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 for other families also, black, white, asian, woman, man - if it's effective, it's the way to go).

Ralph - would suspect the "Mapquest" map was integrated into the map C Levy was looking at. For example, nowadays a lot of libraries use "google" as their own search engine to locate library materials (on a library web site, it would say search powered by google, or something like that). It's conceivable that the Rock Creek Park web site was powered by Mapquest in 2001. They also might have looked at the Map and assumed it looked so similar to a Mapquest map that they referred to any electronic map as "Mapquest".

The first article says an officer in Levy's apartment "accidentally corrupted the search history on the computer" - but that's not possible. You can delete the web history completely, but doing it by accident is impossible.

Are the police feeding bogus lines to the reporters, or can someone explain this? Otherwise it sounds like an officer deliberately deleted the web history, which makes no sense because there would be no clear motivation at that early stage for an officer to do it.

Did anyone look at Dayton's(Condit's aide) cell phone records and his bank statements? What might he know? Were there sign in sheets for VP Cheney and Condit's meeting, which Condit requested, such as secret service logs?

One important issue that this series could bring to light is this: is the park (still) a dangerous place for a woman to go walking or jogging alone, even in the middle of the day? Do the police in that jurisdiction lack adequate training and resources to do their jobs, and how can that be corrected, so that the park can be safely enjoyed?

Matt, you're right. They should be more clear about what "corrupting" the history files means. It may not refer to deleting the history files and cookies, but rather, the police may have been pursuing their own searches on Levy's computer, thus adding search files that were not Levy's.

I agree that someone, a sharp-detective type, should go over all the files and details, to really try resolving it, and yes, if they could, it would help other victims.

Hi Sari, you will figure out who this is and you know my reputation as a homicide expert. Yes, all deaths should be investigated as a homicide until your investigation proves otherwise. That said, how does the medical examiner, Dr. Jonathan Arden, prove that this is in fact a murder? Did he not remove the head from the location of where Ms. Levy was found before the rest of her remains could be recovered in his haste to get involved? I personally believe that it may be a suicide. If you have not done so, the full post mortem examination including the manner in which the body was recovered should be a part of your review for this series. Remember the public statement that Chief Ramsey made while directing the recovery of the remains at the scene promising the Levy family that the case would be closed and then to have one of her bones found in close proximity by former homicide detectives McCann and Stanton?

Who reported her to the Bureau of Prisons that she was not eligible for the internship? I read that she had actually completed her coursework in December of 2000.

The reporters didn't quite put this together, but if Ramsay told police cadets three months after Levy disappeared to check within 100 yards of all trails, why did they miss Levy, who was 70 yards away from the Horse Trail?

They missed her ...

Michele, I agree. Another lesson from this story is maybe beefing up security in Rock Creek Park. Do they have adequate emergency phones? Can they run police through their on bikes, horses, and golf-carts, to make sure that trails are safe for men and women to walk on?

I can't tell if this region of the park is remote. In many stories, they claim it's remote. In others, they point out this area is full of major trails. Nearby were destination points, like the nature center and planetarium, which'd draw me, for sure. It sounds like an interesting area. But why was it unpoliced? Somewhere else noticed that it was a holiday, Memorial Day. Still, what made this area "remote" and left unpatrolled?

RE: Carla & PUMA Alert!
Carla- newsflash-
Everything is not 'All About Hillary' It's easy to assume that, being her follower, but it's not.
This is a great series. I remember following it and then noticing the story disappeared after 9-11.
Chandra deserves this attention. It's her story, not Hillary's.

adulter is defined as voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse. So Chandra was definitely an adulteress, since she participated in adultery. She was an adult and she was shagging a married man knowingly.

i wish you would spend more time talking about the ridiculous amount of resources that the MPD spent in looking for her.

doesn't race and class have something to do with this? would the washington post be running such a glorified tale of a poor black woman from dc vanishing? would the MPD spend the same amount of resources looking for that poor black girl. any statistics on the number of unsolved homicides and rapes that took place in DC during that time that nobody bothers with>

doubt it.

Michelle and Eeave, the park is a nice natural area in the middle of the city; the fact that it's remote and there are no emergency phones on the trails, or police on bikes around everywhere is part of the attraction. The park doesn't get as much use or as much violent crime to make it worth spending time and money in more police... my humble opinion. I run there by my self often - I feel less safe crossing the streets of downtown DC than running in the park; the chances of being killed by a car or of being attacked by gang members in SW DC are probably much higher than of anything happening in Rock Creek...

My belief is that someone else utilized Chandra's laptop knowing that the police would take the laptop for evidence, and knowing this planted that website as a throw off and so the police can focus on that website as the person or persons have time to do away with Chandra's body to then later take her remains to horse trail. I also believe that Condit had someone (professionally) to do his dirty work, and I believe this because either Chandra knew too much of something or of someone, she was pregnant, or either both. The person or persons that killed Chandra Levy set up the going to Rock Creek Park because they knew it was a big place and the police would have to figure out what purpose did she go to Rock Creek for, and then making it puzzling for the police as to why would she go to the park without her cellphone, ID, or another friend. And it was also puzzling because very few people had any contact with her the day before she went missing. And I also find it strange that she would confide in a person in the gym to tell he/she about her boyfriend. I believe that this was a professional hit/job, and that someone knows something, but to afraid to speak out.

WarEagle, Rory ... Your comments make no sense. This is the Washington Post, not the Tennessee Post.

Matt, you don't know who Condit knows personally as a friend. So your comment referring to why would a police delete the history files from Chandra's computer. As stated, you don't know who's a close friend of Condit, and money controls people also. And people will do anything for money. Question, should the police when he entered into her apartment search her computer, or should that been a job for a specialist?

And in my opinion..Ramsy didn't act on this investigation the way he should have from day one. I remember him coming on air (TV) stating that this is not about Condit and Chandra having sex, but about her disappearance and it clearly states that she spent her spare time with him. Condit should have been questioned from day one and Condit should NOT have been allowed to take his own personal lie detector test.

Posted by: Murphie | July 13, 2008 5:47 PM
Murphie-
Your comment as to why wouldn't the horses smelled the body there in Rock Creek. The reason why a horse didn't is because her body wasn't in that park at that time. I believe that her remains was brought back to that area as a part of the set up, so the public would look at the police for not doing their job, and thus still keeping the focus off the real killer..and thus keeping the focus on "why didn't the police see her body there" the killer or killers are professinal, and Condit knows who they are.

Bekyndhearted,

Then why aren't the rest of Condit's girlfriends dead?

Eeave,

I'd guess that the portion of the Ridge Trail where the remains were found is about half a mile from the nature center, and maybe only a quarter mile from the park maintenance yard.

Still, that statement gives you no feeling for the isolated nature of this portion of the trail. It is deep woods, and runs along the west side of a hill perhaps 100 feet below the horse trail and nearby Glover Rd. The trail itself is severely eroded coming in from the north, looking more like a gully than a footpath, this might also discourage visitors.

As I noted above, I walk my dog several times a week along the forest trails in Rock Creek Park between the DC line and Pierce Mill; many other people use these trails routinely. Other portions of the trail network are more remote in the sense of being further from roads, but I see plenty of people: hikers, trailrunners (probably a newish phenomenon since 2001) and dog walkers.

It might be random chance, but this little loop of trail where the body was found is one of the two sections of trail in the park where I have never encountered another person.

Maybe people should go out and take a look to really understand the scene. Maybe I will see you there!

murphie and ralph: i have to disagree. I go trail running through that area all time -- also on that loop as best as you describe it -- and I've seen other trail runner (and single women) there.

I agree it is highly unlikely that someone like Levy would stumble into that area on an afternoon walk.

There are also camps of homeless men in the park that I've run into as well.

It is possible that I'm wrong about the loop, but based on your description I have gone through there. perhaps a link to google maps -- with exact coordinates?

Handsome men, imbued with power, are magnets to young, impressionable women.
What an aphrodisiac it is to be "courted" by an older, "wiser" man. I think Condit is implicated, & will be found out eventually.
---Interestingly, this Washington Post series reminds me of another unsolved D.C.
mystery death. It is the death of Vincent Foster; was it suicide -- or just made to look like a suicide? There was a hint that
Hillary Clinton may have been involved somehow.

charlie, it is a path the juts into the woods at picnic table 18, goes around the hill toward Grant Road and parallel to Broad Branch Road below, then circles around back to Ridge Road and meets up with the horse trail going along Ridge Road again, a little down the road from the stables.

It is intensely dark and quiet in there, like entering a jungle with the canopy but without the chattering birds. You're still on the edge of all that in the trees coming up the horse trail from the equestrian field, but turning off on an even narrower and eroded path would only be done by someone who was wanting that kind of experience.

As murphie said, I was there most of a Friday and I wrote in chapter Horse Trail in my book Murder on a Horse Trail (posted on my site to read, just google it) that I only saw two separate couples come through with their dog that entire time.

It is inconceivable to me that a woman would walk back in there, the only purpose being to go cross country. That's assuming they even know where it goes. I can't imagine too many people do.

There are no vagrants in that section, you can barely stand up without starting to slide downhill. Sure there are going to be some people that wander back in there a little from the picnic area to get out of sight of the road to drink some beer or something, but they would be parked there and picnicing.

People just have to walk this themselves to see how steep and remote it is, and how ridiculous it is to suggest that Chandra hiked forever to be out in the middle of nowhere, or that a stalker would think there would ever be someone to stalk. That being after he caught his breath getting up here sticking out like a sore thumb to the occasional horse riders along Ridge Road.

I'm not even sure a video documentary re-enacting the hike from Klingle Mansion (not to mention how hard it is to get to Klingle Mansion by foot) to this remote spot on top of a desolate (yes, desolate) steep hill, the highest point in DC, and back into the forest could capture where Chandra was found, down the side of that hill a couple of hundred feet through a thickly forested side of this monster hill.

On the other hand, drive there and see what a perfect spot it is to hide a body for one of those few people that know the terrain back in there. There is a person of interest in this case that knows the park very well, he rode it all the time and lived "not far" away, as they say.

rd

Since dawn of time - stupid women and crotch grabbing self impressed men have found each other. Monica n Bill - Chandra & Gary. And most avoid justice. Even dear slippery OJ Simpson. Knock yerself out - a big Duh if it isn't obvious.

"Then why aren't the rest of Condit's girlfriends dead?"

They weren't asking about an affair with an 18 year old black girl back in Modesto a few years earlier. Chandra did, at her mother's insistence. Records of daily phone calls immediately ceased, Chandra was told to clear out her desk at work the next week, and she disappeared a few days later.

Not to mention also vowing to confront Condit about leaving his "terminally ill" wife as he had promised. Carolyn in fact did fly in, for the first time in anyone's memory, and Chandra disappeared while she was there.

However, Anne Marie Smith was also in town and had asked to see Condit, who told her it was not a good time; Condit's brother Darrell is said to have not shown up at his day labor job in Florida for a couple of weeks during that time; Sven had just arrived back from an overseas trip that day, with a message from Chandra asking to talk to him; a close confidant, chief of staff Mike Dayton, drove Condit home the day Chandra disappeared, the only time he was alleged by Condit to have driven Condit home in all the time surrounding her disappearance; Chandra had asked Condit about an affair with a young woman who happened to have a child with "Name Withheld" on the birth certificate for father during the time of the alleged affair, and who is someone may not have wanted that secret jeapordized, so this is like one of those murder mysteries where everyone shows up and the lights go out.

But iIn this parlor called DC, the lights stayed out for Chandra.

rd

fahd wrote: "i wish you would spend more time talking about the ridiculous amount of resources that the MPD spent in looking for her."

The DC police spent very little time working this case. They probably spent more time answering reporter's questions than anything else.

From the beginning they got heat from people like you, public heat, and yes, they did the minimal evidence gathering from her apartment and where her body was found as they do for any case, but as far as say looking for her they had cadets out doing that a couple of times. They questioned Condit three times in three months, then turned the case over to the FBI.

You have absolutely nothing to complain about as far as overreaching on the DC police's part in investigating this murder.

rd

eave wrote: "The reporters didn't quite put this together, but if Ramsay told police cadets three months after Levy disappeared to check within 100 yards of all trails, why did they miss Levy, who was 70 yards away from the Horse Trail?"

eave, the reporters specifically wrote that there was a miscommunication of some kind because the police only searched 100 yards from roads, not trails. Maybe it was in part 1 they write that.

rd

siren wrote: "Were there sign in sheets for VP Cheney and Condit's meeting, which Condit requested, such as secret service logs?"

Cheney's office said that there was only one participant meeting with Cheney and his aides, that being Condit. Dayton drove him to the meeting, in Cheney's office in the House, was introduced, and then went on. Condit was free in 20 minutes, at 12:50, 10 minutes before Chandra logged off her computer at 1.

I examine all these issues closely in chapter Alibi in Murder on a Horse Trail. There is next to nothing that makes sense or is believable in what Condit and Dayton revealed about that day that Chandra disappeared.

rd

Charlie,

Not sure if this system will allow me to include a link, but here is a gmaps pedometer where I have highlighted the trail above where the body was found.

www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2082775

This is based on a 1984 topo - the most recent, but it does not give a good indication of where the neighboring horse trail runs. You can go to this pdf,
zoom in on the area near Picnic Grove 17 and you will see the loop directly to the right of the words "Western Ridge Trail".

www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/national_parks/rock_creek_park97.pdf

As an initial matter, as a life-long male DC resident (who has many female friends, as well as relatives, living in the city), I consider this story a valuable piece.

Admittedly, it does have a tabloid overtone to it, but it also could (as the serial chapters progress) shed some light on a serious issue - violence against women inside Washington DC

For those readers who remember 1998 through 2000, in the period immediately preceding the Levy disappearance and murder, the Joyce Chiang story - which had logistical similarities - captivated the local news. Although Chiang's disappearance was investigated by the FBI due to her federal employment status, the conclusions in that case have yet to satisfy most residents.

I was working for the feds at the time and every young attorney of any ethnic background was scared by Ms. Chiang's disappearance. It was where she disappeared that confused people - the Starbucks at Conn and R is not an isolated area or one in which an attorney who attended law school in the town (she went to Georgetown and worked on Capitol Hill) would "get lost" or not know her way around, or would not be able to figure out whether to enter a vehicle.

Levy's disappearance only a few blocks to the southeast only heightened the concern among women at the time.

Some stories regarding Chiang connected her disappearance with work at INS - and whether it connected with stories of human trafficking/ female sex slave trading that was being reported on the East Coast in cities such as New York and Baltimore.

What was also disturbing at the time was that, in the period between the Chiang disapperance and Levy's vanishing, there were stories and reports coming out of the Southeast, primarily African-American, quadrant of the city regarding the disappearances of young African-American women - and these were being written off as drug killings.

This was not a widely reported story, but local residents will remember. For many community members, that "write-off" re: drugs never sounded right - most drug killings are b/w drug dealers - young men - on street corners , not women out on the town club-hopping (as many of the women who police discovered were dressed for a night of dancing or partying).

The point is - that time in DC was a scary period for many a woman, or people who cared about women's safety, in the city.

The city was just starting to recover from years of neglect, the economy was good, and young people were moving back into the city from the suburbs.

The fact that these murders have yet to be solved concerns me and it should concern readers. Who knows who committed these murders?

But, the Post staff should write a follow-up story on whether police tactics have changed to conduct better investigations of all crime victims, regardless of the relationships they may maintain.

Ugh...i read rd bk...clears all of my suspicions up! Paying close attention to language is key. Here I was disputing case with my mom and turns out she's way more right than I am.

Don't want to ruin it for everyone but this series is going to be a real stunner.

LngTimeDCresident is right on regarding whether tactics shift following demographic shifts/shifts in behaviors. Am reading a book about how stereotypes get in the way of accurate diagnoses and I think it may apply to everything...if I have a bias against people who wear blue ties, there's a great chance my bias is going to block me from serving the blue tie people well. Same goes for the bias against women that lngtime mentioned.

good stuff.

btw does having femme police chief in dc, has that made a difference as of the period she's been in command? is she better than ramsey, or are the forces she deals with way beyond the capacities of the dc police force? i am so amazed by the work of nypd and seems lapd is following in those footsteps. here's hoping dc can too.

to everyone asking about why this case and not others--have you noticed that it involves a member of Congress? not to mention some inexplicable omissions by the DC (LOCAL) police.

lots of things don't add up: Condit's evasiveness on more than just his infidelity, the timeline, the body that wasn't found for a year but was magically found by a dog making a beeline for it--what, were all the other dogs olfactorily impaired?

i am glad this case is finally being looked into again. right after Condit's slander suit was dismissed--coincidence?

In regards to the comments referencing "why didn't Condit kill any of his other girlfriends"

The rest of Condit's girlfriends aren't dead because they are not Chandra Levy. As I stated in one of my comments earlier. I believe that she knew of some information that she wasn't suppose to know and she may wanted to tell it, and/or she became pregnant by him and she didn't want to get rid of the baby but he did. Now the that is what would seperate her from the other girlfriends. If you read the article, I can't remember if it's the first, second, or third chapter when the flight attendent stated that Condit told her that they could continue to see each other if she didn't tell anyone. Everybody is different. One girlfriend might go along with his controling ways and another may not.

Andrew, the problem with MapQuest is that it only showed a green blob for Rock Creek Park. Literally.

It showed no details of Rock Creek Park whatsoever. Klingle Mansion and even the road to it are not shown, no indication of where any trails are, no points of interest shown. And the only way it was/is obtained is mapping the address of Klingle Mansion (park headquarters), the same address displayed at the top of the Entertainment Guide page on Rock Creek Park.

Yes, the Entertainment Guide page listed some points of interest and said there was 11 miles of horse trails, but there is nothing a person could do with the MapQuest map in finding where they were.

rd

Hi,

I just wanted to say nice job. The story is very compelling and the video of the Levy's is real and poignant. Thanks for doing this.

Kate

I see that Condit opened a Baskin Robbins franchise in Arizona with his wife after he left Washington. One of the last web sites Chandra looked at before she went to Rock Creek Park was the Baskin Robbins site. Coincedence? It seems to me that Condit was discussing his post-DC plans with Chandra - obviously she thought this was a life-long relationship for her. If she was this serious, but he was not, how could he not have a connection to her murder?

Loving this series of articles. I was an intern the same time as Chandra, strangely on capitol hill in a CMs office. The day I went home from DC was the day she went missing. It really makes you think.... All the same my compliments to the people at the post for this engaging series.

My mother knows a guy who is kinda a "rent an FBI agent" who is retired in another state. This FBI guy seemed to think during the investigation that she wasn't in the park the entire time. He thought she was kept in a freezer or something to remain preserved and then dumped in the park when it was "time." Has that theory ever been looked into?

I think the focus should be intensified on the former Congressman. The man is STILL denying the fact that he had an affair with Chandra Levy -- not to mention the other women who claim to have had affairs with him as well. If he's still lying about his affair with Chandra after all these years, what else is he continuing to lie about? I'll always believe he had something to do with her disappearance ...

Where are the psychics in all this? Call me crazy (don't answer that) but if my daughter, sister, friend went missing, I'd be knocking on the psychic network doors so fast your head would spin.

Does anyone other than voyeurs and local residents care about this? Does this affect or shape the national scene in ANY way? Isn't his just trivial garbage?

Have they ever done this for a woman of color? Just asking, but this is typical MSM - obsessed with missing white women. Like anyone really cares? Like this is NATIONAL news? No, this should be in the local section, not the page cover of the Web site . Idiots and sycophants - my god can we get a real press in this country not some print version of Faux News?

To anyone who knows forensics: Can scientists tell whether a person died at the same place her remains were found? If bones were moved, can you tell whether they were moved by a person or by animals? Can you tell by bones whether the dead woman was pregnant? Do most dogs recognize and/or alert to human remains, or is it only trained cadaver dogs that do this?

we all know where this is going to lead.

For those complaining about this series as being a waste of time, at the very least there is a glaring light shown on incompetent DC police work. If nothing else the DC police will feel the pain. When reading this and the book written about the murder, I find it repulsive that Condit got away with as much as he did. His alibi, a window of opportunity about 5 hours wide and his three question polygraph that he arranged himself in lieu of a detailed and much tougher police polygraph. There were so many missed opportunities to gain more information and get closer to catching the killer. One thing I was not surprised by was the obfuscation and interference by a powerful politician able to avoid and intimidate the DC police to the extent he probably got away with murder.

On September 27, 2004 in Condit vs. Dunne, Condit testified under oath as follows:

Q: You answered that it was not a, quote, romantic relationship.When you answered that question, what was your understanding of the phrase, romantic relationship?

A: It wasn't a romantic relationship.

Q: Well, what do you understand the words, romantic relationship, to mean?

A: One of unusual affection, where you pay attention to people, so on and so forth.

Q:When you pay attention to people, what do you mean by that?

A: I don't know. I think romantic is a very dnondescriptive term. Some people think some things are romantic, some people think they're not romantic. But I saw no romance in our friendship.

Q: You saw no romance?

A: No.

Q: Was there any physical intimacy of any kind in your relationship?

Mr Wood [Condit's lawyer] : I instruct Mr. Condit not to answer the question....

Q: Did the relationship, would you describe the relationship at any time during this period as being emotionally intense for either you or Ms. Levy?

A: No , not at all.

Q:Did she ever indicate to you that she had feelings of affection for you?

A; No.

Q: Did she ever indicate to you that she wanted to live with you?

A: No.

Q: Did you ever discuss having a realtionship that was more than friends at some future date?

A: No.

Q: Did you and Chandra Levy ever discuss your marriage?

A: No.

Q: Did you ever discuss your wife with Ms Levy?

A: No.

Q:Ever discuss the possibility of having children with Ms Levy?

A: No.

Q:Did Chandra Levy ever tell you that she wanted to get married?

A: No.

Q; To anyone, not just you?

A: No....

Q: Did Ms Levy ever spend the night in your apartment?

[he is instructed by his counsel not to answer.]

Q: Did you typically speak with Ms Levy throughout the period that you knew her on the telephone every week?

A: Probably while she was there we spoke at least once a week, yes.

Q:Sometimes more that once a week?

A: Maybe. I mean, I didn't count.

Q: Did she visit you at your apartment?

A: She came by my apartment, yes.

Q: How many times did she visit you in your apartment?

A: I don't rcall more than once.

Q: Do you recall that she did visit your apartment sometime around May 24th, just before -- I'm sorry, April 24th, a few days prior before she went --

A:Yes.

Q: Other than that visit, did Ms Levy visit your apartment?

A: I don't recall her visiting any other time. She might have come by and I wasn't there.

Q: No, while you were there, do you recall her being in your apartment?

A: No. No.

interesting how Condit made every attempt to avoid the grand jury subpoena with the help of his attorney. Its said he took the fifth when he finally did show up at the court house after he lost reelection.

He has denied all the affairs he has had.

She went out without her cellphone? No woman in love goes anywhere without her cellphone unless she is going to meet the one she loves. And if she was so ignorant of the area that she had to check the internet to find it, she would have taken her cellphone in case she got lost. Therefore, she was going to meet her lover, and she was going to meet him in a place where she thought she wouldn't get lost, not in some remote area. Which means she would have met him on the street or in some other easy to find place. She might have wanted to see the horses with him before she went home. Maybe they roamed a bit and got lost, since she wouldn't have known the area. Maybe they purposely roamed a bit to find a private place to make love. Maybe he told her it was all off and then left and someone else happened upon her. Maybe the someone was his wife. Or his aide. Maybe he left her alone and she got lost trying to get out of the park and someone bad found her.

Posted by: Lucy | July 15, 2008 4:24 PM

Lucy -- I'm not suggesting the place be overrun with law enforcement but an occasional drive-by, by someone in uniform, would help people feel safe in that park.

I'm a longtime park jogger myself; mostly Central Park in NYC from the 1980s on, and now Cortlandt Park. I was also born in Washington, DC and grew up in northern Virginia. So I relate a lot to this story, a woman who loves the outdoors and gets occasional exercise. But in Central Park and Van Cortlandt, there is a feeling the place is somewhat watched by police. They ride through there on horses a few times a day. It helps keep people intent on committing crime at bay, or at least an area becoming a cesspool of it, without taking away natural beauty or people's enjoyment of it.

Posted by: Peggy McGilligan | July 14, 2008 2:44 PM

Oh, please, one reason I'm reading this series is to get away from these ridiculous paranoid statements by nutwings about the Clintons.

This is a true crime story, nothing more. Hopefully, one whose mystery will be solved for the family and for others in a similar situation, who need good police practices in their court, for them to find closure.

ralph and murphy: thanks for the links. The gmaps things confirms that is where I have done some trail running. And again, I have to disagree -- by 2003/2004 there are people back in there doing running. I've come across single women, and indeed I stumped on one single woman runner taking a natural on the side of the trail. And yes, in that particular area I've not seen a homeless camp.

I do agree that it is unlikely that Levy would have stumbled on that trail by herself. Stranger things have happened, though.

A real shame about the foul-up regarding the security cameras at Ms. Levy's building. Her cell phone is in her apartment. Her ID is in her apartment. I think security tapes would have shown she never left the building. Someone inside that condo complex killed her. It's the most logical explanation.

Condit was a roommate of Steve Peace, a fellow assemblyman, when first elected to the state legislature in California. Peace later served in the State Senate. When asked about Gary Condit and the rumors of infidelity, Peace said Condit always had girlfriends and had cheated on his wife since the day he was married, this says a lot. Did any of the writers speak to Steve Peace?

Can someone clarify a point for me about Condit's involvement? I see the (very helpful) testimony transcript and I see the statement from the reporters that Condit "has denied that he ever had a romantic relationship with Chandra."

