a little more current like the brutal, racially charged murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom in Tennessee?

Gee, give me a break. This case gets coverage out the ying yang and yet the case of the hate crime slaying of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom who were both robbed, raped, beaten, tortured and slain gets what from the WP. NADA. What a farce MSM media is when it comes to a racial crime against whites.

I have read the posts and like many on the message boards linked directly to the articles, I find it odd that this is here. I also find it odd the way the reports are romanticizing her relationship.

This was a waste of space and I really hate to play the race card, but I find it really hard to believe that if we were speaking of a Latino, Asian or Black woman that had an AFFAIR with someone then turned up missing then murdered this "Oh poor Chandra," mentality would not be in effect. The reporters need to call it what it was and stop acting like they had this wonderful May-December romance. She was a mistress and he is a Cad.

If a reporter is truly interested in finding justice and truth, why her? There are thousands of missing people and hundreds linked to well known people. Why her? What are the journalists REAL motivation?

Hey people, remember the adage, "If you don't have anything nice to say...?" :^)

As a longtime Dupont Circle resident and a young woman, I'm excited to see that the WaPo has taken up this story again. It was as obvious then as it is now that because of the sharp glare of sensationalist 24/7 cable news that this case was being bungled.

As frustrating as it is, I don't find total fault with the MPD or the FBI. They were under tremendous amounts of pressure, and the media circus didn't help them do their jobs.

The sad fact is that years later we're still trying to find the truth.

I hope her killer/s are found and brought to justice, and if the Post can help shed some light on the case, there's everything to gain. If nothing else, maybe this separation and new perspective will help heal and reveal.

Thank you for this interesting series. I look forward to reading more.

P.S. Movable Type sucks. I can't preview my comment. Waaah!

I think the WaPo is doing a great job with this story. When the story first came out I didn't pay it much attention. Now I am, thanks to the way its written and presented. I agree with lynn--I hope this serves to "heal and reveal." Thanks to the Washington Post for making this case matter.

For that matter, last week's two part series on the Appalachian trail murderer did the same thing.

This struck a responsive chord in readers who need to realize that news stories and cases like this are about people like you and me. We need to feel more empathy and the presentation of this 12 part series is helping us do just that.

This story is being covered instead of the one from Tennessee because it is the WASHINGTON Post. Washington is an area with many transient residents. While many readers remember this incident and story, there are likely many readers who are not that familiar with it because they are younger or recent arrivals to the area. Lastly, what amazes me is not that Chandra Levy was eventually found in a remote area of Rock Creek Park (and by the way, there is nothing in Washington that somes close to passing for a "mountain" and not much that could be "desolate"), but that no other remains were found while looking for her.

I am hoping that the WaPo can run a sidebar during this series mentioning other women missing from the area.

Dawn Holt, missing from Waldorf since 1996
Tiffany Goines, missing from Frederick since 1987
Christine Jarrett, missing from Elkridge since 1991
Elda Vazquez, missing from Columbia since January
Zita Gutierrez, missing from Rockville since 1980
Felicia Aiemsakul, missing from Gaithersburg since 2002
April Jacobwitz, missing from Germantown since 2002
Cynthia Braga, missing from Wheaton since 2003
Kim Mileo, missing from Croom since 1983 (last article the Post wrote on this case was in 1984)
Leanne Faulk, missing from Hyattsville since 1985
Marilyn Chamberlain, missing from Landover since 1998
Winifred Matronia, missing from Laurel since 2002

I am looking forward to the entire series, and I appreciate the review of all the evidence.
Sometimes, I'm sure I missed some articles as the investigation proceeded.
This is a real murder mystery.
Thanks also to Ralph for the heads-up to the book and on-line blog of Ralph Daugherty, which I will read, as well, with interest.
This case has been cold for so long; I sincerely hope that your efforts can stir up some interest and possibly some new leads.
Also, after this is over, would you be willing to review the mystery of your employee who also disappeared some years ago in an allied article?
I'm certain the Levy family, while this must be painful for them, appreciate your efforts to give the case some renewed attention, in case there are some leads out there which have not come to light.
If she were my sister or daughter, I know I would certainly appreciate your hard work.
Thanks for this series.
I look forward to reading your articles each day.

I always thought Condit's brother may have been involved. He was something of a loser as I remember it who had nothing else to lose. Romeo Condit could have set up the lure (although someone should apologize to Harrison Ford) and his brother the murderer.

Great work so far. I can't wait to read the next 10 stories.

Is anyone aware of missing persons or remains found in the Rock Creek Park area? Just wondering....

I remember thinking this case was metaphor for the Bush administration, and I remember thinking things didn't look good. During bush's early months, they were unable to solve this case, yet it should have been fairly basic. Contrast that to the Clinton administration where things were solved relatively quickly before they flared up or festered. The Oklahoma bombing and first World Trade Center Tower bombing was resolved inside of a week. The terrorist in 2000, at the Canadian border. The nabbing of the Unibomber. Something was not coming down from the top, some basic competency.