Does this mean also that he did *not* tell the police that he had a romantic relationship and/or a physical relationship with her?

I had always understood that no matter what he said publicly, he had privately admitted the affair to police, and then it leaked out.

For those of you dismissing the importance of this story, I echo those who agree that it shows the DC cops' incompetence. They searched the wrong area. They didn't bother asking the apt. building for the security tape until it had already been taped over. And some moron messed around with her computer and screwed up her webpage history, and then the detectives focused solely on the Klingle Mansion mention, not that she was searching Rock Creek trails or anything else. Idiots.

A question for the reporters = what is Chandra's brother doing now? In viewing the poignant 7-minute Post video of her parents (beautiful job!), it struck me how they talked about suicide as an option if things got too bad and when a patient asked the dad how he was, he said something about "same life, unfortunately." I feel for these people, but I also feel for her brother, having to always live in the shadow of Chandra's death. Sad, sad, sad.

The new examples of police mistakes are very interesting. I just wonder what prompted this review over the last year, as opposed to two years ago or in the future on the 10th anniversary of her death. Did the Post reporters first get tips of more police mistakes? Were enough new mistakes pointed out to your staff that you felt a new investigation/overview was needed? Did a friend or former staffer of Rep. Condit leak you new info?

Thanks Joshua Gen for posting repeatedly about items not related to this story. You need a real hobby.

Later in the series, you'll be able to put together some interesting tidbits -- I am not the reporter on the series, but I followed this story in the Post and the coverage by the Washington bureau reporter for the Modesto Bee.

The reason the park was scoured by cadets/recruits weeks after Chandra was reported missing is that there was a new lead in the case at that time!!

A woman was running in Rock Creek Park in roughly the same area, and a man attacked her and nearly choked her to death (or she felt that way) and almost rolled her down a hill off the path she was on. If I recall details, she ran past him going the other way, and he turned around and ran back after her.

She also was robbed of jewelry.

After this was reported to police, MPD had a clue, and they JUST MISSED finding Chandra's body. It was a great clue.

Once her body was found, MPD released a drawing of a ring that Chandra owned and must have been wearing, as it was not among her belongings in her apartment. The thought was that if she'd been robbed in the course of the attack, the ring might have shown up in pawn shops.

This was standard police procedure to withhold certain bits of information until the proper time.

I always am fascinated when people talk about the tragedy, or problem, or issue, of violence against women-- almost always as if it should go without saying that it is more tragic than the exact same violence visited upon men. As every American ought to know, men are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than are women. American men, for instance, are three times as likely to be murdered than are American women. There seems to be some tacit understanding in our society-- but especially among self-styled sexual egalitarians-- that since most men are slain by other men, they are not truly victims in the same way, or to the same degree, as are women slain by men; as if, being men, they should be able to defend themselves better than women-- against an armed attacker?-- and held at least somewhat responsible themselves for having failed to do so.

Daniel Kevin Hand,

Interesting that you are assuming that Chandra Levy was slain by a man, being that the whole thing is unsolved.

Unless, of course, you are not commenting on this case at all.

Posted by: Fritz Holznagel | July 16, 2008 2:27 PM

Fritz,
According to Ralph Daughtry's book here http://www.justiceforchandra.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2543
and yoiu will have to scroll down just a bit to rread it, Chandra'a aunt went against advice and made a 15 page public statement concerning the relationship Chandra had described to her with Condit and it included that Chandra had shared some detail of their intimate relationship. At this point Condit had denied a romantic relationship in two police interviews. However, after the 15 page public statement by her aunt, condit finall acknoledged a long term romantic(sexual)relationship to Chandra. Micheal Isikoff is quoted "Newsweek reports that Condit told investigators in the interview following Zamsky's public statement that he "had a long-term sexual relationship with Chandra Levy". Michael Isikoff of Newsweek also added that Condit told the police there was no break in their relationship and that he had a final, routine phone call with her on Sunday, April 29.

So it wasn't until the third interview Condit finally acknowledged what he told Chandra she had to keep secret. In my opinion Condit tried very hard to keep his affairs secret with any woman he was seeing.I don't think he cared if his wife knew, she had asked him for a divorce in 1996 I believe. I think he would have done anything to protect his political career and power on the House Intelligence committee.

I think he would have done anything to protect his political career and power on the House Intelligence committee.

Posted by: siren | July 16, 2008 4:32 PM

__________________________________

Probably was trying to protect the potential for future relationships with interns, too, assuming any of this stuff is true about his alleged affairs.

The Modesto Bee, and the Washington Post, I believe, consistently (at least at first) characterized Condit's stance as "not denying" a relationship.

This is one of the best pieces of journalism I have seen in years. Thank you for your work and for shedding light on a story that has left many unanswered questions.

Fascinating story and well written. But where does one go for the interactive map of rock creek park and virtual tour of the crime scene etc. mentioned in the print edition?

Daniel Kevin Hand,

Interesting that you are assuming that Chandra Levy was slain by a man, being that the whole thing is unsolved.

Unless, of course, you are not commenting on this case at all.

Posted by: | July 16, 2008 4:17 PM

***

I do happen to assume that Chandra Levy was (a) murdered, and (b) murdered by a man. I even have more than a passing suspicion as to who that man is, just as I did before her remains were recovered in Rock Creek Park. I also am fairly sanguine that I know who the respective killers were in both the Jack the Ripper (1888) and Black Dahlia (1947) sexual murders, and that they were both men, too; but, alas, I digress....

That is all beside the point of my comment, however, which resulted from reading several comments [supra] about violence against women that seem to assume that such violence were some wholly separate species from violence against men. I am able and willing to distinguish between wholly innocent victims and those who were less than wholly innocent. I cannot abide, however, the premise or conclusion that men qua victims are less deserving per se than are women qua victims, under otherwise identical circumstances.

I find it odd-- which, of course, is merely an euphemistic way of saying hypocritical-- for self-styled sexual egalitarians, be they female or male, to presume or assume the moral superiority of one gender of victim as against the other. Fourteenth Amendment, and all that rot....

D.K.H., J.D. [inter alia]

Dead young white women. They're the raison d'etre of infotainment news.

How many more days of this? Seven? Eight?

This a 12 part series. In that time, there's an average of about 5 murders in DC. Might be interesting for the Post to follow up on those.

It's all about money,ain't a damn thing funny, you got to have a job in this land of milk and honey....cha ching! is exactly what the editors of the post were thinking of when the idea for this series was flashboarded to them by someone in the advertising department.It got me hook, line,and sinker.Can you imagine the meeting?The bottom line of the post has been declining for years..what can we do,people,to increase revenue immediately?How about a story about a story about a young,white,ample breasted(and jewish!)woman who was murdered and it probably has a congressman involved....?Do you think,people,that the public will eat it up and save our jobs for at least the time being?(Can you imagine the editors actually,physically, drooling?.....)Let's run with it,people,or,I'll end up back at the car lot!I do think if it didn't involve someone who fit the description given earlier,it wouldn't have seen the light of day.The National Enquirer lives!

People must not have paid much attention to this case after the Condit excitement and questioning. I know exactly where this series is going and its not going Condit's way. There are people who spend hours and hours watching these dramatic police shows where cases are solved in an hour or these documenteries on closed cases where forensics solved the case. This case has nothing to do with conspiracies or mysterious people wanting to silence Levy. It was a simple robbery gone bad that happens every day in most major U.S. cities.

Does anyone know how many solved and/or unsolved murders have taken place in Rock Creek Park in recent years?

It seems the Condit angle was a red herring, obviously of interest, but just one of many possible avenues to follow up on. In a mystery story, he would be the obvious suspect, but probably not the real killer. His evasiveness was understandable, if despicable. Were police sent down the wrong path simply because he was such a jerk? Is there any way to gauge how much attention they paid to him versus other possible suspects, known or unknown?

It certainly seems it was the Levys who insisted on keeping the focus on Condit.

It seemed at one point in this case, early on, that Mrs. Levy even had a co-conspirator back in Modesto, a minister who did her landscaping, to create a back story on Chandra and Condit.

The man claimed to have had a conversation with Mrs. Levy about Chandra being involved with Condit a month before she even went missing -- yet such an involvement was apparently not even claimed to have been known to the Levys when they contacted police about Chandra when they hadn't heard from her. He said he understood the woman's frustration, because his own daughter had had an affair with Condit years earlier. He claimed he overheard Mrs. Levy get on the phone and tell Chandra about the conversation he just had with Mrs. Levy.

The minister recanted his story -- told to the FBI as part of the investigation. Claims his daughter never was involved with Condit.

Makes you wonder -- hmmmm? -- if the other part of the recanted story -- that he talked to Mrs. Levy about Condit/Chandra at all, was also made up.

It seems even Mrs. Levy was not entirely forthright in the way she brought the Condit angle into the investigation. She initially claimed to have called Condit because he was their representative in Congress and was in Washington and thought his influence might help in getting the police to take some action.

I feel compelled to read about Chandra because I had a dream so vivid, it woke me up. I called a friend of mine the morning after, to tell her what it was about, because I felt like I needed a witness for if and when Chandra was found. I knew that Chandra was in Rock Creek Park. I had seen the arched bridge made of stone. (Reporters, do you pass it to get near her murder site?) I had then seen the woods all around her...although in my dream it wasn't me it was her. Now that I've seen the TV show, "Medium," I understand the concept of this whole weird situation. I've had some weird coincidences in my life, but this was the first time I had an "in my face" experience. I'm not a crackpot...I live an ordinary life...I don't drink or use drugs.
No doubt some of you will think I'm ready for a padded cell anyway. Couldn't agree with you more!

In regards to WHY this series is being printed: On one hand, after all this time, I agree, "what's the point?" On the otherhand, this unsolved murder, if due to law enforcement negligence for even the most BASIC of tasks, as it seems to be -- then there needs to be a shaking up, a heads up and/or heads rolling, intense training with investigators that have their heads up their -- well, you know where. Heck, even people who watch a season of CSI would know to grab a videotape! This is shameful. AND, I don't care what color a person is, what nationality, what religion...if a crime is committed then informed care needs to be taken. To the people think there's attention given because she's white or Jewish...well...the police screwed up! She didn't get helped...so except for the media attention, mainly because her family was the "squeeky wheel," she would have been another missing person we would never had known about. Let her murder be used for good...to fix what is so broken within the investigative system. And for goodness sake, PLEASE stop using the race card with everything. If you turn us all inside out, we're the same -- that's what my mom used to say.

It was not clear at the outset that a crime had been committed, Chandra Levy was an adult, she might have been on a train back to California -- a lot of reasons a security tape was not checked out before it expired or was overwritten. It's harsh to call this ineptness on the part of police -- if only because THIS WAS PRE-9/11. It was BEFORE there was a video camera on every street corner, before Google satellite images on the Internet. It was before blogs. It was before Facebook. It was before match.com took off. If was before everyone had a cellphone. It was before iPods. I think Chandra probably had a Walkman on -- seems that was found nearby her bones (another reason she could have been surprised by an attacker coming up behind her).

You have to be grateful it happened post DNA forensic evidence or we might not even know if the bones were hers.

This story took on a life of its own, in its own time period.

That should be taken into account when calling out people for bungling things.

There had just been a made-for-TV movie on that people thought had similarities, and she was going to wash up in the Chesapeake Bay somewhere in an ice chest. Stuff like that.

Others have probably posted this, but why was the "serial killer" theory never pursued? (Joyce Chiang and one other) That actually made the most sense and fits in with the Post Reporter's musing that Chandra may have just been going for a nice walk in Rock Creek Park.

We all just got so caught up with this Gary Condit connection, it distracted the entire city from a perhaps much more frightening scenario.

So I'd like to ask the reporters now: What about the serial killer theory? Does it have any legs? Thank you.

***

This case has nothing to do with conspiracies or mysterious people wanting to silence Levy. It was a simple robbery gone bad that happens every day in most major U.S. cities.

Posted by: | July 16, 2008 6:29 PM

****

Really? A young woman is walking or jogging through the park on a beautiful May Day afternoon, in shorts, shoes and a t-shirt, with no purse and no cell phone visible, so someone decides that she would make an ideal victim for a forcible robbery? Have the police and the media been holding back the key fact that she was wearing the Hope diamond at the time of her demise? Or, was the robber so mortified at his own stupidity for picking such a poor mark that he killed her to keep from being publicly embarrassed if she reported the crime? A random rapist would make at least a facially plausible theory for the crime; a robbery does not.

Dramaticlookcat, please refer to my original post here: July 14, 2008 11:20 PM

D.K.H.

On January 23, 2001, Sue Wen Stottsmeister was brutally assaulted and murdered in Rock Creek Park. Her attacker, Albert Cooke Jr., victimized Sue on a sunny, brisk weekday afternoon approximately one mile north of Aspen Hill Park. The path that she was using is the same path hundreds of people utilize every year.
http://www.mcrrc.org/archive/rundown_features/hs_phones.php

Detectives in the Chandra Levy murder case are focusing on a man convicted of assaulting two women jogging in Rock Creek Park last year[2001] -- a suspect who was initially discounted after he passed a polygraph test that investigators now believe was flawed.

Ingmar A. Guandique, 21, has been in prison for the assaults on the joggers since July 2001, two months after Levy disappeared.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR2008071000969.html

This is all from spending two minutes on Google. Unfortunately many women walking and jogging alone are attacked every year. It's happened to two women I've known, who fortunately have fought off the attackers. Whatever the exact motive and whoever the exact perpetrator, rational people can easily see what happened to Chandra, in the area she was headed to and where her body was found, which had a track record of random attacks. Randomly, this particular victim was also having an affair with a congressman, which made for some lasting media attention and unfortunately distracted from making the parks safer.

Chandra made a call that was picked up by a cellphone tower near the Columbia Hospital for Women in Foggy Bottom. Detectives checked with the hospital to find out whether it performed abortions. It didn't.

In reference to the above statement made in chapter 5, if the Secret Services picked up a call made to Columbia Hospital for Women in Foggy Bottom to find our whether it performed abortions or not, why wasn't the question asked as to whether or not she made an appointment regarding pregnancy?

Disgusted by many of the comments here. If it was one of your family, would you be saying that the case doesn't deserve this kind of coverage?

Liberty and Justice for All, remember.

For those of you dismissing the importance of this story, I echo those who agree that it shows the DC cops' incompetence. They searched the wrong area. They didn't bother asking the apt. building for the security tape until it had already been taped over. And some moron messed around with her computer and screwed up her webpage history, and then the detectives focused solely on the Klingle Mansion mention, not that she was searching Rock Creek trails or anything else. Idiots.

Posted by: Mel | July 16, 2008 2:50 PM

From the words stated in the above comments is exactly why the way the police had handled the case which is puzzling, because as Mel stated the tape from her apartment complex should have been one of the first things looked into beside having a professional/specialist look into her laptop, and what about fingerprinting her apartment and items such as the laptop, cellphone, etc.? I never heard anything about fingerprinting of anything of Chandra's. Very puzzling..very, very puzzling..

Did the police thoroughly investigate Condits' brothers?
By what I have read about them they would seem to me to be prime suspects.

Why on earth would the police waste resources and taxpayer money investigating delusional psychics' claims? I hope the psychics were charged for giving false police reports.

Why not use the Post's limited resources for a ten-part series on something of real import like the moribund Anthrax investigation?

Was everyone in her building vetted?

The DC Police had the assistance of the FBI and the prosecuting authority in Washington from the very begining, (Google previous articles on chandra Levy). This kind of law enforcement partnership brought every resource available to investigate the case. If the DC Police were incompetent as some here have suggested, then our FBI and prosecutors are just as incompetent. I don't believe that to be the case. In fact I believe that we have some of the best law enforcement talent in the country working every day in Washington. There are tragic cases everywhere in this country where the police just dont have the clues or evidence available to bring justice for victims. It's a fact of life plain and simple, unfortunate as it may be. I don't think that anyone not having first hand knowledge of any criminal case should criticize law enforcement as being incompetent unless they have definitive proof to back it up!

this is a very well-done series. as they say, hindsight is always 20/20- i was turned off by the sensationalism of the case while the 'glare of the camera' was fixed on it, but seeing the full picture in retrospect is fascinating.

and for those who are talking about merits-- the journalistic value of the piece is more recounting and discovering errors the police made in their investigation, and the problems of backtracking someone's life. not to be kafkaesque here, but if you vanished one day, would police be able to quickly come up with a coherent narrative about your life and where you might be? (think about the partial truths and selective information we give to the myriad of people in our lives).

one question i do have though- did chandra have any close friends, like girlfriends? it seems that the guys she visited during the pizza party were more acquaintance friends, and i would think that she- like any normal 20-something woman- would probably have at least one close female friend who knew the in-depth details of her life/routine and relationship with condit.

Ralph,

I was a member of the Washington Sports Club and I cancelled my membership when I moved out of state, effective that day without a 30 day notice. Especially for people leaving the state, like Chandra returning to California, WSC was very accomodating and willing to break even their own guidelines. So she very well may have cancelled her gym membership the day before she planned to leave.

Ryan

I've been reading these postings and the daily articles and one thing escapes me....has it been determined exactly how she died? I haven't seen a single thing that says how she was "murdered" so how do we know she was actually murdered and not just the victim of an accident. What was the coroner's determination?? It's plausible that she was just walking or jogging on the trail and fell. I know there were only skeletal remains but were there any broken bones that would hint that she fell and was incapacitated?

Another thought, have you looked at any of the missing persons web sites that have been mentioned? I was shocked at the number of young women, black, white, Asian, etc. that have gone missing. The first thing that comes to my mind is do we have a serial killer in the area? I can believe that the police would want us to believe anything but a serial killer running around loose. Think about the consequences of that story on the local economy. School trips would cancel. No parent would allow their child to come here to intern. University admissions would fall off and most of all tourist would avoid us like the plague. The economic impact would be devastating so I can believe that a congressman would be a good alternative for a serial kill in Chief Ramsey's mind.

SJO,

I was thinking the same thing!!! How exactly did she die?

Can anyone answer this questions???

Thanks in advance,

Girly33

Medical examiner Jonathan Alden (if memory serves, and I'm too lazy to Google right now) determined that a particular bone was broken that likely would only have been broken by an assailant. I think it was in the neck area -- a tiny bone. Anyway, I believe it indicated asphyxiation. They did find a pair of stretchy running pants thought to be hers nearby, inside out, with the bottoms of the legs knotted.

SJO, there are probably a couple of dozen active (i.e., still alive, not incarcerated, and not otherwise incapacitated) serial killers afoot at any given time in America. Some of these killers are infamous for quite a period of time during their murderous careers, whether or not they ever are apprehended. Others, especially the less-prolific or less-invariant in their m.o., are not well known to the public.

Even in the cases of truly infamous serial killers, including those who taunt the police and news media, such as the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, or the Zodiac, their cities do not grind to a stop until they are apprehended. Whatever fear there is in such a case, most people believe that they can avoid the danger. I lived in Seattle during most of the Green River Killers' reign, for instance; and, despite the publicity, the city at large was not stricken with fear, nor did outsiders avoid visiting the city for business or pleasure.

The D.C. snipers case, in 2002, was one case where people generally feared for their safety, over a wide metropolitan area, as people were seemingly being gunned down at random in the course of strictly pedestrian activities, like pumping gasoline. That is a very rare type of serial killing spree.

A new report has just been issued this month by the F.B.I. on serial killers, which you may find here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/july08/serialmurder_070708.html

Here is just a snippet from its introduction:

***

The report contains the collective insights of a group of experts from the law enforcement, academic, and mental health professions who took part in a symposium on serial murder. The symposium's focus was actually two-fold: to bridge the gap between fact and fiction and to build up our collective body of knowledge to generate a more effective investigative response.

Here's why that is so important: Serial killings are rare, probably less than one percent of all murders. They do, however, receive a lot of attention in the news and on screen--and much of the information out there is wrong. Yet, the public, the media, and even sometimes law enforcement professionals who have limited experience with serial murder, often believe what they read and hear. And this misinformation can hinder investigations.

According to the experts, there is no common thread tying serial killers together--no single cause, no single motive, no single profile. But there are some common "best practices" that they recommend for investigations:

***

As for serial killer myths, our group of experts had this to say about a few of them:

1) Serial killers are not all dysfunctional loners: some have had wives and kids and full-time jobs and have been very active in their community or church or both.

2) Serial killers are not all white males: the racial diversification of serial killers generally mirrors the overall U.S. population.

3) Serial killers do not want to get caught: over time, as they kill without being discovered, they get careless during their crimes.

So much for the stereotypes!

****

F.W.I.W.

D.K.H.

House Intelligence Committee member Condit met with Cheney, the day she goes missing...four months before 9/11 around the time of foreign intelligence warnings...maybe he told her something he shouldn't have...like Condi telling former SF mayor not to fly the night before...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/12/MN229389.DTL

This series has so many pop-up ads that the only way I can read it is in the "print version" pages. Does anyone there know that all the "print version" pages are dated June instead of July?

To answer a question I've seen asked at least twice above -- The "interactive map" and the "virtual tour of the crime scene"
are on the web page for the first installment in this series. I also had that question, then finally figured it out.

She may have cancelled her gym memebership the day before returning back home, but I don't believe that she went for a walk in Rock Creek Park.

And in regards to her body laying their for the period of time stated someone would smell the body. A police on his horse, someone else walking their dog (because if the dog can sniff out her bones, I'm positive a dog, horse, or a human person could smell her body)

That is a good point brought up regarding the cause of death. Did the police fingerprint her apartment and belongs?

And also regarding the statement that Chief Ramsey didn't want the information about a serial killer to get out instead he would want it to be the congressman. I don't agree with that because of Ramsey actions, statements, and lack of/poor investigation.

He (Chief Ramsey) acted as if the investigation was suppose to be conducted differently because it was a congressman. And that is why the investigation was conducted poorly, not in order. Because if it was a everyday man in place of Condit, the investigation would have been conducted altogether differently.

Net,

I believe that Chandra knew something or something about someone that she wasn't suppose to know. And/or she was pregnant or both.

This may be the most important series the Post has ever done. I salute you!

Did the police thoroughly investigate Condits' brothers?
By what I have read about them they would seem to me to be prime suspects.

Posted by: Nick | July 17, 2008 4:49 AM

Nick,
What have you read about Condits' brothers?

from poster at 12:23pm Medical examiner Jonathan Alden (if memory serves, and I'm too lazy to Google right now) determined that a particular bone was broken that likely-----

The hyoid bone may be the one you are thinking of. Wikipedia has this statement:"Due to its position, the hyoid bone is not usually easy to fracture in most situations. In cases of suspicious death, a fractured hyoid is a strong sign of strangulation."

What about this theory? http://www.zoneoftruth.com/LEVY.html

The still-unsolved death of actress Karyn Kupcinet, the daughter of the longtime Chicago media-maven Irv Kupcinet, was ruled a homicide, in November 1963, specifically because her hyoid bone was broken. (She was found naked on her living-room couch.)

Writer James Ellroy ("The Black Dahlia", "L.A. Confidential") makes the case for an accidental death in Kupcinet's case (which has been ludicrously tied by some to the Kennedy assassination the week before); but, in the case of Chandra Levy, it seems almost certain that she was deliberately killed, rather than having had some truly bizarre fall or other accident that could have caused such a breakage and asphyxiation.

It seems virtually certain that the running togs, strangely knotted, were the instrument of death. The issue is, was she killed as a random and opportunistic victim of someone, presumably a rapist; or, was she lured there and killed by someone that she knew, someone with a strong motive to kill her? Either theory strikes me as facially plausible. A botched or escalated forced robbery does not....

***

What about this theory? http://www.zoneoftruth.com/LEVY.html

Posted by: Mona | July 17, 2008 3:40 PM

***

Mona, you might wish to consult the late William of Occam...!?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Occam

F.W.I.W.

D.K.H.

re knotted slacks:

it seems to me that people are overlooking the possibility that the knotted slacks were simply used as an ad-hock sling for dragging a body through thick underbrush. The knots in the legs were for hand holds, the upper body being & arms being placed in the crotch of the pants, the pants going through and under the armpits

Excellent work, Washington Post.

For a long time I thought G. had done her in - even meeting with Cheney I thought was probably an agreement to step down if Dick would ok it with the job with the CIA, contractors, whatever.

Now, I really wonder. Gary had so many special friends that he surely knew how to handle this type situation - a hysterical lover with threats, etc.

I'm currently favoring the senerio that the body was placed there. That is why someone knew how to misdirect the search by 50 meters or so. (Gosh lads, wouldn't some have noticed imprints in the grass/brush) Someone it seems knew how to misdirect the canines involved, too, perhaps by giving them the wrong scent to be aware of - if dogs were there at all??

Many of us who walk the park, almost every day, for years, have seen nothing mysterious. I have a 2 yo Golden Retriver who has sensed a few wierd people, and directed me away from them, but 99.4% of the people there are just good/great people!

We Need Closure On this Crime. Rock Creek Park is a place where we can escape, and think. It is a selling point for employers in this area, as well. However, Websites around the world cast dispersions on the saftey of this area. The local people want closure on this.

Thank you.

Interesting theory that the knotted jogging shorts could have been used to drag the body. Also possible that the jogging shorts were removed to make it look like rape was the motive.

My name is Richard Wheeler. "Interesting1" is a spam protection name. I hope the post will accept this correction. After all, I just ordered a 6 month home delivery contract!

thanks Jennefer;

if my theory about knotted pants is correct, that raises the question: would an office worker have been capable of imagining/conceiving this ad-hock sling in a moment of stress , or would a outdoor/farm laborer have been more likely to conceive it ... I would vote for a field(farm) laborer, such as that suspect from San Salvador .. F.W.I.W.

Any chance the next installment can be more than 100 words? Thanks.

A travois is the term describing an adhock sling. The knots may also have had sticks or polls in the knots either side to pull or drag something. A travois is something not only used by North American Indians, but taught to boy scouts. Someone with a lot of camping or outdoor enthusiasts would also likely know how to put this together.

It seems that this case is something of a Rorschach test, in that everyone sees in it their own experiences and biases. That being said, here are mine.

What has always struck me has been how her parents who let their grief be turned into a sickening kind of rage against Gary Condit. Condit is a sleaze-ball for having an affair behind his wife's back, so Chandra Levy participated in that mess just as much too. Somehow her parents turned the sin of adultery into the crime of murder. Their actions seemed back then to me and still today to be made from a spirit of misguided vengeance against a man who's most likely innocent of this this crime.

One point is often made that needs refuting here, and that is the party line about the "powerful men" who prey on "weak women." This is referring to the times when young women have sex with older, rich and powerful men. We're told that the women in these cases are victims and the men predators. To me it seems to be the opposite. Setting aside the whole question of whether Condit kiled Ms. Levy, which I don't believe he did, who benefits most from these sorts of sordid relationships?

What benefit does a young woman get from a relationship with a rich and powerful older man? She'll get money, presents, jewelry, perhaps an apartment, job offers, and connections. What does she risk? Her reputation. What does the older man get from such a relationship? Sex. What does he risk losing? His money, job, wife, family, career, status, and perhaps his freedom. Look at the current divorce of Christie Brinkley. Her sleazy husband has an affair with a much younger girl who he was paying something like tens of thousands of dollars to in order to silence her. These women are far from victims. In fact, they seem to have the most to gain and the least to lose in such relationships.

Another thing is that the Post said that the Levy's had a "deep spirituality" that seems to be a mish-mash of Judaism, Buddhism and whatever other eastern nonsense that they happened by. If their spirituality truly was strongly rooted, and not some sort of New Age nonsense, they would not have raised a daughter who slept around with older, powerful men, nor would they have let their sadness be turned into revenge against a man they knew so little about.

***

Update #5: The Story So Far
Thursday, July 17, 2 p.m.

***

"By missing her body that day in July 2001, police lost critical forensic evidence that could have identified a killer."

*

A more apropos word choice could have been "might," as you do not know that there was any such evidence available in July 2001 that "could have identified a killer." ("Could have" implies a past ability, rather than merely a past possibility.)

***

"For weeks, police focused their investigative efforts on what turned out to be a red herring and theorized that Chandra may have met someone in the park when it appears she was simply looking for a place to take a walk."

*

This is simply a post-hoc assumption on your own part. If someone arranged to meet with Ms. Levy at a specific landmark in Rock Creek Park, at a place that she never before had been, then her looking that place up on the Internet, with the intent of walking there to get some exercise en route to such a rendezvous, rather than her taking a cab or whatever else, would have left the very same forensic evidence on her computer as would have your own supposition here.

***

"We also recounted one of Chandra's last-known conversations. Days before she disappeared, she told a friend she met at the gym, Robert Kurkjian, that she was disappointed to be losing her internship. But she was upbeat and happy about her future with her congressman boyfriend and said he promised to marry her in five years. The account contradicts persistent rumors seven years ago that Chandra was angry at her boyfriend and that her anger might have led to a confrontation and her disappearance."

*

Based upon my own distant recollections of romantic relationships, and of my lifelong observations of applied female psychology, both personally and semi-professionally [M.S.], I am quite sanguine that the three and one-half days between that last visit with Mr. Kurkjian and Ms. Levy's signing off of the Internet on her laptop computer for the final time, just prior to (presumably) leaving her apartment for the final time on May Day afternoon, was plenty of time for Ms. Levy's beliefs, attitudes, expectations and moods about her Congressman-boyfriend to change markedly one or more times-- as they may well have done in the previous three and a half days. People are that way; women are people. Indeed, Mr. Kurkjian's explicit questioning of Ms. Levy's naivete as to the Congressman's romantic promises well might have been sufficient cause for Ms. Levy to make further inquiry, or even demands, upon Mr. Condit when next they spoke.

Regardless of her own mental state vis-a-vis the Congressman, there is the very salient issue of his own mental state vis-a-vis Ms. Levy. He spoke to her again, at least by cell phone, after Mr. Kurkjian did. Not only could he have arranged then to meet her at some subsequent time and place; that last conversation via cell phone also might have caused either or both of them to have a decided change in mental state. Ms. Levy is no longer alive to allow us to inquire about that possibility; and, if one thing is now crystal clear, all of these years later, it is that Gary Condit's word is not worth the air that carries it to his listeners' ears!

***

"But our reporting shows that Condit tried to cooperate with police behind the scenes. By early June 2001, Condit had spoken to detectives twice and told them he had a relationship with Chandra and that she spent the night at his apartment. Details of his interviews were leaked to the news media and Condit grew increasingly angry and reluctant to talk. Still, he continued to cooperate."

*

Many people-- including formal or even prime suspects-- cooperate with the police. Some do so simply because they know that they are innocent and have nothing to hide. Others do so because they think that the circumstances require it of them; it becomes an acceptable risk. Others do so simply because they think that they are untouchable, either because of their position and status, because the fix is otherwise in, or simply because their egos assure them that they are far too clever to be tripped up or found out by a bunch of flatheaded flatfoots! I personally suspect that Gary Condit's ego greatly outstrips his cleverness....

"This series has so many pop-up ads that the only way I can read it is in the "print version" pages. Does anyone there know that all the "print version" pages are dated June instead of July?"

Posted by: FMJohnson | July 17, 2008 1:38 PM

I just checked all print-versions, and they have a July timestamp. Anyone else seeing this bug??

I wonder if the readers posting comments attributing Chandra's death to a random encounter with an unknown assailant have looked at the map of Rock Creek Park that has been made part of the series. It is between four and five miles from her apartment to the site where her remains were found. If she had been "out for a walk" why did she choose a portion of the park so far from her home when there are sections much closer? Runners can and do cover such distances when working out, but none of her associates indicated that she was a runner. Could she have wanted to walk a circuit that covered 8 to 10 miles? Again, highly unlikely. No one indicated that she was a dedicated walker and the distance she would have had to cover is far more than most any walker will cover in a single outing. Without even addressing the question of her lack of knowledge of the park and the secluded nature of the area where she was found, it strains credulity to believe that she would have gone to that site for no other purpose than exercise.
If you want to believe in the random crime theory, here's another scenario almost as plausible: Chandra was the victim of an alien abduction "gone bad." After the aliens had taken her aboard their ship, they started probing her with their instruments, she went into shock and died. They then beamed her body down to a little used section of Rock Creek Park. Her ring and keys haven't been found because they are still aboard the spaceship.

The teases for this series explicitly promised "sex." I'm still waiting.

I noticed that all 3 women who were found dead were from CA - Chandra, Joyce and Christine. Also, the Congressman who Joyce worked for had his office next to Condit's. Interesting.

Did Shandra have a car? or a bicycle?

WaPo investigative reporters:

From the series, part 5: "On May 1, the day Chandra disappeared, Condit said, he left his apartment at 11 in the

morning and worked until 6:30, when he went out to dinner at Tryst in Adams Morgan. ... On May 2, Condit worked on

Capitol Hill, then went shopping and had dinner at an Adams Morgan restaurant with his wife."

While this series has proved to be easy and enjoyable reading, not cluttered up with too much detail, it seems to me

that it leaves questions that should be answered all along. In this particular paragraph, it is acknowledged that on May 2

Condit had dinner at the restaurant with his wife. But just before that, it is said that "he had dinner at the Tryst in Adams

Morgan". ummm, with whom did he have dinner that evening?

In part 1 of this series, it says: "On the day she disappeared, May 1, Chandra signed on to the Internet at 10:27 a.m."

This is suspected to be the very day of Chandra's disappearance, correct?

Note to readers: google "Rebecca Cooper Condit" for a list of hits. The first to pop up on my search is from Salon

archives. There's a story there that may stir up memories.

So, with whom did he have dinner that evening? (The series may very well explain this later, I understand...that's the

way mystery series might be written. But, to me, it doesn't come across that way. It doesn't make the reader pause

and wonder. This detail is glossed over within the text of the paragraph and, from my experience reading this series so

far, I don't anticipate finding an answer to the question within the text itself.)

I'm not one who believes that a congressman would just go and sit by himself at such a restaurant. Was he not asked?

Would you comment, please?

I'm not sure way people make such a big deal about the remoteness of body-site. Looking at the satellite photo from google

http://tinyurl.com/5uvfkd

the riding trail is right beside Ridge Road n.w. , at some points no more than 30 Meters away .. It also looks like I can see a pedestrian or two and perhaps a bus-stop on that road .. Could not she have been walking down Ridge Road to the Planetarium, et. al, and then been attacked/ambushed from a bushy area alongside the road

WaPo investigative reporters:

From the series, part 5: "On May 1, the day Chandra disappeared, Condit said, he left his apartment at 11 in the morning and worked until 6:30, when he went out to dinner at Tryst in Adams Morgan. ... On May 2, Condit worked on Capitol Hill, then went shopping and had dinner at an Adams Morgan restaurant with his wife."

While this series has proved to be easy and enjoyable reading, not cluttered up with too much detail, it seems to me that it leaves questions that should be answered all along. In this particular paragraph, it is acknowledged that on May 2 Condit had dinner at the restaurant with his wife. But just before that, it is said that "he had dinner at the Tryst in Adams Morgan". ummm, with whom did he have dinner that evening?

In part 1 of this series, it says: "On the day she disappeared, May 1, Chandra signed on to the Internet at 10:27 a.m." This is suspected to be the very day of Chandra's disappearance, correct?

Note to readers: google "Rebecca Cooper Condit" for a list of hits. The first to pop up on my search is from Salon archives. There's a story there that may stir up memories. http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/07/18/condit/index.html

So, with whom did he have dinner that evening? (The series may very well explain this later, I understand...that's the way mystery series might be written. But, to me, it doesn't come across that way. It doesn't make the reader pause and wonder. This detail is glossed over within the text of the paragraph and, from my experience reading this series so far, I don't anticipate finding an answer to the question within the text itself.)

I'm not one who believes that a congressman would just go and sit by himself at such a restaurant. Was he not asked?

Would you comment, please?

"On May 1, the day Chandra disappeared, Condit said, he left his apartment at 11 in the morning and worked until 6:30, when he went out to dinner at Tryst in Adams Morgan. He would later tell the detectives that he met with Vice President Cheney early that afternoon. On May 2, Condit worked on Capitol Hill, then went shopping and had dinner at an Adams Morgan restaurant with his wife. On May 3, Condit said, his wife returned to California."

Important detail not noted in the article is that while Condit told investigators the time line above, he actually left his meeting with Cheney May 1 at 20 minutes after it started and 10 minutes before Chandra signed off on her computer. so from 12:30 to 12:50 he can account for his whereabouts, but from 12:50 on he cannot and I think someone on his staff may have offered up a haphazard excuse for it. Later trying to change the time line they provided ABC that he might have gone to the gym. About 5 hours time gap I think. A large enough gap to raise serious doubts about him.

I am beginning to get fed up with the way the WAPO is writing this series. It lacks details that are available and offers very little to read on a day to day basis. Its a shame they are doing it this way.

Mona,

From your linked article I read, what is Mossad?

Mona,

From your linked article I read, what is Mossad?

This is from Ralph Daugherty's book. Its the time line with the discrepancy involving Rebecca Coopers meeting with Condit.

Tuesday, May 1
Condit rides with staff to the office in the
morning. At 12:30 p.m. ET, he meets with Vice
President Cheney. He returns at 3:30 p.m. for
meetings and phone conversations with constituents.
At 5 p.m., Condit has a doctor's appointment. At
6:30 p.m., he votes on the House floor. From 6:30 to
7:30 p.m., he meets with a reporter at the Tryst
restaurant in Adams Morgan. Later, he and the wife
stay home and eat dinner.

Wednesday, May 2
Condit rides into work with staff and attends
Agriculture Committee and Select Intelligence
Committee meetings. At 11:30 a.m., Condit casts
votes on the House floor. At noon, he participates
in a meeting with the California congressional
delegation. From 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., he
participated in a bipartisan meeting at the White
House. At 2:30 p.m., he returns to the Intelligence
Committee. Later, he casts votes on the House floor,
meets with congressional leaders and heads home for
dinner with his wife at 5:30 p.m. After dinner, they
go shopping at an "Off The Wall" store. [4]

On May 1 Chandra disappears, Condit offers a timeline that includes saying he met a reporter at the Tryst at 6:30 that same day. We don't know if he kept his doctors appointment or when he scheduled it for May 1 at 5 pm. The meeting with Cooper actually occurred the next day. So he mislead the police about his time with the VP, making it seem longer than it was trying to say he came back at 3:30. Then he claims a meeting for an hour that actually occurred the next day, well after Chandra disappeared. And apparently he asked Cooper for the meeting, not the other way around. It apparently was Cooper who got this initial timeline for ABC and first saw the error, Condit would claim the meeting occurred the day Chandra disappeared, instead of May 2.

Thats one way of finding an alibi, call an ex girlfriend to talk about politics, then claim it occurred the day she may have been murdered then call in for a doctors appointment when privacy lasw would prevent anyone from knowing if the appt was kept or what medical issue was involved, make it appear to the police your meeting with the VP, one Condit requested himself that did not include the usual staffers presence, went on for hours more than it did. So there it is a half baked alibi.

correction:Thats one way of finding an alibi, call an ex girlfriend to talk about politics, then claim it occurred the day *she* may have been murdered then call in for a

the *she* I am referring to should have said Chandra, I did not mean to refer to Cooper.

I know that Chandra has at least one girlfriend that she talked to (and when you have that one gf to talk with you tell them everything especially about a guy/man you're involved with and planning to marry in five years), and what about the other intern that was also in the photo with Condit and Chandra?

There is so little substance in your series. I keep wanting it to be 'more'.
Sorry but I'm disappointed.
I always thought the wife did it.

***

"Green did not include any comment by Guandique about Chandra in his report, and he does not remember telling any other officers at the time. Back then, it didn't seem important. He said he was focused on the assaults on Wiegand and Shilling."

***

This claim strikes me as incredible. There is a world-wide search going on for Chandra Levy by the time of this arrest interview, and Officer Green goes to the trouble of asking Ingmar Guandique about Chandra Levy-- and yet, Officer Green now claims, he did not include in his report, nor mention to any other police personnel, as best he can recall, the fact that Senor Guandique had admitted to seeing Ms. Levy in the park, and finding her attractive, no less!?!

I would have to ask, in response to this incredible claim, did the Washington Post, in the course of this exhaustive new crime investigation, bother to find out who the translator was when Ingmar Guandique was arrested in Rock Creek Park, and interview that translator about these allegations, without tipping him or her off as to what is now claimed was asked and admitted to that night? Under the circumstances, I think that that is the least that you could have done-- and should have done-- before using Officer Green's testimony to divert suspicion from Mr. Condit to Senor Guandique.

It is surely no proof of Ingmar Guandique's innocence in the apparent murder of Chandra Levy-- but it is nonetheless notable-- that his two known victims, Shilling and Wiegand, were both tall and blonde, not petite and dark like Ms. Levy. Also, if Guandique used a large knife as an integral part of his known m.o., one would expect that, were he to kill one of his assault victims, he would have stabbed her to death, not taken her clothing and used it to strangle her, as was apparently done to Ms. Levy by her killer.

Although Guandique makes a plausible suspect in light of the testimony given here, that testimony should not be taken at face value. Even if his admission did go as now claimed, there is the fact that you had a young man who was in this country illegally, already in legal jeopardy for the immediate attack on Ms. Wiegand that led to his arrest, as well as his earlier arrest for burglary, and essentially unable to comprehend the English language during his interrogation. He had also displayed in both of his known assaults on female joggers a cravenness and a lack of perseverance in his chosen task that makes it harder still to believe that he would have completed the task of dragging Chandra Levy seventy yards from a trail, and then disrobed her and maintained control over her long enough to complete a strangulation unto death.

I would love to see a video tape of that interrogation!

D.K.H.

I don't believe that Ingmar Guandique had anything to with Chandra Levy's death. Nothing at all! The two women he attempted to rape, once they fought with him he ran off and the victims got away. (the two females he raped were tall blondes) They were never robbed or killed.

I believe that Chandra Levy's death was plotted and planned out, her death did not occur in Rock Creek Park. Her remains (bones) was brought back to Rock Creek Park and staged as if she was there in the park from the start. condit has something to do with her death. He may not actually killed her himself, but he know who did because I believe he had her killed. Why did he have her killed? I believe it was because either Chandra knew something that someone didn't want her to know, she knew something on someone, or she was pregnant.

What was the "big news" that she had to tell her aunt? I don't believe it was that her internship had ended, or that she was leaving from Washington, DC to return home. What could be big about that?

I'm glad that someone has finally named names: Reebok, Pro Spirit, Ciao, Reese's, Williams-Sonoma, Sony Vaio, HBO... these product placements definitely shed new light on the case.

The chapter 4 video left a few questions unanswered, like: What brands of ski accessories were worn by the Levys? That dog...what's its name? Does it wait in vain for Chandra's return? But, hey, these are minor nitpicks in a story that has finally satisfied my curiosity regarding Detective Durant's hairstyle.

Some folks will criticize misstatements, such as the intimation that Ms. Levy no longer had access to her health club. Some will wonder why 'investigators' can't determine whether Chief Ramsey miscommunicated or Cmdr. Barrett misunderstood, or why detective Green cut short his interrogation and didn't fully report it. And some will be disappointed if they don't learn whose contact lens was found near the bones, or why Mr. Condit plead the fifth to the Grand Jury, or whether Sheila Cruz vouched for Ingmar Guandique's whereabouts on May 1, or whether independent forensic experts ever got access to the bones and what they concluded. Not me. I know that so long as I continue to view succeeding chapters, this story serves its purpose. To those seeking answers I say: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

Nevertheless, I can't help thinking to myself: "What a pathetic crock o'crap. I shall trust WaPo reporting no more forever."

comments on A Predator in the Park:

Halle Schilling's statement was that she was running north on Beach Drive, passed Guandique sitting on a curb, and he began running after her and caught her. She tried to scream to cars on Beach Drive but was hidden by trees and they couldn't see her.

How in the world does that translate to followed her for a mile deeper into the park? That is precisely what would need to be said about Chandra, although "deeper into the park" is an understatement.

So to try to make it sound like a replay of Chandra's murder two weeks earlier, we are told that Halle saw Guandique sitting on a curb and chased her (her statement) and that the chase was for a mile (WashPo statement) and that running north on Beach Drive (her statement) is "deeper" into the park (WashPo statement)?

The other point is that we have this sequence:
1. Chandra disappears Tuesday May 1

2. Guandique breaks into neighbors apartment Monday May 7 and flees with a stolen ring when she returns home early

3. Guandique assaults Halle Schilling on Beach Drive jogging trail on Monday May 14

4. Landlady testifies to grand jury a year later that Guandique had cut up and bruised face around time Guandique was arrested on May 7 for breaking into neighbors apartment.

From this, we are to believe that Chandra hiked miles from her apartment and eventually up a huge hill into a dark forest with nothing but a Walkman and her 14k bracelet and signet ring, and keys to get back in her apartment.

That Guandique followed her for a mile or so up this narrow and steep horse trail where he methodically tied her up with her own clothes and murdered her and stole her ring and bracelet and keys, and according to the landlady, got cut and bruised in the process. Yet he never pawned that very nice signet ring engraved with initials CL or gave it to his girlfriend.

But six days later he demolishes a door to steal another ring and flees when the woman enters. Perhaps Chandra didn't scream and that was a new experience for him? And he wants another ring so bad to pawn but threw away Chandra's ring, not to mention no record of him pawning the bracelet either. And no one else pawned them either.

The most interesting thing I find though, is the cut and bruised face story. He was arrested and booked, there must be a mug shot then, and I'll guarantee you there's no cut and bruised face in that mug shot.

Because the landlady remembered it for a grand jury, but being a harborer of illegals I think she said whatever she thought the police wanted to hear.

Th arresting officer made no mention of him being scraped up when he found him and arrested him, and they most certainly will ask about it if he actually looked like the landlady described.

Guandique passed a lie detector test, and so did everyone else except Condit. Let's take a look at that mug shot and see if the landlady would pass one too.

rd

So last night I talked about Ingmar Guandique, effectively predicting this predictable series. Since many of you (DKH etc) are reacting to this stuff like it's news to you, (you know the archives are there to read, why wait for these stupid chapters) perhaps I should repeat the feat and point you to what will obviously be a future chapter:

"An inmate at the D.C. jail has said Guandique told him that he killed Levy, according to law enforcement sources. Guandique denied any connection to the Levy case and passed a polygraph test, which has recently been called into question because it was conducted using a Spanish interpreter rather than a bilingual polygraph technician"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070100799_4.html

This series is interesting in that it's not trying to do much journalism, just create a mystery story. It's like a reality TV show that's edited to show you what they want you to see when they want you to see it. I can't believe these two points (inmate confidante and the IG polygraph) were left out in the "Predator in the Park" section.

Here's another cool story from the archives re: what Susan Levy knew that isn't being discussed here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070801658.html

Read that story I just linked to above. It basically says that Susan Levy knew about Chandra's affair with Condit weeks before she disappeared. The source and timing are credible, in that the minister couldn't have known about the Chandra/Condit connection from public information when he first spoke to the Post about his story, so the guy is no kook, in fact Susan Levy referred him first to the FBI.

So the Mom came to Washington knowing full well about Condit, and was playing a somewhat cagey game trying to out all the information. But the minister reports that she and Chandra had it out over Condit... so does she think that led to a breakup and some sinister action by Condit? I think Mrs. Levy came to town with a mind made up, and the Levys may have contributed to the police messing this investigation up by pressuring them to focus on the red herring of Condit.

More fun in the free world:

Two blondes don't make a pattern. I also don't assume if I flip a new coin twice and get two heads that it's a coin with no tails side.

"Guandique also sent a sexually explicit letter to a woman he had never met. The letter, obtained by The Post, was sent from prison in May to a woman whose photo Guandique saw in an insurance agency advertisement in El Tiempo Latino, a Washington area Spanish-language newspaper. It had sexually explicit language and pornographic drawings.

The woman said she gave the letter to the police in August after she read that investigators had partly discounted Guandique in the Levy case because the women he attacked in the park were tall and blond, while Levy was a petite brunet. The woman who received the letter has dark hair. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/08/AR2008070801658.html

Please note that the other women were more importantly TALL than blonde, i.e. they had the size and strength to fight this guy off... and that a walkman was found not far from Chandra's remains, creating another link to the two we know he attacked. Perhaps he saw impaired awareness due to headphones blocking out other noise as an opportunity.

huggie,

I don't believe that the minister's daughter would come forward and speak about her and Condit's relationship because Condit has probably threatened her in some way. Because it appears to be fear as to why she would not come forward to speak. When she was asked questions regarding their relationship.

In regards to Christy's statement made in the below link about her attack.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/chandra/documents/witnessstatement.pdf

She stated on page 1 that he spoke fluent english to her, but I read in the chapter that he spoke very little english.

And I didn't know that immediately after you're attached that the park police drive you around the park area to identify your attacker.

Another interesting document cited below

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/chandra/documents/superiorcourtofdc.pdf

I'm trying to picture a male attacking a female in a bear hug and then while the attacker have the female in a bear hug, he then holds knife to her chin. I guess after he uses the bear hug to get her down, I guess he would then hold the knife to her chin. Me myself I would be terrified to fight someone attacking me who has a knife to my chin.

It's also interesting that Christy asked the person whom she stopped for help to drive her to her boyfriends house first and then she was driven back to provide the report of her attack to the park police.

If I were attacked I would want to go straight to the park police and then my husband or boyfriend could be called from the police office to come to my destination

Robert Sommerville:

The image you posted is the area south of where the remains were found, and indeed at this point the walking trail, horse trail and road are all running parallel and quite close together, and your theory of an attack is certainly plausible.

However just north of your google image the three courses diverge as the engineers deal with a prominent hill. The road turns right, the horse trail more or less goes straight, and the walking trail turns left around the west side of the hill. That is where it gets remote. If you scroll up on your image you can see what I am talking about, and amid the woods see portions of the Western Ridge Trail loop, the remains were found about 250 feet west of that trail, and I think you can see that the area is very isolated.

Which brings me to concur with RD's point above about the reporters description today of the Shilling attack. This part of the reportage allows the casual reader to believe that Shilling, too, was headed up the hills, "deep into the park" and the Western Ridge Trail.

If you read the police report, however, it seems clear that she was running along Beach Drive, especially noting the mention of Grove 4, which is right alongside the road. The report does not mention a hill, either, indeed the trail along Beach Drive is flat.

I am puzzled by the panoramic photo that is included online that is supposed to be the attack area. Its just a trail in the woods, and not by Grove 4 or Beach Drive. I think the Post should clarify exactly where the attack occurred and where the photo was taken.

Basically, the two attacks both occurred right alongside Beach Drive. This is a totally different environment than the heavily forested hills in the early where the remains were found.

So detective Joe Green didn't think it relevant when the suspect he was questionning was linked to the attempted rape with a knife of two women, and then admitted that he had seen Chandra in Rock Creek Park, and said he thought she was pretty. After all, the case was not being handled by the Park Police!