My theory: it was a taxi driver that killed both Chandara Levy and Joyce Chiang. I was unaware of a 3rd victim until mentioned by a poster upstream. But I would add her because she was walking around Dupont at night.

In the Chaing case she was on a sidewalk in Dupont circle with many people around.

There is nothing unusual about hailing a taxi; but if the driver is also a serial killer, the victims can be removed to a remote place without notice by anyone.

Cabs can have door and window locking systems under the control of the driver, so the victims could not open the window and shout out.

It is possible that the victims were kidnapped and killed someplace other than where they were found. The reason I say that is that Chandra went missing during midday sometime so it would seem risky to murder someone in daylight in the open.

My guess is:

that it is a white male because the victims are white ( assuming the science teacher is white). It is not all that common for a cross racial murder like these.

That He could own his own gypsy cab so he could modify it.

What seems Unusual is his use of different nature settings, the park the river.

Another poster mentioned the jogger in Bethesda but I would not put that in this group, first off, because her disappearance was a snatching.

Although I can understand the poster's
comparison of the jogging trail with the rock creek park setting.

I would concentrate on the taxi driver theory and if there are other victims contemporaneous with this timeline or similar in victim I would add them too.

I dunno it seemed clear to me that the victims were transported from where they were to their death so they were in a car.

I hope this series actually sheds light on what happened -- and therefore allude to what can happen in cases like this, or not happen -- rather than be just a walk down memory lane.

There is some fine reporting and writing in this series. Thank you for that. But for me, it begs a larger question: If we in the media had spent the considerable time and energy that was invested in the Chandra Levy case in 2001 on Osama bin Laden instead, mightn't the world have been better off?

Could these outstanding reporters please brief us on the actual statements made to the press by the then Chief Ramsey of MPD regarding the discovery of the body and then "later" discovering more body parts (bones) at a later date, and his absurd comment that perhaps an animal had returned the other bones that hey had missed on the first discovery/search. This was a man (of great authority) responsible for the search of the body. No wonder it took them over a year to find the poor soul, . . . .

I lived in Chandra's neighborhood at the time and remember becoming almost obsessed with the idea that someone there could just disappear without a trace. Throw in the fact that a Congressman was involved and the mystery around his relationship with Chandra and other women continued to unfold and amaze. Many of us were convinced he did something to her and was covering up. After all, what were the odds that a man of such position could mistakenly be tied to this tragic occurrence?

Sadly, it captured people's imagination and became grist for the media---especially 24 hour cable "news" outlets. I was struck at the time about how Mr. and Mrs. Levy did everything they could to keep this case in front of the media. They seemed to turn up everywhere. Who could blame them? But could everyone command the coverage they received?

Was Chandra's story good for ratings or was the media attention good for the investigation? What about all of the missing kids who were poor, black invisible or without media savvy parents? The fact that they received little or no attention was almost as a repulsive as the presumed crime (later confirmed) that befell Chandra.

Sadly It took the tragic events of September 11 to rip this story from the headlines and the story nver really returned. Was it that America was so pre-occupied with the aftermath of 911? Perhaps. Or maybe we had a new story to fill our imagination.

Along with reflecting on this young girl's tragic end, we should also examine the basis for why the media exhausts certain tragic events and ignores others.

Nice job on this series and thanks for reminding us!

Peter Knockstead
Washington DC

Were there any other calls from Cong. Condit to either Chandra or her family after his May 3 calls? he never heard back from her. One assumes he knew when she was planning to return home. So what other efforts did he make to locate her, assuming he cared for her at all. Or was he just covering for himself on May 3 and dropped the pretense after that?

The "D.C. Intern Killer" theory was promoted by John Walsh, of "America's Most Wanted". It was patently ludicrous, as I myself pointed out to Paula Zahn, seven years ago this very day, in an e-mail responding to Mr. Walsh's appearance on Ms. Zahn's then-current show on the Fox News Channel. Anyone who believes that Chandra Levy, et al., were killed by a serial killer who targeted former government interns is hereby invited to request a copy of my own logical deconstruction of John Walsh's made-for-tv theory: DKH@NewYork.com.

D.K.H., M.S., M.B.A., J.D.

Peter Knockstead's comment that 9/11 overtook this story is actually grist for what I was hoping would come out of this series -- which, by the way, so far has not given me much more than a reminiscence. I was mesmerized by the coverage as it unfolded live (and by a forerunner of what we now call a blog that developed at the time), and receive much of the series so far as a rehash with few new details.