How can we get better cops? Police advocates, like teacher advocates, would say we need to pay them more. I wonder.

Murphie;
You are correct the satellite photo was slightly to the south-east of the body site. I was trying to highlight that open area around the road and where the forest pinches up to the road on the North and South. If you go to the "contour/elevation" display in google you'll see that the body site was almost at the same elevation as where the trees pinch the north end of the clearing, which would make for somewhat/alot easier dragging (especially if the assailant used an impromptu sling as I suggested in my first post) . I seriously don't think a male in his prime would a great deal of trouble moving a body that distance (i wouldn't), especially with a dragging sling.

I would also suggest ,if I was the assailant (I'm Canadian, and never been to eastern US ,BTW )) I would move my base of operations away from an undiscovered body at the very least ....

re my previous post:

2 more ideas:

1) have the police tried using metal detectors in an attempt to find the bracelet (it may still be there) . it may have fallen off or been broken off her wrist by a fallen tree or branch as she was being dragged to the body dumping site ??

2) be interesting to know if there were unusual signs of abrasion on the knotted slacks , consistent with them being used as a sling ...

bekynd: there are plenty of reasons not to come forward other than fear of violence. Fear of ridicule, fear that people will know you had an affair with a married man, shame on family, involvement with a long trial, etc.

I would not say that the victim's statement that IG spoke fluent english can be a very qualifed statement after a couple minutes of struggle and a couple sentences spoken.

I love that the police discounted IG on the basis that the women he attacked were different physically, like they had watched too many movies about profiling criminals. This guy was at a low point in his life and was lashing out generally, he was not a psychopathic serial killer to be profiled over months.

Ok, so where is Guantique now? What happened with him in the other assaults? Why isn't he being investigated/charged/ prosecuted for Levy now? I hope there will be more information coming up, because this part was very unsatisfying.

Would love to know where this Guandique character is now? I don't have time to search the archives, but I hope the WP will tell us he's either been locked up forever or deported. As a young woman who likes to job outside (in NoVa, not DC), this is important!

Does anyone know if Condit was ever given a polygraph? And does anyone actually trust anything the police say? They are stooges! Does anyone actually believe the death of Caity Mahoney was a 'botched robbery'? Why has the Post not investigated that one? The people really running things will stop at nothing to get their way, and the mass media is simply a cog in that wheel.
An aside: interesting that Chandra visited Baskin Robbins' website the day she was murdered; and that Condit ended up opening two of those franchises out west after he left Congress.

I mean "jog." (ref my post above - typo)

This is a great discussion! So much better than the actual Post article that I've given up reading that. Very disappointing. And it's full of logical fallacies, cliché writing and no new info.

So keep debunking the Post's reporting folks. Maybe this is an experiment in the new, new, new journalism - where you report half-baked theories and repost old news just to get web traffic and advertising dollars. The Post no longer needs to investigate or research anything. They can write pure fiction and the public will fix it with real facts on a blog.

I'm looking forward to your comments on the next installments.

Condit arranged for his own 3 question polygraph and then handed that to the police. They had asked him if he would take one, he said yes, then arranged it himself with a retired FBI guy asking him only 3 prearranged questions.

june; a blasphemous theory: perhaps Condit had told Chandra that he was going to leave his wife, and marry her.. that would explain the Baskin-Robbins coincidence ( a future career for one/both of them ). And it would explain her "Big News" . I read somewhere that Condit's wife had asked for a divorce in 96,, so it obviously wasn't a happy marriage, etc etc etc

Read that story I just linked to above. It basically says that Susan Levy knew about Chandra's affair with Condit weeks before she disappeared. The source and timing are credible, in that the minister couldn't have known about the Chandra/Condit connection from public information when he first spoke to the Post about his story, so the guy is no kook, in fact Susan Levy referred him first to the FBI.

So the Mom came to Washington knowing full well about Condit, and was playing a somewhat cagey game trying to out all the information. But the minister reports that she and Chandra had it out over Condit... so does she think that led to a breakup and some sinister action by Condit? I think Mrs. Levy came to town with a mind made up, and the Levys may have contributed to the police messing this investigation up by pressuring them to focus on the red herring of Condit.

Posted by: huggie | July 18, 2008 5:59 AM
____________________________

Very interesting observation.

But please note that two weeks after the minister told the FBI his story, he recanted the whole thing, and the FBI said it appeared he, in fact, made it all up -- at least the part about his daughter having been involved with Condit.

I don't think charges were ever filed against the minister for obstruction of justice. But it seems clear he was used to advance someone's agenda.....

There needs to be a full timeline presented on this whole case.

I believe Chandra's parents had been to the DC area just a couple of weeks before she disappeared, staying with friends who, apparently, have remained nameless. There is a video of Chandra mugging in the kitchen at this house during that visit. It played on the 24/7 networks back in the day.

Wonder where they lived, and if Chandra was on her way there when cutting through Rock Creek Park?

I believe that Condit had nothing to do with Chandra's disappearance. The first thing I thought after reading today's article was that Guandique is GUILTY!

Detective Green was a moron for not linking Guandique's statement to Levy's disappearance.

As well, the first thing I thought was an El Salvadorian farmer/laborer who had lived in a remote village would probably know how to jerry rig a device to carry heavy loads. It is called a travois, as the gentleman above pointed out above.Or it is called a hoist sling.

It is far more conceivable that Guandique stalked Chandry while she was in the park, hit her on the head or suffocated her until she was unconscious or dead, raped her while she was unconscious or dead (yes it happens)used her stretch jogging pants as a hoist line sling/travois, dragged her body and dumped it than it is for Condit to kill her in the park or outside the park.

Guandique admitted to Green that he saw Chandra in the park two weeks later after he attacked two women.

Sure Condit is lecher and has a history of only sleeping with women, but he does not have a proven record of sitting in a park stalking women with a knife.

Guandique admitted to Green that he saw Chandra in the park two weeks later after he attacked two women.

Posted by: MJM | July 18, 2008 2:16 PM
_______________________

And that guy in Bangkok admitted he "was with JonBenet" Ramsey when she died.

Sometimes people like to attach themselves to the lovely victims in the news.

Which reminds me of a pet peeve I've had about this case for a long time: Why did the family use a glamour shot of Chandra in all the missing person flyers? I would not have recognized her on the street from that image.

What is this obsession with a travois?

Chandra Levy weighed about 108 pounds; she was hardly some "big game" catch that needed to be dragged away with the help of some improvised contraption.

Do you really suppose that Senor Guandique attacked Ms. Levy on the path, subdued her, raped her, killed her, then took the time to strip her clothing off and turn it into your travois, and, only then, slowly dragged her dead body seventy-or-so yards into the park wilderness?

This is a young miscreant who was scared away three times that we know of-- two of those times despite holding his surprised victims at knifepoint! Yet, you have him doing all of this assaulting and raping and murdering and stripping and travois-making on a path in a public park in broad daylight on a beautiful May Day afternoon, as if there were no fear that anyone else might happen along at any moment!?! What turned him into a scaredycat just six days later? How did this scaredycat nonetheless control his vital signs and pass a police polygraph examination that seemed to clear him in the case of Ms. Levy's disappearance and death?

Just curious....

Daniel, travois or no travois, you are right she weighed 108 pounds and was very petite. She was probably easier to subdue than an a 5.11 woman. She may not have fought back. Who knows? One of the other woman was schooled in self-defense. So may maybe Chandra did not put up such a struggle and therefore G-man was not scared off as with the other woman. My point is that it is more conceivable that G-man did rather than C-man. I am tired of speculating any further as there is no point. It could of been the poster Murphie whom seems to know an awful lot about the park for all we know. I am not serious, but the bottom line is that the police messed up and it will be difficult to prove who killed Chandra. Sorry about typos in this message. I am in a hurry and tired of speculating.

If you want to believe in the random crime theory, here's another scenario almost as plausible: Chandra was the victim of an alien abduction "gone bad." After the aliens had taken her aboard their ship, they started probing her with their instruments, she went into shock and died. They then beamed her body down to a little used section of Rock Creek Park. Her ring and keys haven't been found because they are still aboard the spaceship.

Posted by: Dr. Watson | July 17, 2008 8:36 PM
_________________

The alien abduction was staged to place her in the CIA. Sometime after the November election, Dick Cheney will out her to the media.

***

"It's also interesting that Christy asked the person whom she stopped for help to drive her to her boyfriends house first and then she was driven back to provide the report of her attack to the park police.

"If I were attacked I would want to go straight to the park police and then my husband or boyfriend could be called from the police office to come to my destination"

Posted by: bekyndhearted | July 18, 2008 8:24 AM

***

For the record, she did not ask to be taken to her boyfriend's home, bekyndhearted; she asked to go pick him up first, further down the jogging path, where he had been jogging out in front of her at the time that she was attacked by Ingmar Guandique! F.Y.I.

D.K.H.

I think it's great that you have a synopsis of the first four or five installments to tell us all of the new and neat stuff you've uncovered. But that's still too much to read. Could you Post set up a special section of this great site to give me a synopsis of the synopses?

So detective Joe Green didn't think it relevant when the suspect he was questionning was linked to the attempted rape with a knife of two women, and then admitted that he had seen Chandra in Rock Creek Park, and said he thought she was pretty. After all, the case was not being handled by the Park Police!

How can we get better cops? Police advocates, like teacher advocates, would say we need to pay them more. I wonder.

Posted by: Charles Stansfield | July 18, 2008 10:14 AM

______________________________

In regards to the cited comment above. I wonder why he held a knife on the two women, but never killed them, nor raped them. And also when he robbed the lady's house his weapons were a large and two small screwdrivers

I just read most of the comments on this page, after having spent my code red July afternoon basking in the AC.

I feel sorry for the Post journalists who have to contend with you lot, and I want them to know that many of us actually appreciate their efforts here very much. I hope they're reading these comments with a grain of salt, since it's not a shock that when you open such touchy subject matter up to the general population, this is the "enlightened response" you get.

The cast of characters who has been pontificating Nancy Drew style, and arguing with each other in mean spirit in the comments here, is laughable at best, but generally just pathetic.

Now you can all go and blame the MPD, the FBI, the MSM, and my dog. The fact of the matter is that this girl was killed. The circumstances suck. In fact, it's devastating. And if you've ever been a victim of, or a party to, violent crime, then you know just how traumatic it is. Unless someone confesses, there's probably no evidence that can help her parents gain closure on this and move on.

What a total f'ing travesty.

The Post is trying to, IMHO, shed light on this case so that maybe it won't happen again. Maybe one of the other thousands of kids who come to DC to gain a foot hold in the non-profit world or the government and make a difference can do so without their parents fearing the absolute worst when their kid didn't show up when they were supposed to.

You all might try being a little less critical and a little more praiseworthy -- at least for that reason alone.

Thanks for reading this.

bekynd: there are plenty of reasons not to come forward other than fear of violence. Fear of ridicule, fear that people will know you had an affair with a married man, shame on family, involvement with a long trial, etc.

_______________________________

huggie,

In regards to the above statement, what are you referring to?

Does anyone know if Condit was ever given a polygraph?

An aside: interesting that Chandra visited Baskin Robbins' website the day she was murdered; and that Condit ended up opening two of those franchises out west after he left Congress.

Posted by: june | July 18, 2008 11:20 AM

_________________________________

june,

It was said that Condit had taken his own private personal polygraph test administered in the presence of his lawyer. This information was provided through the media as well as the WaPo.

And the reason Chandra visited Baskin Robbins webiste was because she knew as she he was her man's business deals along with other proprietary information. That is one of the reasons why I believe she was killed.

this El Salvadoran boy is a great example
of why we need to seal our southern border.

also, is he still in jail? Hope so.
I could not tell from today's article.

Sure Condit is lecher and has a history of only sleeping with women, but he does not have a proven record of sitting in a park stalking women with a knife.

Posted by: MJM | July 18, 2008 2:16 PM

MJM,

Who said that he really had a knife? I didn't see anything in the police report about them recovering a knife. They did report them recovering a large and two small screwdrivers, but nothing indicating a recovery of a knife.

And..why would he kill Chandra and not the other two females whom seemed to get away after a little tuggling with him, and it was also described that he attacked the women with bear hugs. I believe that Chandra would have fought him also.

Does anyone know anything about the two females that were attacked. Where do they work? Has anyone archived their names for any information about them?

It was also stated that one of the ladies attacked dug her nails on the inside of his mouth. Once he was caught by the police I wonder if they examined his mouth because the mouth takes a while to heal.

bekyndhearted & june;

perhaps Condit was going to set Chandra up with a Baskin franchise so she could stay in D.C. ????

bekyndhearted & june;

perhaps Condit was going to set Chandra up with a Baskin franchise so she could stay in D.C. ????
___________________________

Or maybe she wanted to walk to the nearest Baskin Robbins for ice cream on a warm day.

For the record, she did not ask to be taken to her boyfriend's home, bekyndhearted; she asked to go pick him up first, further down the jogging path, where he had been jogging out in front of her at the time that she was attacked by Ingmar Guandique! F.Y.I.

D.K.H.

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 18, 2008 3:42 PM

_________________________

DKH,

Thank you.

Now my question is why would a woman that is in the a wooded park jogging with a man go seperate ways? If I were jogging in a heavy wooded area such as Rock Creek Park and my male companion is with me, were jogging together. And if he was further up the trail wouldn't he hear her screaming. ( I know it's a possiblity that he has on headphones to just as she did, but she heard footsteps approaching her quickly)

Just wondering....

This is a part of the article from the WaPo
cited below
__________________________________________
At the top of the hill, Shilling sensed that someone was behind her. She thought it was another runner, and she slowed to let him pass. Instead, the Hispanic man jumped on her back and grabbed her around the throat. They fell to the ground and tussled on the trail. The hum of the rush-hour traffic below drowned out her screams.

She saw his knife.
"No! No! No!" she shouted.
"Shhh," the man ordered.

Shilling jammed her fingers into her attacker's mouth, digging her nails beneath his tongue, as she had been taught in a self-defense class years earlier. The man bit her fingers, but released her and ran off. Shilling made her way to a U.S. Park Police station. She reported the crime and said she didn't believe her assailant was trying to rob her. He didn't take her Walkman or her large diamond engagement ring. She thought he was trying to rape or kill her.

________________________________________

The two women that were attacked must not have been to afraid of IG (the attacker) because if this guy had a knife as both females stated. I sure would not fight a strong male who is attacking me with a knife because I would fear that he would kill me.

"[Guandique] was booked on burglary charges and released [7 May] on a promise to return to court May 29."

We need to eliminate the catch and release policy for people who are in this country illegally. It should be catch and ship.

BTW, our southern friend is a federal pen in KY till 2011. Costing taxpayer $20K a year, on average.

Of all people, why wouldn't Chandra Levy, who was interning with the U.S. prison system, realize that she could be a target for a criminal while jogging in Rock Creek Park? Was she that naive to take off on a long walk/jog into the wilderness by herself?

Also, it's unbelievable that Detective Joe Green with the Park Police would not have reported the Guandique comment about Chandra to the DC Police. He said "It wasn't mine to pursue." Everyone in the DC area knew about the Chandra Levy case, and Green said nothing!! Who hired this irresponsible detective?

bekynhearted, please live up your name. Your comments about victims Halle and Christie are hurtful.

To the poster that asked what happened to Gaundique, he was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for these two assaults, both of which should be considered attempted murder. The legalese is probably not right but that's what it is.

To all who toss off Chnadra's murder as a walk in the park gone bad, please take a walk from DuPont Circle to grove 18 at the top of Ridge Road and then on out the No Horse path off of the horse trail, starting at 1 pm and with nothing but a walkman, 14k bracelet, ring, and a key, and then come back and tell us about it, including how you got there, what time you got there, your thoughts on walking back, and your recommmendations to women on this "walk in the park".

We will wait with bated breath.

rd

RD - i'm having a hard time picturing the geography, and no, i have no intention of taking the walk myself. Someone should film the walk to explain it. Aside from that, there is a plausible case to make that she was harmed near the planetarium/nature center/horse stables, and then dragged to the remote area. That's plausible.

Also, what is your theory about the knotted leggings?

Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants in the United States.

After conducting a 12 month in-depth study of illegal immigrants who committed sex crimes and murders for the time period of January 1999 through April 2006 , it is clear that the U.S. public faces a dangerous threat from sex predators who cross the U.S. borders illegally.

Read more: http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html#Illegals

Oh, and the only prep you get is a MapQuest map of Rock Creek Park which is obtained with the address of Klingle Mansion, as shown in the Entertainment Guide in the Washington Post at the time. No peeking until just before you leave.

rd

eeave, until you're willing to experience it, you won't undestand how implausible it is. I guarantee you not one of you suggesting it, including these reporters, have come close to trying it. No one would be nonchalant about it again after that.

As for visualizing, the WashPo has a picture at the top of the page on their story summaries page, where the day's chapter summaries is dropped down from the list of chapters.

That picture is of looking out at trees from the No Horses path, looking in the direction of Broad Brach Road. Well, it's really the only direction you can look, that or straight down.

Those trees you see in the picture are the upper portions of very tall trees coming out of the side of that huge hill. The base of it starts with a 70 foot cliff coming up from Broad Brach Road. Chandra was well above that evem, and still 240 feet down that tree covered enbankment, hidden in a washout below a tree.

Oh, but the nonchalant ones will get plenty of time to take a look on their walk from DuPont Circle. No need for me to dwell on it here.

As for the knotted leggings, for one they have to be taken completely off to knot them like that. I haven't seen them, but they would have a knot tied with the bottom of the pants on each leg.

Purpose? Well, the carrying stuff as handles is pretty silly. It's not hard to drag a body down that hill, you can barely keep from sliding yourself, until you run into a tree, which unfortunately was the only way I could stop myself several times.

The purpose is to stage a robbery and sex assault. Problem is that hill is too steep for it to have really happened, and it's just off the picnic table 18 on Ridge Road, extremely close to the road because, well I hate to repeat myself, because the hill is steep. They could barely get a small two lane in at the top of the ridge. Picnic tables are on steep inclines next to the road.

But no sex assault took place on that steep hill, the jewelry wasn't pawned, and the body was hidden hundreds of feet downhill.

That folks is a classic staged murder scene. That isn't the way a real sexual assault would have taken place with a petty thief like Guandique, not up there, not without pawning the jewelry, and not going to the effort of someone who knows the victim in hiding the body.

rd

Woman's body found near Cary
A man walking his dog Monday night found a body in an undeveloped area that police think may be that of missing Cary jogger, Nancy Cooper. Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said the man discovered the body about 7:30 p.m.

Updated: Jul. 15, 2008 4:48 AM | Full story from the Raleigh News and Observer (N.C.)
__________

Why is it always a dog-walker who finds the body?

Ralph, have you looked up anything about the dog-walker who was "looking for turtles" and found Chandra's bones? What possessed that person to go there?

I don't know, I start Murder on a Horse Trail with chapter Hunting Turtles asking a lot of questions like that.

The technical answer is because his dog was pawing on some leaves a few hundred feet up the hill, and when he reached down where the dog wa spawing he saw a skull. That's what he reported. For some strange reason no one will identify him.

I describe going up the hill as he said he did from Broad Branch Road later in the book, and that's something none of you will report as the way you got there, I guarantee it.

rd

Condit was a serial sex offender as was Bill Clinton. Usually these types have no intention of physically harming anyone so I doubt that he is directly involved in her murder. But to be sure the one person that could shed more light on this is Mrs. Condit! She knows of his pandering and also knows if he is capable of murder. As far as I know she has never spoken publically about this case?

Problem with that is your focus on the sexual affair of the woman murdered versus the sexual affair she asked Condit about just before she disappeared.

There's a difference.

rd

Problem with that is your focus on the sexual affair of the woman murdered versus the sexual affair she asked Condit about just before she disappeared.

There's a difference.

rd
______________________

Are you referring to the fabricated affair she asked Condit about before she disappeared?

I analyze it closely. The minister could no more fabricate a story that didn't have one catchable flaw in six WashPo interviews, a ModBee interview, and an FBI interview over a six week period than you could. You can't do it. You're not good enough, and I know he wasn't.

For those reading, skip the "fabicated" generics of this guy's claim and cut to the chase, look at the detailed story that he recounts to the Washington Post, who reported it.

Not one verifiable flaw in it. This particular poster I know claims the Levys put him up to it rather than he told Susan Levy the story when he was gardening her yard, but for the rest of you the entire Levy family also talked to OC Thomas twice to determine if he was telling the truth, and again, they could find nothing deceptive in what the retired minister was telling them, crying the whole time.

Decide for yourself. Don't let someone with an agenda decide for you.

rd

The teases for this series explicitly promised "sex." I'm still waiting.

Posted by: Bill | July 17, 2008 9:40 PM

Bill, whoever you are, I had to say thanks for making me laugh with your dry sense of humor.

And thanks to the Post for this compelling series. I am not a fan of tabloid journalism, and I disagree with readers who think it is. It's not about sensationalism, or sex, or even about Chandra -- it's about shining a light on the critical missteps (aka negligence) of those in charge of the investigation.

Park Police Detective Green's excuse for not mentioning Chandra in his report, or sharing Guandique's confession with officers on Chandra's case -- "It wasn't mine to pursue" -- is outrageous and unforgivable, especially from a 30-year veteran. Reminds me of 9/11, and how the FBI & CIA missed important clues because they were more intent on protecting their turf than sharing critical information.

I find this series worthwhile, but I agree with some previous posters -- I would like to see a 35-part series on each one of Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment. Plenty of intrigue, murder, and deception, with some torture and spying thrown in. How about it?

http://kucinich.us/impeachment/articles.pdf.

rd,

In regards to your comment cited below I live up to my name. I'm only making comments of my opinion and not making the comments toward anyone in a hurtful or mean way except for Condit. The comment you're referring to was not commented in the way you're taking it. I'm stating that if it were me and a strong male attacked me with a knife to my chin, there is no way I would fight him. And I don't think to any other females would either.

_____________________________________

bekynhearted, please live up your name. Your comments about victims Halle and Christie are hurtful.

rd,

In regards to your comment cited below I live up to my name. I'm only making comments of my opinion and not making the comments toward anyone in a hurtful or mean way except for Condit. The comment you're referring to was not commented in the way you're taking it. I'm stating that if it were me and a strong male attacked me with a knife to my chin, there is no way I would fight him. And I don't think to any other females would either.

_____________________________________

bekynhearted, please live up your name. Your comments about victims Halle and Christie are hurtful.

What a bunch of kooks and nuts on this website! Who the hell is "rd" and is he being paid to clog up the works? This is just another example of all the bs that police have to contend with in addition to solving a crime.

"What a bunch of kooks and nuts on this website! Who the hell is "rd" and is he being paid to clog up the works? This is just another example of all the bs that police have to contend with in addition to solving a crime."
Posted by: dlg358 | July 19, 2008 8:26 AM

You are apparently browsing the wrong section of the site. The "works" appears elsewhere; a series written in very easy to read articles, doesn't make you have to think, you can just go along for the ride. Each day's report takes only a few minutes to get through. This is a comment section, where you are invited to think, opine and share relevant analysis. This is where people who are interested in finding truth gravitate.
If you were at all this type, you would quickly find the answer to your question.

dlg358, my name is Ralph Daugherty. Just google me, all my particulars are out there.

The Washington Post nor any other reporters have ever contacted me, they certainly don't need to solicit opinions, everyone has one, and because of that, opinions aren't rare and I work a day job for pay.

bekyndhearted, I don't know what to make of your point. Halle and Christy fought off Guandiqie in the two attacks and lived to testify about it in victim statements. You may not choose to try to fight off someone who grabs you and puts something metal up to your neck, but by saying you don't know of any woman who would you basically question these two women's actions and accounts and any other woman who fights for her life.

But as long as you're kind hearted about it. :)

rd

stevdart "where people interested in finding the truth gravitate" You can't handle the truth! And now Denizen wants us to study the Kucinich impeachement papers? As I said before bunch of kooks and nuts!Like Condit or not he had nothing to do with this murder! He ruined a lot of other lives but did not kill Chandra.

what do you base your strong feelings on about Condit ruining a lot of lives but did not kill Chandra, and what is the truth we can't handle?

I believe in laying the details out there and letting people draw their own conclusion.

rd

Hey, RD,

I recall you from chandralevy.com, and I admire how you copped all that great info and turned it into a book. If I haven't confused you with someone else on that site, didn't you think she was buried under a sidewalk under construction at a fastfood site in West Virginia? But I digress, even if I'm not confused.

Still baffled how people who actually talked to OC -- as FBI agents did (and you, presumably, did not) -- said the story was recanted by OC, and that they believed the "recantation." I am baffled how you think his story still has legs -- except, perhaps, you think so because it is crucial to your pet theory (and I am not dismissing your theory, just not buying into it).

A lot of attention has been trained on making Condit appear to have been obfuscating or diverting attention or obstructing the investigation by somehow not cooperating -- and I don't deny that people whose theories these sorts of behaviors feed don't have reason to latch onto them -- but there has not been an equal amount of attention trained on how the Levys were party to plenty of sideshows in this saga -- the minister's weird confession-turned-recantation merely one of them.

In a purely objective sense -- and knowing it will appall some people reading this -- I don't see how it can be overlooked that the Levy side of the story could have been trying to divert attention away from themselves by creating noise about someone else.

yes, regards from those days. The recant was done when the news leaked and the press camped outside his apartment, he was threatened with being kicked out of his apartment because of it, and his family was furious wit him and his daughter ran away from having to face the press, because as he had told the Washington Post, she feared for her life. Rightly so, after Chandra disappeared. So did several other Condit mistresses.

But let's let the readers look at the details and decide. I lay out what OC Thomas said and the circumstances surrounding it during six weeks of questioning by the Washington Post, Modesto Bee, the FBI, and the Levy family, up until the news leaked.

The details are in chapters Friendships and Exposed in Murder on a Horse Trail, readers can google and read them. Yes, I ask many questions about it in Exposed, and just as you brush if off with recanted, OC cannot brush it off with "I dug a hole I couldn't get out of."

Any answer to Chandra's murder must include answers from OC, because Chandra disappeared when her mother pressed Chandra for answers to OC's story about his daughter.

Time is not standing still, but this investigation is.

rd

I believe in laying the details out there and letting people draw their own conclusion.

rd

Posted by: ralphdaugherty | July 19, 2008 3:35 PM

Followed by....

Any answer to Chandra's murder must include answers from OC, because Chandra disappeared when her mother pressed Chandra for answers to OC's story about his daughter.

rd

Posted by: ralphdaugherty | July 19, 2008 4:24 PM
_________________________

I get it. People are free to draw their own conclusions, so long as they conclude the same thing you conclude.

rd..........before we go any further "do you think OJ Simpson did it"? And, I mean murdered Nicole not Chandra? Just wanted to establish some sort of level of degree to whom I am speaking. Just plain common sense tells me that Condit did not do this. Just as I new with certainty that JonBenet's family did not kill her. It's people logic.

Not to add to the "nuts & kooks" on this blog or take away from the journalistic work but what about psychic information. This sounds crazy but I think I've seen or sensed (whatever you call it) some information that may or may not be helpful.
Of course, I originally dismissed it because, well, I'm not a kook but I keep thinking, what if it could help.

I haven't researched those cases, and no, I lay out the details of Chandra's case for people to draw their own conclusion. OC could give answers that explain his elaborate story with detals no one could find a falsification in. But I'm waiting for that explanation, at least as detailed as his story.

And whether falsified or not, and for those who look, that's a complex story to make up and defend for six weeks without anyone being able to find anything wrong with it, Chandra still asked Condit about it and he still "explained it all". What did he explain, and why did her daily cell phone calls to his message line end that day?

All I ask is that anyone dismissing Chandra's murder as a walk in the park, is to take the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge and walk from DuPont Circle to grove 18 on the top of Ridge Road starting at 1 pm and tell us when you got there, how you got there, and just when you think you'll make it back to DuPont Circle.

rd

after first going crosscountry out the No Horses path from grove 18 of course.

And the only thing you can bring with you is a Walkman radio and a key, wearing a 14k bracelet and diamond studded ring.

Engraved with intertwined CL optional.

rd

Chandra did not have a car in Washington, she'd been dismissed from her internship, so she wasn't working, it was already daylight savings time, so it wouldn't get dark until about 7 pm, even if she wasn't an avid runner, she could walk on any steep hills ... why does it seem so impossible that she'd be there? If she'd been working at the internship the whole time she was in Washington, perhaps there had been no time and no great weather to allow her to take a walk or see a site she'd always wanted to see. She can't have her savvy questioned if she had no idea what she was walking into.

i grew up in the d.c. area. a female, i would never, ever go deep into Rock Creek Park alone. that's just nuts.

Shoddy police work all around, clouded by media attention on the victims ties to a congressman. The illegal who sits in jail may never be tied tied to the killing because the evidence rotted for so long. But it was likely him considering his known acts. Hillary had nothing to do with the murder, and thankfully will have nothing to do with the upcoming presidential race either. And why was Conduit so cagey with investigators and the press? Duh, think about it. Or maybe consult your psychic. lol.

I agree rd, this was no walk in the park. Chandra had a incredible willingness to submit to Condit's insistence to keep things quiet-- until-- he had "explained it all." When and if she found out that: A. she was played (as many women have been by Condit), B. Condit's wife wasn't "sickly" (ie, he wasn't leaving her), and C. he had no intention of helping her find a job in DC, she rightly felt betrayed and maybe wanted to make noise (this girl did not take breakups well). Condit--and let's not forget this was shortly after the Monica fiasco-- would never let a 24 year-old intern destroy the career (and apparent bachelor lifestyle) he had built.

A man in uniform.

Once and for all, can someone tell me if the Levys knew about the affair before the disappearance? This series makes it seem like they didn't, as the mother called the congressman for help. But a previous archived story says Mrs Levy asked Chandra to break it off... Thanx

Lynn would you care to elaborate on a man in uniform? Are you suggesting it was a man in uniform who killed her?

***

Just plain common sense tells me that Condit did not do this. Just as I new with certainty that JonBenet's family did not kill her. It's people logic.

Posted by: dlg358 | July 19, 2008 5:11 PM

***

"Plain common sense" told you that JonBenet was killed by an intruder? Was that because so few children that age who are murdered in their homes are murdered by family members? Was it because chronic bed-wetting is so infrequently a cause of violence in the home against young children? Was it because such a large portion of murdered children her age killed in the home are killed by an intruder from a "small foreign faction" seeking an oddly derived ransom amount for a child that has already been killed and is subsequently left there in the home to be discovered?

I am still waiting to hear the current Boulder D.A.'s brilliant theory of the case, concentrating on the multiple drafts of the ransom note that were written within the victim's home, using materials taken from within it, with the final draft's then being left on the stairs, despite the dead child's then being left in the house too.

As for Ms. Levy's case, it still comes down to means, motive and opportunity. Ingmar Guandique is a facially plausible suspect; but, there is no physical evidence tying him to the case. He passed an official polygraph examination, while his jailbird accuser (surprise! surprise!) failed his. The fact that Senor Guandique attacked his two known subsequent assault victims-- who were vastly different from Chandra Levy in height and coloration-- with a knife, while Ms. Levy was apparently asphyxiated with her own clothing, augurs against Ingmar Guandique, as well. So does the fact that he fled from each of his three known crime scenes before completing his intended tasks-- scared away, in each case, solely by an unarmed woman.

I am unaware of Ingmar Guandique's either murdering or sexually assaulting anyone, whether in D.C. or back home in El Salvador. The notion that mailing a sexually explicit letter to a model seen in a periodical, by a young man expecting to be behind bars for the next decade or so, is a proverbial 'smoking gun' that proves a known murder and a suspected rape is patently absurd.

As for Mr. Condit, the means are plausible. Either by force or subterfuge-- e.g., making love in the park-- he easily could have gotten Ms. Levy out of her clothing, and then used some of it to strangle her to death. It would have been not only effective per se, but also would have made the crime look just as many people view it: a random rapist, lurking in the park, who killed his unlucky victim to silence the only witness against him. Q.E.D.

Did Congressman Condit have a motive to kill Chandra Levy? No one other than Mr. Condit now knows that for certain; but, he is such an inveterate liar that it is simply beyond believing any self-serving claim he might make on the issue. We do know, despite his perjurious denials, that he had an affair with Chandra Levy, and that she believed, at least up until a few days before her death, that he was planning to leave his wife-- or just waiting for her to drop dead, in short order-- and then to marry Ms. Levy, in about five years.

Any married man having an affair has some motive for murder, whether of the wife or of the mistress. That increases along with the number of mistresses. When the mistress in question is quite adamant about marrying the adulterer in question, his motive is clear, even absent a specific falling out, as might well also have happened in the final days of Ms. Levy's life, especially after her friend let her know how naive he thought that she was being simply to believe what her powerful married paramour was promising her.

Did Mr. Condit have the opportunity to kill Chandra Levy on the afternoon of May Day 2001? It certainly appears so. He attended a brief meeting with the Vice President, and then was apparently free for several hours, beginning shortly before Chandra Levy last signed off her computer, before he finally returned to his office. Mr. Condit lived quite near Rock Creek Park, and very well could have asked Ms. Levy to meet him at some specific location there, perhaps during their last cell-phone conversation on April 29th. He could have suggested, for instance, that they go jogging together, and that she come dressed accordingly, after which he would give her a ride back to her apartment.

Mr. Condit had brought most of the suspicion that he faced in 2001-- and which he still faces now-- upon himself. His dishonesty has been breathtaking. While it well might be understandable that a man does not wish to be found out to be an adulterer-- let alone a serial adulterer, juggling more than one mistress at a time-- many of his attempts to create an alibi for himself for the time of Chandra Levy's presumed demise on May Day go far beyond an attempt merely to avoid being tied to her romantically. He has abused his wife, his mistresses, his staff, the system, and the public at large, especially with his dishonest attempts to create the illusion that he could not possibly have met with Ms. Levy in Rock Creek Park on May Day 2001, when it appears quite clear that he well could have done so.

Absent forensic evidence from the killing, I do not see how a provable case could ever be made against Mr. Condit for the murder of Chandra Levy, unless some direct evidence-- eye-witness testimony or a confession-- put him in the park with her on that May Day afternoon. That is quite a different thing, however, from claiming that it is "plain common sense" that Mr. Condit could not, would not and/or did not commit this crime.

We do not have to posit any fact not already in evidence-- e.g., an assault, be it sexual or otherwise-- to assume a motive for Gary Condit's intending to murder Chandra Levy; yet, precisely such an assumption of a fact not in evidence needs to be made in order to create a plausible motive for the stranger Ingmar Guandique to have intended to murder Chandra Levy that May Day afternoon in 2001.

D.K.H., M.S. [Soc. Psych.], J.D. [inter alia]

dlg358, my name is Ralph Daugherty. Just google me, all my particulars are out there.

The Washington Post nor any other reporters have ever contacted me, they certainly don't need to solicit opinions, everyone has one, and because of that, opinions aren't rare and I work a day job for pay.

bekyndhearted, I don't know what to make of your point. Halle and Christy fought off Guandiqie in the two attacks and lived to testify about it in victim statements. You may not choose to try to fight off someone who grabs you and puts something metal up to your neck, but by saying you don't know of any woman who would you basically question these two women's actions and accounts and any other woman who fights for her life.

But as long as you're kind hearted about it. :)

rd

Posted by: ralphdaugherty | July 19, 2008 10:50 AM

__________________________________

rd,

And if that is what the two females chose to do that's them, and as I stated before as my opinion, I will again. There is no way I would fight a strong male with a 5' knife in my chin, and I don't think to many other females would either. And you can take my opinion however you want to take it. But it's not going to change. And I really don't care what you make of my comment. There are comments that you have given your opinion on and I didn't know what your point was, but as I know, you are entitled to your opinion.

i grew up in the d.c. area. a female, i would never, ever go deep into Rock Creek Park alone. that's just nuts.

Posted by: anon | July 19, 2008 7:19 PM
__________________________________________

Thank you anon! My point exactly! There is no way. And I defintely would not go there with my boyfriend to jog and then go seperate ways either. (Let alone deep into Rock Creek Park)

"Any married man having an affair has some motive for murder..." D.K.H. So if almost half of the married men in this country and 30% of the married women (I do assume it is the same for married women?") are having affairs there should be a whole lot of bodies out there! Especially in D.C.! I would think that the man or women instead of turning to murder would get out of the relationship by using the same charm, wit, and attractiveness that got them there. Murder takes it to a far different level of missing chromosomes, etc. I'm not saying that Condit is not capable of murder it's just that it was too "public" of a place and you allude that maybe it was premediated on his part. I would like to see a FBI profile on this case and maybe we will later in the series? As to the JonBenet murder it was the DNA from the beginning! The unknown semen on her underpants. And, now with the findings of last week of additional unk. DNA on her pajamas I think that pretty well exonerates the Ramsey family. You never did say if O.J. was guilty?

From what I've read here there are some plain common sense things that leap out:

1) Few women venture out without their cell phones, especially if going to a new place alone;
2) A woman who has worked in criminal justice knows of the creeps and miscreants that are out there and is, therefore, generally more careful;
3) Gary Condit seemed more interested in his ____ than he did, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, in protecting our safety;
4) I hope that the woman whose fiance ran ahead of her on a lonely trail did not marry him;
5) Never trust a minister or the son of such;
6) The simpliest solution is generally the correct one.

It is depressing to see how, when a police investigation starts, the initial path of the investigation is so dependent on the personal biases, hunches, opinions of the investigating officer, rather than a cold examination of facts. In your examination of this case, did you come across any guidelines or training that the police have for those crucial first few hours after they start an investigation? Or is it pretty much up the competence (or lack thereof) of the officer who is the first investigator? Also, based on this case, do the law enforcement agencies now a system whereby if a predator is attacking women, all the police jurisdictions in the surrounding areas are notified?

***

"Any married man having an affair has some motive for murder..." D.K.H. So if almost half of the married men in this country and 30% of the married women (I do assume it is the same for married women?") are having affairs there should be a whole lot of bodies out there! Especially in D.C.! I would think that the man or women instead of turning to murder would get out of the relationship by using the same charm, wit, and attractiveness that got them there. Murder takes it to a far different level of missing chromosomes, etc. I'm not saying that Condit is not capable of murder it's just that it was too "public" of a place and you allude that maybe it was premediated on his part. I would like to see a FBI profile on this case and maybe we will later in the series? As to the JonBenet murder it was the DNA from the beginning! The unknown semen on her underpants. And, now with the findings of last week of additional unk. DNA on her pajamas I think that pretty well exonerates the Ramsey family. You never did say if O.J. was guilty?

Posted by: dlg358 | July 20, 2008 9:42 AM

***

You really ought to try a tad harder to keep your facts straight, DLG358. To begin at the end, it was Mr. Daugherty, not me, whom you asked about O.J. Simpson-- which might well explain my silence on the matter, might it not? At any rate, the question per se is so ambiguous that, were I still practicing law, I would certainly advise Mr. Daugherty not to answer your question.

[If someone asks you whether you believe in UFOs, what does a simple "yes" or "no" answer reveal? Does a "yes" mean that you believe that you are an alien abductee on a nightly basis; or, merely that you believe that there are objects, or what appear to be objects, that are flying, or that appear to be flying, that are unidentifiable, or are simply as of yet unidentified? Does a "no" answer simply mean that you do not believe the latter contention; or, does it mean that you are claiming as a scientific fact that there is not, and cannot be, life elsewhere in the vast universe in which we reside? An ambiguous yes-or-no question, such as yours about O.J. Simpson, cannot elicit a simple and unambiguous "yes" or "no" answer.]

I will go on record here, regardless, to unambiguously state my own opinion-- which I, as someone trained in History (B.A.), as well as the several aforementioned academic subjects, consider to be an unimpeachable historical fact-- that Orenthal James Simpson, in fact, did knife to death both his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson (nee Brown), and her acquaintance, Ronald Goldman, on the Sunday evening of June 12, 1994, in the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. (Mr. Simpson is welcome to attempt to sue me for defamation based on this oft-stated belief; but, as I understand it, he might have more pressing concerns right about now....)

*

"So if almost half of the married men in this country and 30% of the married women (I do assume it is the same for married women?") are having affairs there should be a whole lot of bodies out there! Especially in D.C.!"

*

I claimed that "[a]ny married man having an affair has some motive for murder, whether of the wife or of the mistress." Merely having "some motive" to kill a wife or a mistress is unlikely to cause such a murder to actually take place, since people also tend to have other qualms, whether they be moral or practical. A genuine misanthrope has a motive to murder literally everyone else in the world; but, one rarely murders anyone at all. I will admit to having a motive to kill an awful lot of people, if not quite the whole 6.7+ billion others of you. Having a motive, or even an explicit desire, to murder someone is not a crime.

For the record, however, there are a lot of dead spouses and mistresses that have popped up over the course of human existence. In D.C., however, the number may be expected to be appreciably lower, not higher, than it is elsewhere, despite the capital's very high per capita murder rate, because of the simple demographic fact that most of the murderers in D.C. are males who have never bothered as of yet to marry anyone at all.

*

"I would think that the man or women instead of turning to murder would get out of the relationship by using the same charm, wit, and attractiveness that got them there."

*

One would both think and hope so; but, alas, the criminal annals of this and every other land known to man and woman demonstrate, beyond peradventure, that there is no end to the number of folks who are willing to risk murder rather than a spouse's or mistress' rath, or whatever else, over a marital or romantic break-up. C'est la vie? C'est la morte, mon ami!

*

"Murder takes it to a far different level of missing chromosomes, etc."

*

FROM DR. BARRY STARR OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY:

...

"The only case where a missing chromosome is tolerated is when an X or a Y chromosome is missing. This condition, called Turner syndrome or XO, affects about 1 out of every 2,500 females. XO is one of the most common chromosomal abnormalities."

...

I am a layman, not formally trained in the hard sciences; but, as someone trained in both Law and Personality & Social Psychology (inter alia), and who obviously has some avocational interest in the subject of murder, I am unaware of any case in which such a woman has committed murder. I would expect, as a matter of probability, that it likely has happened throughout the course of human history; but, I certainly am unaware of any such murder case that has received publicity in which such a genetic defect has been used as a criminal defense!?!

*

"I'm not saying that Condit is not capable of murder it's just that it was too "public" of a place and you allude that maybe it was premediated on his part."

*

In the first place, premeditation as a legal construct requires a mere fraction of a second of malice aforethought, not intricate advanced planning. In the second place, the position of Ms. Levy's remains was hardly a terribly public place, or it would not have taken a year and three weeks to accidentally uncover them. Virtually any murder requires the murderer to take on some degree of risk that he or she will be found out as such.

The criminal annals are filled with people who misjudged just how clever-- and lucky-- they could be. This is especially true when a murder is based upon romantic motivations, which are contrived under an abnormal brain chemistry and psychology. No one said that life would be easy-- and that goes double, at least, for homicide!

While Congressman Condit might conceivably have killed Chandra Levy on the spur of the moment in Rock Creek Park while engaged in a romantic tryst, the overall circumstances certainly seem to me to augur for a planned act, whether it was his, for motives already discussed at length, or of some "predator in the park," as you and Ms. Horwitz, et al., seem to believe.

*

"I would like to see a FBI profile on this case and maybe we will later in the series?"

*

Again, as someone trained in both Law and Personality & Social Psychology, I do not give an exceptional amount of credence to profilers. Like psychotherapists, they tend to bask in the false notion that they as a group possess both arcane knowledge and some preternatural empathic capabilities that are beyond the ken of us mere mortals. Most of their public pronouncements are post hoc, and only include those of their assumptions that turned out to be true-- with many such assumptions being ones that any relatively intelligent, well-educated and well-informed layman might also have drawn independently. A good computer program can make predictions about likely traits in unknown cases, based upon known traits in historical cases.

The longest and most expensive F.B.I. case ever, at least up until that time (1996), was the Unabomber case. It was solved not by the F.B.I. (although they have the chutzpah to credit themselves!), but by the brother of Dr. Ted Kaczinski, the Unabomber, upon noting the similarity between his brother's published manifesto and some writing samples known to the Kaczinski family.

Of all of the suspects on the F.B.I. persons-of-interest list in that case, prior to the heads-up from Mr. Kaczinski about his older brother, Dr. Kaczinski was not among them. The suspect profile that the collective wisdom of all of the F.B.I.'s vaunted team of psychological profilers had concocted was utterly unlike the traits of Ted Kaczinski. Caveat emptor!

*

"As to the JonBenet murder it was the DNA from the beginning! The unknown semen on her underpants. And, now with the findings of last week of additional unk. DNA on her pajamas I think that pretty well exonerates the Ramsey family."

*

I do not want to hijack the Chandra Levy site to rail against the official case in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey; but, since you do raise the issue again....

Again, you need to get your facts straight. There has been no semen stain discovered in the JonBenet Ramsey case! In fact, it was concluded early on that Miss Ramsey had been sexually abused with digital or instrumental penetration, not raped per se. There was a small blood stain found early on in the criminal investigation, which was said to be an admixture of JonBenet Ramsey's blood and that of an unknown male. The male DNA that was supposedly extracted from this admixture supposedly matches new DNA that was found in a few different spots on JonBenet Ramsey's underwear-- and that is the basis for the current D.A.'s recent letter claiming to exonerate Mr. and (the late) Mrs. Ramsey in the death of their young daughter, JonBenet.

One problem with the use of DNA is that the proclaimed probabilities can blind people, including investigators and jurors, to the problems of whether those astronomically large probabilities are based, in fact, on valid and reliable samples and analyses. This was a strong part of O.J. Simpson's successful defense in his criminal trial, where sympathetic jurors seemingly chose to overlook the probabilities and clung to some downright conspiratorial conclusions of how the blood samples came to be where and as they were.

In the JonBenet Ramsey case, even if one grants certain assumptions, arguendo, based upon the asserted DNA results from the past nearly dozen years, they do not logically clear the parents, nor remove the many facts that augur against them, such as their odd and defensive behavior, and the ludicrous nature of the supposed ransom note, in all its uniquely loquacious detail.

If we grant, arguendo, that JonBenet Ramsey was sexually molested while wearing the underwear in which she was allegedly murdered on the night of December 25-26, 1996, that does not mean that the sexual molestation which left that evidence was committed that night. JonBenet might have been repeatedly molested by one or more people with access to her, over an extended period of time, for all we know.

Even if we grant, arguendo, that she was molested that evening, while wearing that pair of underwear (which I actually doubt, since she is reputed to have wet her bed that evening after returning home), it does not follow that the molestation took place at the hands of an intruder after the family returned home that Christmas evening.

Even if we grant, arguendo, that it was such an intruder who molested her that evening, after the family had returned home (and despite the issue of the home's security system supposedly being left off at all of the requisite times, as the supposed home intruder supposedly came and went), that does not logically require that the supposed molester also killed JonBenet Ramsey.

If such an intruder came and went, JonBenet could have belatedly erupted in distress after the debilitating shock loosened its grip, and such an outburst could have led to the results that are theorized about Patsy Ramsey's criminal behavior, including both the accidental killing of JonBenet and the staging of the kidnapping scenario. Or, if the intruder was actually someone known and otherwise liked and trusted by JonBenet Ramsey, she might have had no adverse reaction at all to the molestation, and only reacted to her own bed-wetting later still that evening, causing, again, the speculated behavior by the Ramseys, especially Patsy.

Personally, I do not believe in the intruder theory, and I believe that one or both of the parents, but most likely Patsy, killed their daughter accidentally in response to a bed-wetting, and whatever else might have occurred that evening, which then led to the staging of the bizarre kidnapping scenario. The evidence being used by the current D.A. to supposedly exonerate the couple (in Patsy Ramsey's case, posthumously) is insufficient to do so, even if it is valid and reliable per se.

D.K.H., EXQ.

Once the police thought they were looking for a body in Rock Creek park, and had an area of interest, did they ever use blood hounds or cadaver dogs? Her body might have been found soon enough to obtain forensic evidence if they had.

Excellent research. I love the Post again, as to many others. Those of us who walk the park to relax, however, question if: 1) There has ever been a better explaination of why the chief of dectectives did not immediately relate this information on similiar attacts to investigators ( it makes the poor man look foolish, in retrospect); 2) What happened to, and where is, this Salivorian predator now, 3) Was the focus of the case on Conduit because of personal and political aspirations of the prosecutors.????

Aside: would you like to know more about the natural dangers of the park? There are several recent incidents, involving drowned dogs, and savior type heroic efforts by owners. Also, their have been many reports of male sexual harrassment, by other males, in the area. Problem being, poeple interested in spontaneous sex, or spontaneous murder, are difficult to differentiate, even for a trained dog.

Anyhow, great investigation!! Reminds me of the old Woodward and Bernstien stuff.

Bless you

Interesting1

Fascinating story. Well researched and well written. Do you have any statistics on the missing persons situation in the Capital area. Am I correct in assuming this investigation involved more police resources than the average case?

Google maps is very helpful in picturing the scene. At their site, http://maps.google.com/, you can type in chandra levy, washington, dc, and the resulting map as the "a" pinpoint to let you zoom in and out. You can do the same for Klingle Mansion and Condit's condo. It's also easier to see everything in relation to Beach Drive and Ridge Road. The predator attacked north near Wise, and south, along Beach Drive.

Where Beach and Ridge do cross is north of Klingle Mansion. If Chandra was heading to the nature center, that's where she would have been seen and stalked.

Unfortunately for Condit, his condo is on the road to Klingle Mansion and the park, where she was heading, and he still lacks an alibi for those hours.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that Chandra, a couple of days before a cross-country move, would have gone from New Hampshire Avenue to the Klingle Mansion, just to go running? There are portions of Rock Creek Park much closer to her apartment, and the fact thazt she had to look up the Klingle Mansion seems to indicate that she had never been there. What other explanation could there be than that she was meeting someone?

I find is interesting that people are negatively referencing Ms. Levy due to her relationships with married men. I guess it's OK that Mr. Condit was repeatedly cheating on his wife and that Ms. Levy was one of his many conquests. I am disgraced by Condit's behavior in that valuable time was lost waiting for him to admit the truth, and by the bumbling of the case by police forces. Closure for the Levy family was too long in coming and I hope and pray that bringing cold cases such as this one again to the attention of the public helps solve it. And, I'm frankly sick and tired of the race and religious insinuations as to why this young woman's case was featured above others. Anytime we can solve the case of the death of another young woman is a victory for all of us. It's time this killer was brought to justice.

by the way, the Reporters Notebook update #7 answering some reader's questions I thought was very well done.

The statement that it appears from the crime scene that Chandra was attacked along Western Ridge Trail (on the No Horses path going off the trail at grove 18) is unquestionably true. The series reported earlier on that a pair of sunglasses (presumably identified as hers) was found in bushes along the trail above, leading one to believe they were knocked off as she was attacked and taken downhill.

While undoubtedly it appears that way, the only issue is whether it was staged or not. I argue that it also was undoubtedly a staged crime scene.