Can't wait for the part about the minister in Modesto who wasted the FBI's time with a tale about his daughter being afraid of "Scary Gary" and going into hiding. He later admitted he made the whole thing up to -- putting words in his mouth here -- make Mrs. Levy feel better, and, I would guess, to feed the attention the case would get the more that Condit could be "connected" to it.

But the subtext of that whole story of Chandra Levy (may she rest in peace) is what we might have known about 9/11 before it happened: how Condit was on the powerful House Select Committee on Intelligence that would have gotten the briefing of the Gary Hart commission on the knowledge that attacks with airliners were known to be in the planning stages, based on intercepted communications; how Condit's relationship with the flight attendant who "got scared" and went into hiding after hearing about Chandra going missing led her to actually be gone from her job about 6 months, just in time to NOT be on a transcontinental flight (for United Airlines) that might have been hijacked for a terror attack; how Condit supposedly counseled Chandra to take a train, stay away from flying, when she returned to California; how Condit himself, when he returned to Washington from a trip home to his district over the Labor Day break in 2001, eluded Washington Post reporters looking for him at airports on either end of the journey because HE (it was reported) got a lift in an 18-wheeler with a long-haul trucker -- meaning he was not in an airplane, either, in the run-up to 9/11. Just makes you wonder what all was going on during those months, during those conversations between Condit and Chandra Levy.

It was a strange summer in Washington, with that whole missing intern story swirling. And 9/11 dawned as gorgeous a day as you will ever see in late summer in the District of Columbia...

I am a resident of Williamsburg Lane in Rock Creek Park (Klingle Mansion neighborhood) and remember that a friend and I had called the police in June of that year to get rid of a car that had been abandoned in front of our house for some time. The red car, which had plates from a southern state (i think it was kentucky), had mapquest directions to Klingle Mansion on the passenger seat and dried flowers on the floor in the back. We thought it was weird that anyone even knew about the old place up the street and wondered why someone would have directions to the place. We called it in because the car had been there for a long time and was clearly just left there. The next day the car was gone.

The additional info on the archived washingtonpost.com Entertainment Guide Rock Creek Park page is very helpful. Unfortunately the map & directions link wasn't archived along with it and doesn't work, but it probably was the Rock Creek Park map with major trails, points of interest, etc.

This is an insightful development from the Washington Post investigation. I hope the reporters will have a chance to also address the vicinity.com and MapQuest references and where that came in the use of the computer that morning.

I don't know why the police referred to a MapQuest map of Rock Creek Park if it was the park's own map that Chandra looked at, or whether she looked at both and they didn't know about this. Seems it would have come from another site like the Rock Creek Park site which wasn't in the list released by police, unless washingtonpost.com was archiving it for that link.

rd

A serial adultress is murdered and her family presses to keep her immoral life style in the media??

I don't understand the family's or the media's obsession with this one young woman, when so many other you woman never get a fraction of this media attention.

I'm feel for their loss. But I also feel more for the loss other families have experienced, yet don't any attention at all.

If Ms. Levy loved the out of doors so much, and she had been living in DC for more than a year, wouldn't she already have had some basic knowledge of Rock Creek Park and its trails -- if she truly went there just to talk a walk?

So...what's the point? Is the Post actually attempting to hold the District's law enforcement feet to the fire, and hold this case up as a glaring (if tawdry) morality tale of shoddy investigative work with an eye toward some constructive change? Or is this just another cynical attempt to up the reader stats?

So...what's the point? Is the Post actually attempting to hold the District's law enforcement feet to the fire, and hold this case up as a glaring (if tawdry) morality tale of shoddy investigative work with an eye toward some constructive change? Or is this just another cynical attempt to up the reader stats?

"A serial adultress is murdered and her family presses to keep her immoral life style in the media??"

1) If this refers to Chandra Levy, she was not married, and not an "adulteress."

2) This may escape the small minds of the simplistically judgemental, but I'm pretty sure that Ms. Levy's family wants her story in the media because their twenty-four-year-old daughter's bones were found by a dog, in a public park, under a pile of leaves, and neither they nor an entire urban police department know why.

Why are so many people commenting here trying to make this about race or ethnicity or religion? Ridiculous. Stop agenda-pushing. This is about accountability and not letting a murderer off scot free - and that standard should apply to all cases, regardless of the victims' varying demographic characteristics. Every victim deserves justice, and every criminal should have to accept responsibility for their misdeeds.

Ben - I agree with "Ben"'s post about the usefulness of this type of analysis in any type of investigation. I have no idea how police put together narratives, but this kind of puzzle solving makes something awfully messy (and, awfully tragic. Let's face it, murder is awful, if it involves an intern, wife, husband, congressman or serial killer, it's all bad) look as if it can actually be solved.

So if Levy's can be put together, than the other cases can be, also. I think the cold case squads can be amazing resources that can really solve the cases. So if it can be done for the Levy family, I think it would be great to do it