How hard is it to throw a pair of sunglasses into the bushes as you take a body downhill to hide it? And then of course there are those who also suggest that they fell accidentally as she was toted down the path and downhill.

The problem with that is that the sunglasses were found some distance further away from grove 18 and Ridge Road, suggesting that Chandra had turned around and was returning, albeit in a circuitous crosscountry route around the peak of the hill and toward Grant Road and then back around to Ridge Road again. Lots of time to kill, heh?

But tossing those sunglasses in the opposite direction from where she was brought in would be what someone would do to stage the crime scene. They bring Chandra in from pulling off next to grove 18 picnic table, a small spot you can back into to unload a horse if you want to, and walk a few yards down the path into a deep forest and then drop downhill a couple of hundred feet to a spot well above a cliff below. The remains were placed in a little washout downhill below a tree, protected on the flanks by 10 to 12 foot deep ravines.

So in staging a scene, the murderer comes back up and continues on down the path away from where he came from for several more yards and tosses the sunglasses. This is a diversion one should not be surprised to find in a staged scene.

As to bloodhounds/cadaver dogs, Chief Ramsey said there aren't enough cadaver dogs in the country to search Rock Creek Park, so he didn't. That's just a typical example of how this went. They turned away all volunteers, including several East coast and even Maryland local trained volunteer units and told them don't call us, we'll (never) call you.

Just heartwarming, I have to say. Google it.

So that leads us to the neverending complaining about the resources the DC police used for this investigation. Hello, you moaners and groaners were moaning and groaning then as well, quite vocally, and the DC police did not devote any extraordinarily appreciable resources to this case. I know because I document each action they took, and it wasn't much.

That includes the so called "focus" that the police had on Condit, as posters like to complain about. I would say three interviews in a total of three months, for less than three hours, and a search of his apartment with his permission two and a half months after Chandra disappeared is not extraordinary at all. In fact, the DC police did everything they could to perform the necessary PR for the news media to "clear" Condit and move on.

It was then handed to the FBI in August, and essentially whitewashed, and that's where it sits to this day.

rd

The NYPD would never have allowed this to fester. They're fairly thorough and quick and would have quashed rumors, unfounded or not, to keep the community calm and comfortable that things get handled.

I wonder if the DC police took the time to look for DNA in the leggings (from sweat). Did they fingerprint the glasses and other items found scattered at the scene, and did they check tapes of other establishments along a theoretical route Levy might have taken up Connecticut Avenue. There would be all kinds of cameras with commercial buildings and apartments where her image might have been captured. They didn't have to rely just on the apartment buildings security tapes.

Has anyone considered whether there was any connection between Condit & Guandique???

WHO CARES!!!!!!!!! (besides the family)

lots of people. There's a huge interest in this case, right up there with Laci Peterson until the conviction as far as missing women cases go.

Why does it bother you for people to be looking into this?

rd

"Daniel Kevin Hand" Let's be clear on this issue I never did engage you in the first place! You just entered into my comments directed toward "rd" and chose to answer some of my questions to him. You decided not to address the OJ Simpson question and that's ok except it's kind of my barometer or gauge as to whom I'm talking. I left a five year relationship with a women who did not believe that OJ was guilty and refuse to waste my time with others of the same opinion. What I state here are my opinions not facts. But I do still believe that I read semen was found in JonBenet's underware (not blood as you state). The problem with this case, Chandra Levy, is that it most likely will never be solved. I think that someone with the same DNA will eventually be arrested in the Ramsey case. And again it's my opinion that Condit did not kill Chandra. But what the hell do I know I'm just a retired country boy kicking back in Florida.

Excellent series. I have always prayed for a resolution in this case and maybe this will stir something up. I also appreciate the thoughtful commentary by Misters. RD and KH. I hope someone will expose Dominick Dunne and his preposterous theory that he printed in Vanity Fair. How this deceitful man keeps his job is beyond me. Perhaps he is senile, but he is not a careful reporter. I say that with the full belief that Gary Condit knows more than he has told, but Dunne is just as shady.

***

"Daniel Kevin Hand" Let's be clear on this issue I never did engage you in the first place! You just entered into my comments directed toward "rd" and chose to answer some of my questions to him. You decided not to address the OJ Simpson question and that's ok except it's kind of my barometer or gauge as to whom I'm talking. I left a five year relationship with a women who did not believe that OJ was guilty and refuse to waste my time with others of the same opinion. What I state here are my opinions not facts. But I do still believe that I read semen was found in JonBenet's underware (not blood as you state). The problem with this case, Chandra Levy, is that it most likely will never be solved. I think that someone with the same DNA will eventually be arrested in the Ramsey case. And again it's my opinion that Condit did not kill Chandra. But what the hell do I know I'm just a retired country boy kicking back in Florida.

Posted by: dlg358 | July 20, 2008 8:52 PM

***

There is a saying that we are each entitled to our own opinion-- but not to our own set of facts! We all are speculating as to who might or might not have killed whom. It is not an opinion in the sense of a subjective evaluation of a fact-- like whether or not one likes Popeye's better than KFC. Whatever we here may speculate as to the killers and motives cannot and will not change the facts of who actually did kill Chandra Levy and JonBenet Ramsey, respectively.

It helps, however, to speculate using the available facts to deduce the unavailable ones, rather than to speculate based upon rank misinformation-- like the claim that semen was discovered on JonBenet's clothing. It was blood, not semen; and, if you did read somewhere that it was semen, not blood, you might consider not reading there again.

You also appeared to be specifically writing to me when you wrote: "You never did say if O.J. was guilty?"-- which is obviously a statement, oddly punctuated as a question-- as if you had addressed that question to me earlier and I had refused to answer it. If nothing else, I do believe that my comments here have been excrutiatingly thorough in addressing virtually every salient issue posed throughout the past several days on this forum-- for which I heartily apologize to any of those readers here who are better acclimated to writing of the "USA Today" variety!

As for your statement "that someone with the same DNA will eventually be arrested in the Ramsey case," I have to ask: The same DNA as which...? If you mean that they would arrest the person whose DNA was allegedly found on JonBenet Ramsey's underwear, if they ever identified him, I am sure that they would, as well they probably should, based on the circumstantial evidence (which is the type of evidence that DNA is, by the way). As I explained at length in my previous post, however, tying that person to JonBenet's underwear and proving that he was also the one who killed her and left her body in the Ramsey home are two quite separate issues-- even though the implication of the one would doubtless prejudice both the authorities and a criminal jury, and quite likely lead to a convenient conviction for murder, as well.

If and when that day comes in the Ramsey case, we shall presumably see whether his handwriting matches the multiple drafts of the alleged ransom note-- and whether he had the requisite knowledge of the Ramseys even to have drafted its contents in the first place. If so, maybe he will be able finally to explain for us why he would leave both ransom notes and the dead body of the supposed kidnap victim inside of the family home; and, why he failed to bring a ransom note with him, instead hanging around the Ramsey house collecting a pad and pen, and drafting multiple versions of a uniquely verbose ransom note that evinced intimate knowledge of the Ramsey family and its history, as if he had not the faintest concern with being caught inside of the home along with a little girl that was presumably already lying around dead somewhere within it, nor of being eventually tied to the crime by the surfeit of evidence that he was leaving behind for the authorities to go to town with, as it were.

I only hope that I have inferred too much, as you seem perhaps to be implying that you actually ended your five-year relationship with a woman simply because she believed O.J. Simpson to be not guilty (innocent?), by which I assume that you are referring to the crimes of a double homicide on June 12, 1994, as discussed earlier!?! If I have inferred properly, I, for once, shall likely fall speechless....

D.K.H.

People keep claiming the minister recanted his story. Please provide a link to a verifiable source for that information, as I'd love to learn about it if true. Thanks.

It's true that the FBI released a statement that OC Thomas had "backed off" his story, according to the Washington Post among others:

Lengel, Allan and Petula Dvorak. "Minister recants story about Condit, daughter" Washington Post 21 July 2001.

I discuss it thoroughly, including conditions he was under when he backed off his story, in chapter Exposed in Murder on a Horse Trail.

A complete bibliography of links is at the end of the chapter. You can google it and read it.

rd

OK, so Ralph, how do you feel knowing my Monday's story that DNA evidence proved Condit had sex with Chandra? Sort of makes the minister story a non-issue in terms of Condit, but makes the Levys look less than pure for putting the minister up to fabricating a story to "prove" the Levys were right about Chandra and Condit.

I'll just quote from one of my earlier posts above:

Any answer to Chandra's murder must include answers from OC, because Chandra disappeared when her mother pressed Chandra for answers to OC's story about his daughter.

rd

Seems to me a staged crime scene is meant to be discovered.

To announce to all who would want to find such a scene (perhaps not knowing that what they would find would be "staged"), you'd think that there would be solid clues to send one there.

I think that hoping someone would try to forensically discover where Chandra was headed that day by also staging a computer search, to bolster the staged crime scene, leaves too much to chance that the staged scene will be discovered.

Sadly, as much as everyone who follows this case wants closure, it doesn't seem that will happen, due to the RANDOMNESS of this apparent crime (let's assume Chandra didn't somehow trip and run headlong into a tree and accidentally kill herself, like RD claims he almost did in researching his Horse With No Name book).

The freakin' FBI was all over Condit on this thing, and I have to believe that if they had anything at all on him, he'd at least be a person of interest if not an outright suspect, and he's neither.

To save his marriage or his career, the last thing he needed was to be associated with a dead or missing girl -- as we can see what it did to him -- so it is highly improbable that he arranged for her to disappear.

If it WAS staged, then the only plausible explanation, I think, would be that she got hired as some supersecret FBI or CIA agent that required that she become an entirely new person as an adult, thus she had to "disapper" in her to-then known form. That's about as out there as I think any of this possibly could be.

Those are good points that need addressed.

First and foremost, it may seem to you that staging is for someone to discover the crime scene, but that isn't the intent. The intent is to hide the body, and if and when it is discovered, that it look like a sexual assault and robbery, and hence [a tribute to Patsy, DKH] not a dumped body, which anyone who takes the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge will immediately recognize as such.

Also, the activity on the computer is not part of a staged crime scene, or placed there to point investigators to the crime scene. Chandra clearly had been told she would be going to Rock Creek Park with someone she knew, a boyfriend who she told her parents had rules of secrecy that forbid her to carry id.

I'm not sure how a parent responds to something like that, but that's what she told them.

Condit had an afternoon to kill between a last minute requested meeting with Cheney at 12:30pm and a vote at 6:30pm. He was out of the meeting at 12:50pm, Chandra logged off at 1pm, and left with a walkman radio and key wearing her boyfriend's 14k gold bracelet.

I won't go into investigators being all over Condit too much. The nation saw his answers to Connie Chung, and Ramsey said that's what they experienced questioning him, a lot of talk and no substance. He lawyered up multiple times, refused to take their lie detector test, took the Fifth for the grand jury, and basically said the same thing he is still saying to the Washington Post, everyone else but him is making everything up.

So they can be over him all they want, but that's all they will ever get from him.

rd

Pierce-Klingle Mansion

Pierce-Klingle Mansion is a mansion located in District of Columbia County, in the city of Washington. This mansion was listed as a historic place according to the laws of the state of District Of Columbia on the Tenth day of October 1973.

Some tips when visiting mansions:

1) These mansions are often private places that belong to private citizens. Do not disturb the occupants or guests of these historic residences.

2) Be sure you have permission to go into these facilities. Trespassing is a crime.

3) Do not try to go through closed or locked doors, gates, or windows.

4) Do not disturb anything, and do not move things about. Leave everything as you found it, and take only photos.

Street Address: 3545 Williamsburg Lane, NW, Washington, DC

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Pierce-Klingle%20Mansion
______________________________________

Cited above is some information I researched while on google's map searching for Klingle Mansion. Information provided in tip #2 is interesting. I believe that someone Chandra trusted and confided in (G. Condit) set up Klingle Mansion as a meeting place. I do not believe that Chandra, someone from out of town, don't know very much about the city, would go into Rock Creek Park alone without someone going there with her.

I also believe that her body was not meant to be found because the of evidence. And thus leads me to believe that she may have been pregnant and/or she knew something on someone, or she knew something that she was not suppose to know.

I wonder if the police spoke with any of the other interns or workers, and if she hung out with any of them after work, communicated with any of them other then work related conversation, etc. (because I was thinking if she communicated with the guy from the gym, maybe she also communicated with other interns or employees)

Also does anyone know if Chandra went to Israel before or after she arrived to Washington, DC for her internship?

Were investigators able to pick up any useful DNA evidence from the place where Chandra's remains were found? It seems like DNA research has come so far in recent years that police should have been able to extract at least some clues from the scene. Granted, the crime scene was far from ideal, but investigators still found Chandra's knotted stretch pants and a sneaker. Wouldn't these items carry trace amounts of DNA, or would that evidence be too unreliable after sitting outside for a year?

This series is so compelling. It angers me to hear what a botched job this seemed to be, from a police investigation standpoint. Has anyone in the DC police department (etc) been held accountable?

the chief of police did such a good job that he got promoted to chief of police in Phila, this country's 4th largest police force.

hilarious, except for the people of Phila.

I did not pay much attention when this originally happened, but now I wonder why I hadn't.
I was born in the old Providence Hospital on North Capital Street in Washington, DC. My mother and father both grew up and went to high school in the District.
Shortly after I was born the family moved to Takoma Park, close enough that we could walk to the Takoma movie Theater from home and often did to watch Tarzan and other movies.
Before I became a teenage we moved to within a block of the District line in an order section of Takoma Park.
My father had a business located in Silver Spring with most of his customers on the other side of Rock Creek Park. My older brother and I worked in the business as teenagers.
We rode horses from a stable north of East-West Highway, the access to which was just west of 16th Street. Often we rode into Rock Creek Park. After the area was converted into apartments, we rode from stables in Howard County. But occasionally we rode out the the stables in Rock Creek Park just south of Military Road.
So we were familiar with the horse trails from the view point of riders.
It has been decades since that time but reading the description of what is known brings back memories and brings up question on what really happened.
I am also reading "Murder on a Horse Trail" by Ralph Daughtery. He questions the man walking the dog. From what I remember of the area it is not implausible.
Broad Branch Road is the Western Edge of the Park. As it travels Southeastward, it goes downhill. Houses of well-to-do people are on the Western side of the Road and many have dogs.
But I question what Chandra was doing in that part of the Park. Its not that easy to get to it from Metro. Buses would not be much better. There is plenty of places to walk privately closer to her apartment and Adams Morgan.
The scenario with a Salvadoran illegal immigrant doesn't work either. We are to believe he attacked her and killed her and then on two other occasions after that attacked two other women with a knife and they both escaped. Gimme a break.
I suspect the killer left something behind that may eventually identify him.
Thanks for all that you have done so far and please keep up your investigating.

Hi Ralph

I've been trying to access your online writings about Chandra at justiceforChandra.com, but all I get is a message saying I am banned from the forums? Could you post a link to another site with your book or something? Thanks.

DKH, Evidence in JonBenet Ramsey case

JonBenet Ramsey's body was found in the basement of her parent's Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. She had been sexually assaulted, her skull was fractured and she died of asphyxiation. Traces of blood and semen were found at the murder site and on the child's body and clothing, and footprints were analyzed in the basement and outside the home. In addition, a ransom note was found, giving investigators a handwriting sample.

I don't want to beat a dead horse but the above was taken today from Google and the Rocky Mountain News 7/9/08

***

"Pierce-Klingle Mansion is a mansion located in District of Columbia County, in the city of Washington. This mansion was listed as a historic place according to the laws of the state of District Of Columbia on the Tenth day of October 1973."

***

The very day that led a then-House Minority Leader to become the 38th President of the United States, in lieu of a convicted felon! I abjure any connection of this fact to the former Congressman from the 18th District of California....

From Chapter 7:
--------------
In his recent Post interview, Condit denied that he told Chandra he wanted to start a new life with her.

"I don't believe the aunt knows anything about me," he said. "I had no interest in starting a family and leaving my wife. Those conversations never occurred. It's just made up."
---------------

This needs more explanation. Is Condit claiming that the aunt is lying about her conversations with Chandra, or is he claiming that Chandra was lying about her own conversations with him?

The "five-year plan" conversation the aunt describes is almost identical to the one that Robert Kurkjian described in Chapter 2. We can assume that the aunt and Kurkjian don't know each other, so each conversation would seem to independently confirm the other. (And Susan Levy also told the police about a phone call in which Chandra wouldn't name her boyfriend and only cryptically said "You'll understand in five years.")

So what is Condit claiming? Are we really supposed to believe that Chandra invented this five-year plan all by herself and never discussed it with him, even while she was eagerly describing it to her aunt and to casual friends?

It's not entirely impossible that Chandra Levy was a compulsive liar living a fantasy life of imaginary future plans, but that picture certainly doesn't mesh with anything else in her known biography. If Condit is really going to base his defense on the Chandra-was-a-nutcase approach, the Post should call him on it and make him say so explicitly.

***

DKH, Evidence in JonBenet Ramsey case

JonBenet Ramsey's body was found in the basement of her parent's Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. She had been sexually assaulted, her skull was fractured and she died of asphyxiation. Traces of blood and semen were found at the murder site and on the child's body and clothing, and footprints were analyzed in the basement and outside the home. In addition, a ransom note was found, giving investigators a handwriting sample.

I don't want to beat a dead horse but the above was taken today from Google and the Rocky Mountain News 7/9/08

Posted by: dlg358 | July 21, 2008 1:12 PM

***

FROM THE "NANCY GRACE" (CNN HEADLINE NEWS) TRANSCRIPT THAT SAME DAY:

GRACE: Straight out to the lines. Tonight a bombshell. Due to a highly sensitive new DNA technique called touch DNA, we now learn of more DNA discovered on the leggings beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey wore the night she went to bed, the night that she was killed. That DNA, a male DNA, matches DNA found in her underwear.

Straight back out to Angela Williamson, the lead scientist who worked with Bode Technology on the Ramsey case. Was the DNA sperm?

WILLIAMSON: The DNA profile we obtained was not from spermatozoa.

GRACE: That only leaves hair, skin, nails. Do we know what substance it was?

WILLIAMSON: The area that we sampled from, there was no visible staining. We believe it to be touch DNA, most likely skin cells from maybe someone`s hand.

GRACE: Skin cells, OK. Angela, Ms. Williamson, the DNA found inside the 6-year-old`s underwear, the inside crotch of her underwear, mingled with her blood -- was that DNA sperm?

WILLIAMSON: We actually did not do that testing. It is my belief that it was not from sperm, though. However, that testing was done by the Denver PD.

GRACE: Thank you. Back to Nia Bender with 710 KNUS. The DNA found in JonBenet`s underwear, was it sperm? Do we know what it was?

BENDER: We do not know what was in the underwear. They have never really clarified whether there was sperm in the underwear or not.

GRACE: OK, let`s ask Ollie Gray. Ollie, you and John San Agustin say that you have had inside information, that you`ve been able to review the files. Was the DNA in her underwear sperm?

GRAY: As far as I know, it was not sperm.

GRACE: What was it?

GRAY: It was a liquid, and it could have been either from the mouth, or it could have been from an insertion into the vagina area of part of the paintbrush that caused the fluid. As you remember, it was also mixed with blood.

[http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0807/09/ng.01.html]

***

N.B. The two private investigators mentioned toward the end, one of whom is quoted, have been working for the Ramseys under their attorney, Lin Wood, for the past decade-- pro bono, no less!

May I suggest a good glue factory...?

D.K.H.

***

Were investigators able to pick up any useful DNA evidence from the place where Chandra's remains were found? It seems like DNA research has come so far in recent years that police should have been able to extract at least some clues from the scene. Granted, the crime scene was far from ideal, but investigators still found Chandra's knotted stretch pants and a sneaker. Wouldn't these items carry trace amounts of DNA, or would that evidence be too unreliable after sitting outside for a year?

Posted by: jennifer | July 21, 2008 9:02 AM

***

Jennifer, it would seem to me that the same DNA-touch technology recently used in the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation to absolve her parents (albeit prematurely and illogically, as explained at length above!) would be in order with the clothing remnants discovered on May 22, 2002, in Rock Creek Park-- especially the knotted pair of stretch pants that were very likely used to strangle her to death (as suggested by her broken hyoid bone)!

D.K.H.

As I see it, WAPO has clearly established that, at the time of Chandra's disappearance, the following facts were in play: 1) Mrs. Condit was in town; 2) Chandra was about to leave DC; 3) Chandra could not visit Condit at his apartment because his wife was there, and he never came to her apartment, and so would not, presumably, visit her there; 4) Chandra and Condit did not go to restaurants together, nor were they ever out in public together with the exception of one dinner at tryst - they saw each other three to four times a week, but only in private; 5) Chandra believed that her relationship with Condit was still strong and that they would, presumably, see each other before she left; 6) they had a two minute phone call two days before she left - a call not really long enough to say goodbye, chat about interviews, or discuss travel plans, but, rather, just long enough to say I can see you at such and such place at such and such time; 7) Chandra was planning on leaving DC in the immediate future, before Mrs. Condit was scheduled to leave. Given these facts, I think it is safe to draw a reasonable conclusion - that Chandra planned to meet Condit somewhere, other than his or her apartment, before she left. This private yet public place could have been a hotel, a friend's apartment, or, just as likely, the park. (one misgiving here - when I am meeting someone at a big location, such as a trail, etc. I always have my cell phone - how the heck else are you going to find them? but, as a possible fix for this, I have seen it noted that Condit did not have a pager or a cell, rather some weird number Chandra and his other ladies had to call to leave messages, and he would call back). Condit has no alibi for the time we believe Chandra was walking in the park. Who knows, maybe he went there, and she never showed up because someone random person killed her - I think both theories have merit, and may be intertwined. If that were the case, he could legitimately have passed that very circumscibed lie detector he gave himself. Regardless, however, even if he simply was to meet her there and never did because she failed to show up, his failure to disclose that would have been pretty dang horrible.

also strangling with leggings - no fingerprints...

RD - quick question - in your book, you state that Chandra called the guy she knew from the B.O.P. and told him she was planning to leave because there was nothing for her in DC after she had the "pizza party," but before she called her aunt and said there was big news. So, the final phone call was the big news one. Is that correct?

DKH Let's see who do we believe Nancy Grace or Rocky Mountain News. That's really a tough call and only one step above Jerry Springer. As to the private investigators you do know how to tell if they are lying...their lips are moving! If in fact it was semen don't you think that they would not want to release that to the public? And,since your theory is based on "no semen" of course you are going to offer this testimony. My daddy told me never to argue with a lawyer that has three names but I don't listen well. Hold on to the glue I'll get back to you.

You don't have to be a genius to see that The Post reporters are leading up to the fact that this Ingmar Guandique kid did the murder.

That chapter is the most compelling, suffice for the omission that he applied for and was granted TPS status in the US shortly before all this went down. He's now in federal prison in KY, but after the (botched) poly he took, has since lawyered up and won't talk.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102405.html

Since forensics at the scene apparently gave them diddly, my .02 is that the Levy's, or The Post on their behalf, should contact psychic Lisa Williams and have Chandra Levy tell us what really went down in those woods.

***

DKH Let's see who do we believe Nancy Grace or Rocky Mountain News. That's really a tough call and only one step above Jerry Springer. As to the private investigators you do know how to tell if they are lying...their lips are moving! If in fact it was semen don't you think that they would not want to release that to the public? And,since your theory is based on "no semen" of course you are going to offer this testimony. My daddy told me never to argue with a lawyer that has three names but I don't listen well. Hold on to the glue I'll get back to you.

Posted by: dlg358 | July 21, 2008 4:03 PM

***

If the information is being held secret from the public, DLG358, how did your friends at the "Rocky Mountain News" come to know it? If they uncovered it some years ago, why is it still unknown to the people most familiar with the case, such as the defense team for the Ramseys, which would love nothing more than to prove that there was semen left on JonBenet Ramsey and/or her clothing that night, and that that semen came from someone other than her father, John Ramsey?

Nancy Grace was not making any claim about semen stains; she was asking the question. The woman who did the touch-DNA test said that she did not believe that it was sperm; the local news anchor said that she did not believe that it was sperm; the private investigator for the Ramseys, who is privy to inside information, said that he did not believe that it was sperm. Other than the "Rocky Mountain News" editor who wrote that summary, which was appended after the actual news story about the new DNA findings, which did not mention semen at all, what bona fide news organizations are reporting that semen was found-- and why are not all other bona fide news organization picking up on that "fact" and following suit in their coverage?

Regardless, my theory of the Ramsey case is not at all dependent upon whether there was or was not semen present-- as anyone with a three-digit IQ and a grade-school education should have been able to grasp from my earlier posts here-- since what I am saying is that the sexual abuse that JonBenet quite evidently had suffered, for an indeterminate length of time, is in no way logically determinative of who killed her, contrary to the assumption of the current Boulder D.A.-- who was the same incompetent woman who had fantasist John Mark Karr shipped to Colorado and charged in the JonBenet Ramsey case, at a cost to the taxpayers of $13,000-$30,000, without waiting for a DNA test, which-- surprise! surprise!-- cleared him in the case. (The facts that there was no evidence beyond his fantastic confession that he had ever been in Boulder, Colorado, and that his family knew him to be at home in Alabama on Christmas Day 1996 were not sufficient for D.A. Mary Lacy to wait at least until a DNA analysis could be done before having Mr. Karr charged and extradited.)

The man who advised you not to argue with a lawyer was doing you a favor-- although the length of the lawyer's name is quite beside the point. (You probably have a middle name, too, DLH358, even if it is only Bob, or the like.) Were I still practicing law, I would strongly advise "daddy" to insist upon a DNA test of his own!

D.K.H., EXQ.

***

You don't have to be a genius to see that The Post reporters are leading up to the fact that this Ingmar Guandique kid did the murder.

That chapter is the most compelling, suffice for the omission that he applied for and was granted TPS status in the US shortly before all this went down. He's now in federal prison in KY, but after the (botched) poly he took, has since lawyered up and won't talk.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102405.html

Since forensics at the scene apparently gave them diddly, my .02 is that the Levy's, or The Post on their behalf, should contact psychic Lisa Williams and have Chandra Levy tell us what really went down in those woods.

Posted by: Gimme a Break | July 21, 2008 5:37 PM

***

[FROM THE CITED "WASHINGTON POST" ARTICLE:]

Ronald Sullivan Jr., the director of the Public Defender Service, which represents Guandique, said there is not "a single shred of evidence" linking Guandique to the Levy case.

"Mr. Ingmar Guandique has been ruled out twice as a suspect in the Chandra Levy case," Sullivan said in a statement, adding that there "seems to be a positive relationship between the police department's interest in Mr. Guandique and lulls in their own investigation."

As for the polygraph, Sullivan said, "it is hard to believe that investigators were not aware of the relationship between Spanish-speaking interpreters, bilingual polygraph technicians and the possible effects upon lie-detector tests, given the fact that it was the United States attorney's office who administered the test to Mr. Guandique."

He compared the lie-detector test given to Guandique with the one given to Condit, noting that Guandique's "was not privately administered." Condit refused to submit to a polygraph given by law enforcement officials and instead took a private test administered by a former FBI agent hired by his attorney.

D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey has repeatedly said he is satisfied with the way the FBI polygraph of Guandique was conducted, noting that a certified interpreter was used. However, according to law enforcement sources, investigators fear that the results may have been skewed because the questions were filtered through the interpreter.

***

The term "botched" strongly implies that the Guandique polygraph results were invalid and unreliable. Polygraph tests are by no means infallible, but they are everyday tools for investigators and others. There is no real evidence here that this particular polygraph test was "botched" by the person chosen to administer it, thus causing the results to be inherently invalid and unreliable, merely because it was not done as some polygraph experts would prefer in an otherwise-perfect world.

Did the police look at taxi records?

I see the Post series going for Guandique, and it will take a smoking gun to convince me; numerous problems with that theory have been brought up here that will have to be addressed, but the primary one is that it seems so unlikely that either of them would be likely to be wandering in the area of the No Horses loop.

In my mind the dumping body by car scenario is much more likely, but here is another one:

This weekend I walked (with my dog) from the visitor/nature center to the scene. It took less than fifteen minutes and was very easy going, unlike RD's big hike challenge, or even walking up hill from Pierce Mill.

The nature center is pretty prominent, a perfect place for her to meet someone. She could have met the murderer, they went for a walk, and she met her fate.

Is there any evidence which would contradict this theory?

DKH O.K., Let's put the JonBenet case to bed. It does appear that you are right (so was my dad) and that there was no semen. If you remember I only said that I remembered reading that there was semen. If you google it you can find as many stories that include as exclude the semen factor. Because you are right it does not allow you to cast such aspersions on me and my dear old dad. I have to admit that it was very funny but when I stopped laughing it really hit me. You have to use the 3 initials D.K.H. because without the K you would just be another DH!

Sara, unfortunately I have blocked non-North American internet traffic from the site due to it being nearly 100% attacks. If you are in the US, please email me at admin @ justiceforchandra.com and I will check on it.

You may be able to google Murder on a Horse Trail Chapter 1 and read it by clicking on Cached, then onward through Chapter 25, but I don't know if that will work.

I apologize to our troops and families and US personnel overseas for this, but to open it back up would be like taking down a mosquito net in a tropical swamp.

My thanks to this blog for allowing us to communicate.

rd

hi BlackGumTree, I agree 100% with your thoughts, except I need to clarify about questioning about the man walking the dog.

No doubt about walking along Broad Branch Road, as long as you stay on the creek side of the road and your dog is extremely well trained. Any deviation from a narrow berm puts you either in the path of a speeding car on down a ten foot bank into a rocky creek, no pun intended.

The question is about how that whole finding a turtle hundreds of feet up the side of a hill, with a huge gully of a creekbed to cross, from walking on the road was all about. Stand there and take a look across the creek and straight up and you'll see what I mean.

Definitely some details left out of that story, like who this turtle hunter was.

rd

jmr wrote: "RD - quick question - in your book, you state that Chandra called the guy she knew from the B.O.P. and told him she was planning to leave because there was nothing for her in DC after she had the "pizza party," but before she called her aunt and said there was big news. So, the final phone call was the big news one. Is that correct?"

wow, this will take some clarification. I'll clarify in chronological order. Chandra disappered on Tuesday, this is the previous weekend.

Friday night pizza get together with Kurkjan, a guy she met at her sports club who was also a USC alum. Wanted to talk about her boyfriend. [This is newly reported info out of this WashPo investigation].

Saturday, called her friend and workmate Sven Jones and left a message asking to meet for lunch to talk. Sen described as plaintive, very unusual. Reported in series that Condit told police in third interview (three months later) that he broke off with Chandra that day. His wife was flying in.

Saturday evening, emailed her landlord in California that she was moving out, nothing to stay for.

Sunday, landlord was calling and she wasn't answering. Eventually they emailed/talked and she now wasn't sure about the moveout, would know something to tell him on Wednesday.

Sunday, according to reports including this series, left a message with her aunt whom she confided in that she had big news.

Details in chapter Big News. Hope that helps.

rd

Ralph, just a couple of thoughts on turtles and trails:

The Eastern Box Turtle is found in Rock Creek Park, and it is considered to be a "land" turtle, i.e. it's habitat is not near or in water. I googled them and found quite a bit about how they live, and it seems that a leaf covered forest floor with lots of gullies would provide an excellent natural home. My take is that if someone was looking for these turtles, the area below the No Horses trail would be appropriate.

There is an extensive network of old trails in the park that go beyond what is on the "regular" trail map. Many are clearly marked on the 1984 topo of the area, but more are not. Not only is there the trail coming up to the No Horse loop from Broad Branch, there is also a trail heading northwest toward Grant Rd, starting off to the right about two thirds of the way down the No Horse loop as you walk in from the north by picnic area 16.

My point here is simply that there is a substantial network of secondary trails in the park and that they appear to get regular use; so I don't find it strange that someone would be wandering around on the old trail at the side of the hill.

I am with you on wondering why the turtle hunter was never identified. As you have pointed out, its hard to access the area from below except on foot - there is no place to park a car. It may have been someone who lived in the neighborhood on the other side of Broad Branch, perhaps with diplomatic immunity that managed to keep themselves out of the spotlight.

Murphie, that 15 minute easy walk from the nature center to the area where Chandra was eventually found is very intriguing. If Chandra did have 'big news' to tell her aunt, that being her last call possibly, then she is plaintive in her msg to Sven, Condit says in the third police interview he broke it off with her, it seems more likely she met with Condit for one last try to fix the relationship and it back fired. Condit might have been shaken up, or needed to clean up and looked for ways to cover the time he took to deal with his emotions, clothing, etc., and with his wife. One thing I have often wondered about is why his wife showed up for an event this week? She seems to have had little interest in events that may have had far greater relevance to her husbands standing in the GOP and the House. Is there any time line for her comings and goings?

murphie wrote: "The nature center is pretty prominent, a perfect place for her to meet someone. She could have met the murderer, they went for a walk, and she met her fate.

Is there any evidence which would contradict this theory?"

There are many problems with that, murphie. First and foremost would be walking from DuPont Circle to the Nature Center on Ridge Road, 15 minutes beyond grove 18 even, to meet someone who was driving. How is it conceivable that he didn't pick her up and drive there? Well, let's wait and get an answer from someone who completes the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge.

Secondly is the 15 minute walk back to grove 18. Along with another 15 minute walk to return to the Nature Center, that's a lot of hoofing it down the road to be seen when no one was seen. Of course the Nature Center was closed, bringing up the question why it was a perfect place to meet.

Thirdly, Chandra's broken sunglasses were found further away from Ridge Road than she was found. That would have her entering the No Horses path from below the stables, around crosscountry toward Grant Road and around the peak, then along above Broad Branch Raod where she is presumably ambushed to knock her sunglasses off and break them.

I should add that to the Challenge. It's what investigators believe, after all. Should be a cinch.

rd

Problem with that murphie is that he said he was walking on Broad Branch Road and his dog bounded up the hill attracted to something. If he said he was walking high up the hillside searching for turtles then that wouldn't be a question.

I agree, probably someone that lives in the neighorhood over the hill across Broad Branch Road, and that's a ritzy area. Lots of strings being pulled for someone. All I know is that Chandra was found when the grand jury started trying to question Condit and his staff under oath, and bingo, someone without a name is walking his dog down Broad Branch and the dog bounds across a huge creek gully and 300 feet up a nearly vertical hill, traverses down into and back up a twelve foot ravine, and starts pawing at something that hadn't attracted anyone else's dog in a year.

yeah, I believe that.

rd

D.K.H., EXQ.

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 21, 2008 5:41 PM
________

Don't you mean "Esq."?

hi Siren, Carolyn was escorted around, had no car as Condit secretly did, and was with other wives Tuesday afternoon when Chandra disappeared helping do place settings for the luncheon the next day, so she has an alibi, unlike Condit...

or Guandique for that matter since the WashPo investigation reported he was not at work that day. I find that interesting since his other two attacks two and six weeks later were in the evening. Sort of like the "bruised and cut" face his landlady remembers but his girlfriend doesn't, and you can betcha doesn't show up in his May 7 mug shot. Not that anyone has made it available.

rd

***

DKH O.K., Let's put the JonBenet case to bed. It does appear that you are right (so was my dad) and that there was no semen. If you remember I only said that I remembered reading that there was semen. If you google it you can find as many stories that include as exclude the semen factor. Because you are right it does not allow you to cast such aspersions on me and my dear old dad. I have to admit that it was very funny but when I stopped laughing it really hit me. You have to use the 3 initials D.K.H. because without the K you would just be another DH!

Posted by: dlg358 | July 21, 2008 8:23 PM

***

I am, as always and forever, against the DH! I use three initials because my poor parents chose to give me three names. Besides, when I just say that I am Dan Hand, people tend to giggle and say, "Hey, that almost rhymes!" I am sure that your dear father is a gentleman and a scholar, as well as a sage. "Veritas supra omnia!"

D.K.H., EXQ. [N.L. fan, generally; Cubs fan, specifically]

***

D.K.H., EXQ.

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 21, 2008 5:41 PM
________

Don't you mean "Esq."?

Posted by: | July 21, 2008 9:54 PM

***

"EXQ." is a personal affectation of mine; a tongue-in-cheek way of stating that I am a 'reformed' lawyer. "Mea culpa! Mea culpa!! Mea maxima culpa!!!"

D.K.H. ['reformed' altar boy]

Esq. sine qua non EXQ.

inter alia, and maps and such as.

Drivel.

If I'm not wrong, but I think that I also remember statements about Condit being into wild and kinky sex. (Sadism and Masochism)

In my opinion, I do not believe that Guandique had anything to do with Chandra Levy's murder.

***

Murphie, that 15 minute easy walk from the nature center to the area where Chandra was eventually found is very intriguing. If Chandra did have 'big news' to tell her aunt, that being her last call possibly, then she is plaintive in her msg to Sven, Condit says in the third police interview he broke it off with her, it seems more likely she met with Condit for one last try to fix the relationship and it back fired. Condit might have been shaken up, or needed to clean up and looked for ways to cover the time he took to deal with his emotions, clothing, etc., and with his wife. One thing I have often wondered about is why his wife showed up for an event this week? She seems to have had little interest in events that may have had far greater relevance to her husbands standing in the GOP and the House. Is there any time line for her comings and goings?

Posted by: Siren | July 21, 2008 9:25 PM

***

Representative Condit was (and presumably still is now, as a private citizen) a Democrat, albeit of the blue-dog variety, not a member in standing, good or otherwise, of the G.O.P. F.W.I.W.

D.K.H. [registered independent]

***

Esq. sine qua non EXQ.

inter alia, and maps and such as.

Drivel.

Posted by: | July 21, 2008 10:59 PM

***

How Dickensian, Mr. Drivel!

D.K.H.

If I'm not wrong, but I think that I also remember statements about Condit being into wild and kinky sex. (Sadism and Masochism)

In my opinion, I do not believe that Guandique had anything to do with Chandra Levy's murder.

Posted by: bekyndhearted | July 21, 2008 11:09 PM
____________________________________

And my reason for bringing my comment cited above is because if he was into that type of sexual behavior, and the bone in her neck was broken as stated in prior comments posted...

And my question still remains..
1. Did the police every fingerprint Chandra's apartment
2. Why would Chandra visit klingle Mansion if you have to be sure you have permission to go into the facility as stated below as a tip before making your visit to Klingle Mansion.
______________________________________
Pierce-Klingle Mansion

Pierce-Klingle Mansion is a mansion located in District of Columbia County, in the city of Washington. This mansion was listed as a historic place according to the laws of the state of District Of Columbia on the Tenth day of October 1973.

Some tips when visiting mansions:

1) These mansions are often private places that belong to private citizens. Do not disturb the occupants or guests of these historic residences.

2) Be sure you have permission to go into these facilities. Trespassing is a crime.

3) Do not try to go through closed or locked doors, gates, or windows.

4) Do not disturb anything, and do not move things about. Leave everything as you found it, and take only photos.

Street Address: 3545 Williamsburg Lane, NW, Washington, DC

_____________________________________

And why wouldn't Condit cooperate with the FBI and Police if he knew he wasn't gulity of anything. If he wasn't guilty, he would cooperate with the FBI and the Police, not prolong the investigation and if he know he didn't do anything, then he would be done with as far as the authorities was concerned with the investigation.

I believe that Chandra was meeting someone in Rock Creek Park that she knew and trusted. I do not believe that she decided to take a walk in the deep wooded Rock Creek Park as her exercise for the day.

As for Guandique, why didn't he kill any of the other females, and why is it that the other two females fought with him and got away, I believe that Chandra would have fought him off also. (one of the females fought him off of her with a 5' knife to her chin, and got away.

Why did Condit? Because as always Condit has something to hide, and I believe that Chandra knew something or something on someone, or something that she wasn't suppose to know about. And/or she was pregnant and if he wanted to hide everything else and didn't care about prolonging the case, he sure wouldn't want her pregnancy to surface. And I believe that Chandra wouldn't agree to get rid of the pregnancy as he wanted.

So I think I now see the problem with the detectives on this case originally: they had deductive skills about equal to those posting on this site.

A number of you will post how you just can't believe x would do z or would bother going along route y... when you really have no information to base it on other than your own narrow viewpoints. You all need a big dose of "stranger things have happened" added to your thinking. If you make up your minds based on conjecture instead of facts, you'll leave the case as cold as the incompetent detectives did.

As Chandra's disappearance turned into a round-the-clock news story in mid-July, Mosley grew frustrated by the intense coverage of Condit.

"It was making me crazy," she recalled. "The entire focus was on this guy. I kept saying to my friends, 'They're not focusing on this guy in the woods.'"

Detectives in the Levy case would not pursue the information about Ingmar Guandique for another two months.

Mosley said she wasn't interviewed by D.C. police until the first week of September, more than three months after the incident. By then, she was unable to identify the suspect.

___________________________________

If Mosley was so frustrated as she has indicated to the reporters, why didn't she approach the police, FBI, or someone who was on the case to provide the information she felt they were overlooking. And why didn't she identify the spanish man she saw in Rock Creek Park with the authorities of the park and those designated on the Chandra Levy case.

And once again, which no one will answer...Did the police, or FBI fingerprint Chandra Levy's apartment? If they found panties in her apartment with semen in them and the semen DNA did match Condits, did the authorities fingerprint her apartment?

Another question, were panties recovered at the crime scene where Chandra Levy's bones were found?

I'd like to know where the sunglasses were exactly -- RD, you keep saying it wasn't nearby but aren't more specific than that. Where exactly? Right off Broad Branch? Near Ridge, Grant?

Also why isn't it conceivable she was on Ridge Road, not Broad Branch. So instead of going up, she went down the hill from Ridge.

It you're suggesting the sunglasses were found at the base of the hill, then that could be because the killer tossed them aside as he fled the scene. The glasses didn't have to get jarred loose in a tussle at the base of the hill, then stay put to be found a year later. They could have been tossed there at some point.

I still can't believe that Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne blew it so bad and got hoaxed. Has he ever apologized? Did he lose his job over that?

As I remember Condit had friends in motorcycle gangs. Were they checked out?

DKH said:
Representative Condit was (and presumably still is now, as a private citizen) a Democrat, albeit of the blue-dog variety, not a member in standing, good or otherwise, of the G.O.P. F.W.I.W.

D.K.H. [registered independent]

Ugh! your so right! I forget sometimes that conservative democrats are still democrats, even if just in name. I live in a great and very liberal town and so Condit's affiliation seems very GOP.

At 11:33, Chandra clicked on a washingtonpost.com "Entertainment Guide" to Rock Creek Park. At the top of the page was the administrative address of the park: 3545 Williamsburg Ln. NW - the address of the Klingle Mansion, a three-story stone farmhouse that serves as park headquarters. A minute later, she clicked on a link for a map of the park. Her last search was at 12:24 p.m.

The detectives would later theorize that Chandra may have planned to meet someone at Klingle Mansion. Was it one of her friends from the Bureau of Prisons? More intriguing: Was it Condit, who didn't live far from Rock Creek Park? The Klingle Mansion theory quickly gained currency, and police would spend days searching the site.

She liked to exercise and she loved the outdoors, and she had just canceled her gym membership.
__________________________________

Chapter 1
In reference to the above statement that she like to exercise and she loved the outdoors, and she had just canceled her gym memebership. She could have canceled her membership the next day, or she could have canceled it after she worked out in the gym that day. Why would she perfer to take a deep walk into the wooded area of Rock Creek Park. Didn't she work out in the gym all the other times, instead of walking deep into the wooded area of Rock Creek Park for her exercise.

_____________________________________
And there was another piece of potential evidence the police missed.

Chandra's apartment building had multiple security cameras, which fed a tape that was recorded over every seven days. By the time police obtained the tape, it was too late. Gone were answers to several key questions: What time did she leave? Was she alone? The front desk clerk didn't know. And the detectives didn't have a clue.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Chapter 1
Was everyone who worked at the conciege desk in Chandra's apartment building questioned? Is the lobby of this apartment building extremely busy, and how many entrances does this apartment have, and where was her apartment in location to the exit doors of her apartment, also did anyone working at the front desk see Chandra April 30th as well as May 1st? I'm thinking if it's work day Tuesday, May 1, 2001 and everyone has gone to work by the time she logged off her computer. It would seem as though the heavier traffic of residents leaving for work had passed, thus making it possibly easier to see her in the lobby, and also as she was friendly with the gentleman at the gym, was she not friendly with any of the front desk clerks at her apartment location?

Also the Pierce Mill and Old Stone House requires a fee in the choice of payment method being cash, check, money order, and travelers checks. And they stated that Chandra didn't have her purse with her as she headed out for her walk.

Information provided from the website that Chandra Levy searched on her computer
PAYMENT
TYPES Cash, Check, Money Orders, Travelers Checks

WEEKEND TOURS Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m.

METRO Van Ness/UDC

PARKING On-street

HOURS Daily 9:00am- 5:00pm
1998 Wed -Sun 9:00am- 5:00pm

Rock Creek Nature and Planetarium has events schedule during that current year. And the hours of operation are as follows
~~~~~
The Nature Center and Planetarium
5200 Glover Road, NW
Open Wednesday through Sunday, 9:00 am. - 5.00 pm.
Closed on New Years Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.

http://www.nps.gov/archive/rocr/naturecenter/index.html

May 1, 2001 was a Tuesday, which means the Rock Creek Nature Center and Planetarium was closed.

What is the link to the transcript of the on-line discussion you held yesterday (which I missed at the time).
Thanks.
I'm one avid reader enjoying this series.
Judy in Beaumont, TX

***

On July 20, one of the detectives would later note, they got a tip that a Hispanic man had exposed himself to a woman named Karen Mosley nine weeks earlier in Rock Creek Park. The case had been investigated by the Park Police.

Toward the end of May, Mosley, 29, was walking with her dog along a path in the park that began at the old Peirce Mill when she saw a young Hispanic man exposing himself. He ran off when her dog snarled at him. Mosley ran back to the mill and called police from a pay phone. A Park Police officer told her she was lucky: There was a predator in the park who had attacked a woman jogging on a nearby trail.

On July 24, when D.C. detectives contacted the Park Police for additional details about Mosley, they said, they learned for the first time about an attack in the park. Ingmar Guandique, the Salvadoran, was being held for assaulting Christy Wiegand on July 1.

Detectives later noted that police called Mosley the day they received the tip, July 20, but Mosley said no one from the D.C. police contacted her that summer.

"That didn't happen," she later recalled. "I would have remembered that."

As Chandra's disappearance turned into a round-the-clock news story in mid-July, Mosley grew frustrated by the intense coverage of Condit.

"It was making me crazy," she recalled. "The entire focus was on this guy. I kept saying to my friends, 'They're not focusing on this guy in the woods.'"

Detectives in the Levy case would not pursue the information about Ingmar Guandique for another two months.

Mosley said she wasn't interviewed by D.C. police until the first week of September, more than three months after the incident. By then, she was unable to identify the suspect.

***

This Hispanic flasher-- apparently (as one would expect) unarmed, since there is no mention of a weapon here, as there doubtless would be if one had been noted by Ms. Mosley the day of the flashing incident, or in her subsequent interviews with the authorities and the paper-- made such a deep impression on Ms. Mosley that she was convinced then and there, and ever since, apparently, that he should be the prime suspect in Chandra Levy's disappearance; yet, she later could not even identify Ingmar Guandique as the man that had flashed her in late May.

We are supposed to believe that that was merely a function of a few months' having passed, rather than the rather-more-obvious possibility that it was because the flasher was a different Hispanic man. We also are supposed to believe that the police are, at best, mistaken when they say that they had contacted Ms. Mosley earlier that summer-- because, after all, the whole point of this series is to make Mr. Condit the scapegoat, and the various police authorities involved in the Chandra Levy case the guilty parties.

There is no evidence here that the flasher was Ingmar Guandique, and Ms. Mosley's failure to identify him augurs against his having been the culprit in that incident from late-May 2001. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the Post series has put forth to date that even suggests any previous or future occasions of Senor Guandique's being a flasher. The two assaults which we know that he did commit, at knifepoint, did not involve his exposing himself at all. The only thing that ties the three occasions together, aside from their all taking place in Rock Creek Park, is that the Hispanic flasher, like the Salvadoran miscreant Ingmar Guandique, ran away like a scared jackrabbit!

Even if we were to assume, for the sake of argument, that it was Ingmar Guandique in the park exposing himself to Ms. Mosley in late-May 2001, all that we then have is a not-uncommon non-violent sexual offense by an unarmed deviant. Flashers as a phenomenon are well known; but, they are not known for violence, let alone for premeditated murder.

Despite the Post's truly desperate attempts to refurbish the rightly ruined reputation of Congressman Gary Condit, and to frame the small-time miscreant Ingmar Guandique as an infamous murderer (and presumed rapist), it cannot demonstrate that Senor Guandique had either the motive, the opportunity, or the intestinal wherewithal and fortitude to have assaulted, raped, and asphyxiated Chandra Levy by strangulation with her own jogging togs on May Day afternoon in 2001.

D.K.H.

I agree the flasher is not necessarily Ingmar G. So there could be two predators in the park. It's even possible there may be more than two predators, and for whatever reasons, their victims have not come forward. My theories...The Big News she had was that she was moving back to Calif. Maybe she cancelled her gym membership effective the first of the month (May 1)? She wanted exercise, to get outdoors on a nice day, maybe an ice cream cone too (she googled Baskins). She walked to the park, and was on a main trail when she was ambushed and forced into a more remote location (off the trail, on the hillside), tied up or tied to a tree with her knotted pants, raped, and then strangled. The pants were untied and she was moved to the spot where she would be most hidden, and covered with forest debris. Her killer could have been Igmar or the flasher or someone else. Condit looked suspicious because he was covering up...his affair(s).

eeave, the exact location wasn't made very clear, but it was on the path above her remains and further away from Ridge Road and the horse trail. The path is a little crosscountry loop from the horse trail and Ridge Road at grove 18 around the peak of the hill toward Grant Road and then back to the horse trail and Ridge Road below the stables.

No one has suggested she was on Broad Branch instead of the path at the top of the hill off Ridge Road. Only the turtle hunter said he got to the site from Broad Branch below.

The remains are out the path several yards from Ridge Road/horse trail, then straight down 240 some feet. The sunglasses were on out the patha few more yards. This was to indicate that Chandra was walking from very deep in the woods back toward Ridge Road to pick up the horse trail again and presumably start heading downhill on the trail toward the equestrian field.

I just wish you guys could walk that loop and tell me that Chandra was back i n there like the police claim to believe. That's after you walk from DuPont Circle of course.

Of course, original news articles quoted the police as saying they believed Chandra's body was dumped there, that it was far from any jogging path. But that wa sbefore they tried to pin this on Guandique instead of disturbing the halls of powers.

rd

The Levys' attorney Billy Martin hired private investigators to look at the area where Chandra's remains were found.

They did not come up with anything more conclusive than the police did.

I have an open mind in this matter and would be happy if the Post demonstrated that IG and CL could have crossed paths.

The way the Mosley incident is reported makes it sound dubious. The individual is determined to be Hispanic, but we are told nothing about why Mosley came to that conclusion. Did the person just "look" Hispanic? I think it is also significant that she was not able to identify IG as the perp, even though some time had gone by.

Again the Post does not provide real detail about where this took place. On the trails on the valley floor, or up half a mile on the Ridge Trail? The latter would be much more relevant. If not, its the third report of an incident along Beach Drive, which does nothing for me in terms of connecting with foul play up on the Ridge Trail.

Finally, I could use a little reporting on psychology and/or profiling here. Do people that expose themselves "move up" to attacking women? This would be important to know. The story implies these two behaviours are linked. Is that true?

Thanks

To Ralph Daugherty:

I agree with you that the walk from Dupont Circle theory is ridiculous. But what if Chandra had a Metro farecard with her and took the Redline from Dupont to Van Ness? She then could have walked up a few blocks to Brandywine Street and down the hill to Broad Branch. She then could have started out on this loop: Down Broad Branch, left up Ridge Road to Grant Rd., left on Grant back to Broad Branch, then back to Connecticut Avenue (and the Metro), either on Davenport Street or Brandywine. I do a similar loop all the time by bicycle, and see tons of walkers/joggers/hikers going up Ridge Road. A hefty, vigorous walk/jog to be sure, but definitely something that could be done by a young and healthy person. Perhaps she did not always stay on Ridge Road, but ventured off onto the paths that follow along Ridge Road. And if Chandra was following a flat map, when she started out she may not have appreciated the steepness of Ridge Road. Granted, it is very steep even where it starts at Broad Branch, but perhaps she figured it would flatten out.

Once Chandra was up by Grove 18, anything could have happened. She could have been dragged off by a random killer, as one theory holds. Perhaps she realized she was tired (since Ridge Rd. turned out to be more challenging than expected) and tried to take a shortcut back to Broadbranch down the hill, and ended up tumbling into a tree, as you said you did when you tried it. She could have been seriously injured in this way. Perhaps she was with her killer on the hike (Condit or someone else she knew), who dragged her off into the woods. I still think the most likely explanation is that she was killed elsewhere and dumped where her remains were found, but I do not think the above scenarios can be ruled out, do you?

I agree with you that the turtle hunter thing raises a lot of questions.

chevy chase 10

***

Finally, I could use a little reporting on psychology and/or profiling here. Do people that expose themselves "move up" to attacking women? This would be important to know. The story implies these two behaviours are linked. Is that true?

Thanks

Posted by: Murphie | July 22, 2008 9:27 AM

***

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17390000

D.K.H.

If a man is exposing himself to a woman, do you think she's looking at his face before she runs away?

To The Reporters:

Condit's question re: Connie Chung ("How stupid is she to ask that question?") was shocking to me. He was, after all, the central figure in a sensational murder investigation. Did you follow up with the obvious question: "What did you think she was going to ask you about?"

Fair or not, Condit's evasiveness in that interview certainly condemned him in the public mind. Was he so deluded, so self-involved that he believed that his private affair made him the "get" of the year for journalists? If so, there's something to be learned here -- namely, what 20 years in power in Washington will do to one's ego.

1) The Post is heading toward Guandique because he allegedly implicated himself in his initial lawyer-less interview. I would like to know if the translator has been contacted and verifies this story (someone else mentioned this 1st). I would also like the interviewer to take a lie detector test. Otherwise, I'm skeptical. Especially with a future chapter entitled "jailhouse confession" (or something like that).

2) Chandra could easily have taken a taxi, the metro etc to get closer to where she was in the park. There's no reason that the exercise theory is ludicrous just because someone thinks her supposed walk was too difficult for her. Also, I'm very good at cancelling memberships effective immediately if I want to. If Chandra was thrifty, she would not want to pay for 30 days of gym membership that she wasn't going to use. It's not that difficult to be get a 30 day lead in waived.
Also, if my boyfriend's wife was in town for the first time, I'd be so wound up I could pop. I lot of vigorous exercise is exactly what I would need to clear my head.
She might not have known that the walk she started was, indeed, so very vigorous.

3) Gary Condit may well have had a lot to hide; ie, he may well have met her in the park, and said goodbye to her in the park, only to discover she was missing. A lot of high powered respectable police people (that Death guy) felt Condit was the wrong guy. However, if I was (egocentric) Condit and I knew I had seen her in the park right before she disappeared, I would probably jump through amazing amounts of hoops to avoid answering the following question on a lie detector test: When was the last time you saw Chandra Levy alive?? Look at the 3 carefully worded questions he was willing to risk in a lie detector test. He was willing to answer that he had nothing to do with her death, but not anything about when he had seen her. He was hoping this would be seen as the "real thing" for a lie detector test. He did get an ex-FBI person to do it.

4) Guandique. If I remember the dates correctly, **if** Guandique is guilty, Chandra would have been the first known incident. What if he didn't intend to kill her and did so accidentally? What if he was scared to death? He would hide the body. But, what if he still had the urge to go back to the park, naturally he would run at the first sign of a struggle. (The guy is in jail because he has such urges!!) A sample size of 2 (tall blondes) is certainly not enough to say he only attacked tall blondes. And if he had accidentally killed Chandra, mightn't he then avoid attacking someone who looked like her?? I agree, there's no reason that the guy who exposed himself has anything to do with Guandique. But it is very remiss of the police that this lady wasn't even interviewed, given that they felt that Chandra's last known location was in the park. It substantiates the statement by the initial interviewer of Guandique that he didn't tell the police about Guandique's statement about Chandra because it wasn't their case.

Flashers as a phenomenon are well known; but, they are not known for violence, let alone for premeditated murder.

D.K.H.

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 22, 2008 6:00 AM

That's an interesting observation that's been the premise of many a poster here -- that people "graduate" from one crime to another.

Watch much Law & Order people? Dick Wolf would be proud.

Suspending this idea, and adding to it that IG had been starting to abuse drugs and alcohol with more frequency, is a possible scenario that he was wasted when he attacked CL and it spun out of control and ended up in murder? Seems likely to me.

So, here's my proposed scenario:

IG was wasted on his day off from work, and hanging around the park. CL comes along and heads out on this trail. Like the other victims, he stalks her and then attacks at a remote location. They struggle, he is so f'd up, he winds up stabbing her.

He may not have intended to kill her, and just left her there thinking she'd get away. But as a first-time sexual assaulter, he really messed it up.

As for the other two joggers he attacked, they were both much larger than CL and one of them was trained in self-defense. Add to this, that we don't know if there were other victims who never came forward and/or reported being assaulted by this guy.

Seems plausible to me that someone would be pretty damn skittish on their next outing, rather than more confident since his intended goal was sexual not violent.

Regardless, in hindsight, the real failure here is that the MPD were so focused on Condit and dealing with all the media hype that they weren't sufficiently looking at the park or talking to the Park Police -- despite the fact that they knew she was heading for the park in the first place.

I totally understand Ms. Mosley's frustration, as well as I can sort of understand how the DC Park Police didn't go running at the DC PD when IG said he had seen CL in the park and thought she was "pretty". I'm sure the Park Police guy thought that MPD had their investigation under control (obviously a false assumption as we know now) and that the veracity of much of what IG was saying under questioning was suspect any way.

An unfortunate circumstance. As The Post is going to lead us to, IG killed her something similar to the manner I described above.

Three questions:

1. How could the police not have found Chandra's body when they searched the park? Rock Creek is only twice the size of Central Park... they should have been able to comb the entire park in a week with dogs and rescue teams. Start at the central point where they think she was and fan out.

2. How do police conclusively know Chandra's body was not dumped in the park long after the murder?

3. Why didn't Chandra's aunt advise her to stop having an affair with a sleezy married man?? Both Condit and Chandra are equally at fault for the affair, but if only her aunt would have told her get out that bad situation, move on, and find someone more respectable, then Chandra would have moved back to CA after her internship ended in December, graduated in May, and been alive today.

from an anonymous post: "The Levys' attorney Billy Martin hired private investigators to look at the area where Chandra's remains were found.

They did not come up with anything more conclusive than the police did."
*********
The found a large leg bone the police left behind for starters, plus a long list of what else the police overlooked there. Greta and Ted Williams went to the site and discussed. They were disgusted.

Given you don't know that or choose to mislead people about it, not sure what your agenda is but you definitely have one.

rd

Mr. Daugherty:

Why would VP Cheney have an office "in the House" since he's President of the Senate? Did you mean "White House"? Also, I looked around just to be sure, and there are still no mountains around here.

hi chevy chase 10,

Chandra used the Metro extensively to get around. Receipts were still in her apartment for some items she bought in Alexandria and Bethesda. The Metrorail card was not specifically mentioned as still in her purse or missing. If it had been missing, it certainly would be significant. But not being mentioned, it should be in the purse wih her other cards.

Can anyone really picture picking a Metrorail card out of her purse and leaving everything else to go make a trip somewhere? I can't.

The only reasonable conclusion is that Chandra, taking a key that was not on her pepper spray key ring, went outside to meet someone, and based on what she had told her parents before, that someone was Condit who had told her not to carry id with him.

Also, there is no map I'm aware of that Chandra could have brought up with those links with the kind of detail you're talking about, such as to show anything much in Rock Creek Park like Ridge Road, unless the WP comes up with the map that is shown in clicking from Entertainment Guide and it has that detail. Right now all that has ever been mentioned by police is MapQuest, and it is just a green blob without detail.

Any kind of accidental death where Chandra dies alone is ruled out due to the knotted leggings.

rd

"rd: Can anyone really picture picking a Metrorail card out of her purse and leaving everything else to go make a trip somewhere? I can't."

I can. When I'm planning to walk somewhere, I often throw a few dollars and the essentials in a back pocket, so that I don't have to carry a purse.

So, I come to a different conclusion, which by your logic, must be "unreasonable."

Cheney keeps an office in the House of Representatives and that's where they met. It was unclear at first, perhaps deliberately so from information provided by Condit, but that was determined with reporters folowing up with Cheney's ofice.

Ok, you don't like mountain, let's replace with a verteran bike riders description:

...this MASSIVE uphill switchback road. It really blows when you are biking. You cross the creek and then peddle uphill until you are a third of the way up and then turn around 180 and peddle up some more and then turn 90 and peddle up some more until you get up this monster. It's pretty rough (as far as DC hills go).

rd

unfortunately have to go back to work. Will look forward to what everybody has written tonight.

rd

If a man is exposing himself to a woman, do you think she's looking at his face before she runs away?

Posted by: | July 22, 2008 11:25 AM

_________________________________

Well then how can she say that he is a hispanic male then. And if she was so frustrated about Condit being questioned about Chandra Levy, why didn't she go forward to tell the authorities about the male she had the encounter with while it was still fresh on her mind.

rd writes,
"Ok, you don't like mountain, let's replace with a verteran bike riders description:

...this MASSIVE uphill switchback road. It really blows when you are biking. You cross the creek and then peddle uphill until you are a third of the way up and then turn around 180 and peddle up some more and then turn 90 and peddle up some more until you get up this monster. It's pretty rough (as far as DC hills go)."

1) Wasn't Chandra from Modesto? Aren't there real mountains out there? Wouldn't she know how to hike up one?
2) For steep hills, biking is often harder than hiking, since you're carrying the extra weight. I don't like biking up such a hill and frequently walk my bike up one like that.

I guess I don't see your point.

The mystery of the Chandra Levy case is very interesting. I find the most intriguing case, in the Washington D.C. area, is the disappearance of the Lyons sisters in 1976. I would like to know what, if any, information or data has surfaced since their disapperance of those two young girls.

RD-

Chandra could have taken a few dollars with her and purchased a farecard. If you think a "missing" farecard would be significant, I do not see why the fact that a farecard was not "mentioned" (by whom, the police?) as missing rules out the possibility that she took the Metro. I can also see someone taking a farecard from her purse to go somewhere, if she doesn't want to carry much with her.

Could not the notted leggings have been used as a tourniquet by Chandra? Assuming they had no blood on them I concede that makes it less likely, but since a tourniquet is usually applied above the wound, the lack of blood would not be conclusive. I have not, of course seen how the leggings were knotted, so it is hard to say.

In any event, I appreciate much of the information you have provided here, as the Post story is so woefully inadequate.

chevy chase 10

RD-

One other point, unrelated to Chandra Levy:

I LOVE biking up hills like Ridge Road. For some the rush in cycling is speed. For me the rush is in conquering steep hills like Ridge Road. No, I don't think it "blows." But I get your point.

chevy chase 10

Kate,

1. This series says police missed the body because of miscommunication. Instead of searching 100 yards from the trail as desired by the brass, they searched 100 yards from the road. The body was not within 100 yards of a road.
2. BODY WAS NOT DUMPED>how could the body be dumped in the middle of steep woods, off a dirt trail? wouldn't someone notice -removing the body from trunk of car, carrying body into the woods? she was killed in the park.
3. The Aunt is not the Parent. Who knows if she tried to talk CL into breaking it off? But that's really the job of mom or dad.

Is IG guilty? He's either STUPID, LUCKY, or NOT GUILTY...why would he identify CL's pic as someone he saw in park if he killed her??? Why would he go back to the park and assault other women if he killed her in the same place?

Kate,

2. BODY WAS NOT DUMPED>how could the body be dumped in the middle of steep woods, off a dirt trail? wouldn't someone notice -removing the body from trunk of car, carrying body into the woods? she was killed in the park.

Is IG guilty? He's either STUPID, LUCKY, or NOT GUILTY...why would he identify CL's pic as someone he saw in park if he killed her??? Why would he go back to the park and assault other women if he killed her in the same place?

Posted by: SJ | July 22, 2008 2:29 PM

___________________________________

The person didn't have to bring back her body to the park, but they bring her bones back to the park.

I agree with IG either being Stupid, lucky, or Not Guilty!

I don't believe he killed her myself.

To many of us, this is the most curious mistake ( see following quote ), if indeed they could devote these resources to Area 17. Humm..... what make them want to do a cursury search in that particular area???? And of course, especially without trained dogs?
"But dogs were not used when three police sergeants and 28 recruits searched the area around Grove 17 off Glover Road in Rock Creek Park on July 25, 2001. Our reporting shows that the searches for Chandra were inconsistent and not performed in a systematic way. Had police used dogs to search the Grove 17 area, which includes the Western Ridge Trail, it's likely they would have found Chandra's body. Her remains rested 79 yards below the trail for nearly three months, and between the site where her bones would eventually be found 10 months later were other personal items the dogs could have located, including her Walkman, sunglasses, one of her Reebok sneakers and other items"

Maybe this has been addressed already, but how much of this "mystery" can be chalked up to the lack of cooperation and coordination between the patchwork of law enforcement authorities with jurisidction over parts of DC?

For example, why didn't MPD contact Park Police if they thought she may have gone to Rock Creek? And, as important -- why didn't Park Police speak up? If the Park Police knew of other attacks in the park, and yet didn't volunteer any info to MPD, that's every bit as unforgivable.

Sad, but not a surprise, that turf battles or lack of communication between agencies may have delayed law enforcement efforts. I hope the Post looking into this question, as an answer would actually add something relevant to this story.

Theres been a long history of DC police blunders well beyond this case - handcuffing of a traffic violator, the DC sniper case, missing evidence, inability to solve murders, ... Series confirms for me that the DC police are incompetent as they are overpaid and numerous. Has anyone wondered whether they are up to the task - are they really meet professional standards - are the really trained? Has any heads rolled because of these blunders?

Is the Western Ridge Trail just below Ridge Road? There are some maps suggesting that it's a trail used by joggers, but the map is unreadable.

I was skeptical at first, but IG sounds suspicious to me. The attack on Chandra matches his MO. He stalked female joggers around Beach Drive, where he lived, and when feeling safe, attacked. Beach Drive intersects Ridge Road in the south. One of the women attacked, was at Pierce Mills, which is very south but near Beach Drive. Another was north at Wise Drive. Both were in untrafficked areas.

IG tried throttling his girlfriend at least once, one of the reasons he was kicked out of the house by her mother. And wouldn't she have been a brunette and short? He wasn't just drawn to tall blondes.

So Chandra would have been jogging above the valley, but below Ridge Road. If police had focused on IG from the start, having learned about him, they might have built a case. For instance he had clothes that a brother later threw out but which might have had DNA evidence. Also the searches might have been more thorough, resulting in finding the sunglasses with fingerprints, etc.

The stupid Washington Post reporters can't even get the names of the important locations correct, causing many people to remain confused about the actual location of Chandra's remains. For example, in the most recent Update 9, above, they refer to Grove 17 as being "off Glover Road." Actually, Grove 17 is off Ridge Road; Glover Road splits off from Ridge Road, but not until significantly further north than Grove 17. Granted, various maps out there make the same mistake, but the Post reporters should still be able to get it right.

A neighbor noticed that IG was getting "strange" around January 2001, and started drinking as well. When he was captured for one of the assaults, it was around the Golf Course to the north, off Beach Drive. His neighborhood was Somerset Place, which is to the east of the park (i may have my coordinates off about what's n/s/e/w), so Beach Drive was crucial as a kind of central artery for him.

You have to wonder if there were other predators causing problems in the park at that time, since the police hardly seem aware of IG even to this day.

It would be nice to have a map with pins showing sites, like attacks, the exposure site, Condit's condo, Somerset Place, the golf course where Guandique was later captured. The 360 graphic they use is amazing, but not helpful for orientation. It looks like a remote woodsy area but you can't really see much.

I was skeptical at first, but IG sounds suspicious to me. The attack on Chandra matches his MO. He stalked female joggers around Beach Drive, where he lived, and when feeling safe, attacked. Beach Drive intersects Ridge Road in the south. One of the women attacked, was at Pierce Mills, which is very south but near Beach Drive. Another was north at Wise Drive. Both were in untrafficked areas.

Posted by: eeave | July 22, 2008 4:04 PM

________________________________

In regards to the comment that "both were in untrafficker areas", why was it stated that one of the two blonde females that were supposedly attacked stated that the rush hour traffic drowned out her yelling for help.

I don't believe that IG killed Chandra Levy because he could have killed the other two also, and one stated in her report that he had his 5' knife on her chin, he could have easily killed her and the other female that stated in her report that he approached her with his 5' knife. But instead of killing them both, he ran because they both screamed for help and fought him off, and then he ran, but yet he had a 5' knife. A weapon controls the victim for the assailant.

***

Is the Western Ridge Trail just below Ridge Road? There are some maps suggesting that it's a trail used by joggers, but the map is unreadable.

I was skeptical at first, but IG sounds suspicious to me. The attack on Chandra matches his MO. He stalked female joggers around Beach Drive, where he lived, and when feeling safe, attacked. Beach Drive intersects Ridge Road in the south. One of the women attacked, was at Pierce Mills, which is very south but near Beach Drive. Another was north at Wise Drive. Both were in untrafficked areas.

IG tried throttling his girlfriend at least once, one of the reasons he was kicked out of the house by her mother. And wouldn't she have been a brunette and short? He wasn't just drawn to tall blondes.

So Chandra would have been jogging above the valley, but below Ridge Road. If police had focused on IG from the start, having learned about him, they might have built a case. For instance he had clothes that a brother later threw out but which might have had DNA evidence. Also the searches might have been more thorough, resulting in finding the sunglasses with fingerprints, etc.

Posted by: eeave | July 22, 2008 4:04 PM

***

Ingmar Guandique's m.o. was to use a knife, and then run away when his tall, blonde victims screamed and fought back with their bare hands. (Previously, he had used a few screwdrivers to burgle a residence, and then ran away when the owner returned home and surprised him-- but, in that case, as in the second assault case, weeks later, he did not bother even to run away far and fast enough to avoid being picked up by the police.)

He is not known to have sexually assaulted anyone. He is not known to have killed anyone. He is not known to have strangled anyone, whether manually or with knotted clothing. He is not known to have stabbed or slit anyone with his knife. He passed an F.B.I.-administered polygraph examination, while the jailbird who had claimed that Senor Guandique had confessed in jail to Ms. Levy's murder failed one of those himself.

There is no evidence, by the way, that Chandra Levy was stalked before she was assaulted and killed. That is purely a conjecture that may conveniently be claimed to be part of Ingmar Guandique's m.o. Nor is there any evidence that Chandra Levy was assaulted with a knife-- and the fact that her hyoid bone was broken suggests that she was not, since an assailant with a knife could have used it to stab her to death or to slit her throat, rather than going to the trouble to undress her, at least partially, and then strangle her with her own knotted clothing, as appears to be the cause of Ms. Levy's death at the hands of her assailant.

Aside from that incredible claim of a jailhouse confession, the only evidence tying Ingmar Guandique to Chandra Levy in any way is Detective Green's unsubstantiated claim that Senor Guandique had admitted to seeing Ms. Levy in the park on some earlier date and thinking that she was attractive-- which is incredible inasmuch as Detective Green neither put that claim in his official report nor told anyone else, as far as he himself can recall now-- and, presumably, no one else that he might have told back then has reported, since, having been told by him back then, when it might have counted. The woman was by then the most famous missing person in the world; yet, Detective Green felt the information that she had been seen in the park by an apprehended serial-assault suspect was not within his purview to pass along to those in charge of finding out what had happened to her two months earlier!?!

There is also a deafening silence from the Post on the issue raised by me and another earlier: Does the translator used during Ingmar Guandique's interrogation after his July 1 arrest confirm or deny that Senor Guandique made the admissions about Chandra Levy that Detective Green now claims were made? Was Guandique himself asked during his F.B.I.-administered polygraph examination whether he had ever seen Chandra Levy in the park at any time, or was he merely asked questions as to whether he had killed her or otherwise assaulted her?

As for the girlfriend, yes, she was shorter and darker than the two blonde Amazons that Senor Guandique mugged in the park. She also happened to be one of his own kind, and that kind of ethnically assortative mating is the norm rather than the exception in human dating, the sheer joys of multiculturalism notwithstanding. As for his beating her, a man that beats his significant other tends to do so for very different reasons from those that cause a man to assault strangers in the park at knifepoint. Or, does someone suppose that he mugged the Amazons simply because his short, dark, Hispanic girlfriend was not around on May 14 and July 1, 2001, to beat the hell out of...?

"The very day that led a then-House Minority Leader to become the 38th President of the United States, in lieu of a convicted felon! I abjure any connection of this fact to the former Congressman from the 18th District of California....

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 21, 2008 1:22 PM " Who was this "then-House Minority Leader" who became President? I always thought it was then-Vice President Gerald Ford who was sworn in.

You know what chaps my ass? Nancy Graces's insatiable thirst for semen. Every other word out of her mouth in the interview quoted was "semen." Someone please help this poor disagreable woman out!

Greetings people. I'm new to the site and wanted to say hi.


[url=http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com]Interesting Facts[/url]

Thank you, editors, for the on-line transcript link.
You are very responsive to us readers and most of us do appreciate your hard work.
I do have another question which I can't find addressed, so far (I haven't had time to read the transcript text yet.)
I recognize Chandra's remains were months old.
Was a forensic autopsy done?
Did they find any evidence whatsoever which might lead to a suspicion about how she died?
Did they do a real DNA search of her clothing found at the scene?
Any chances there was any evidence that would lead to further investigation?
While trying to find the online transcript late last night, I found several other articles about the case online.
Had a good time doing it, too. :-)
The solution to the 1982 case using DNA was fascinating, which triggered my curiosity expressed in the questions above.
DNA evidence gathering and analysis is getting pretty sophisticated.
I understand exposure to the elements erodes the quality of DNA that can be developed, but I wondered again ...
And -- this is off-subject, but I can't find a report on what happened to the Chinese man who was still sitting on the 7-story ledge in the Hart SOB at 1AM?
(I found this story while perusing your site last night.)
Nothing on the TV news down in Texas this morning, either.
Even The Hill's reporter gave up at 1AM.
Thank you again for all your hard work.

I'm amazed that so many here do not take seriously the danger level that IG posed. He brutally attacked two women in the park. He beat his girlfriend. He bit her above her breast to the extent it left a scar. He had been "turned out" of his girlfriend's life by her mother. He had been stopped in a robbery by another woman. He went around carrying a long knife. And who knows what other things occured to him to help make him a predator who wanted to hurt women.

I doubt that the women he attacked, or their families, would so come to his defense as so many of the commenters here do.

No one's coming to his defense, Elizabeth. He got ten years for those two attacks and I hope when he gete out they air drop him back to El Salvador sans parachute.

What is being said is that credibility is being strained and history rewritten to pin Chandra's murder on him when no reasonable person would be able to even place Chandra up on that hill in a deep forest, much less Guandique up there as well.

Some of the straining strains comprehension. Guandique is fearful because he just stalked, tied up, and strangled a woman in the park so six days later and two weeks later he runs after hearing a scream or someone trying to fight him off because of his bad experience murdering Chandra.

I mean that's posted above. That's the kind of straining of credibility that hits new lows.

Some, not very many, maybe one person, with a couple of others with legitimate alternatives suggested to consider, knowing that Chandra couldn't possibly have done what the police want her to have done so they can pin this on Guandique and walk away happy, knowing the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge would not leave one person saying oh yeah, Chandra did this, are straining for some way to place Chandra on top of that hill and Guandique up there with her.

Like, oh she left her Metrocard at home with everything else but a key to get back in, so she must have bought a farecard and taken the Metro somewhere based on nothing more than how can we get Chandra there on her own power in the middle of nowhere to be murdered by someone who runs when someone screams.

I mean, it can be done, but it isn't pretty. It's eye popping in fact.

I'll just go a step further with this Guandique thing. Now what the strainers, including the hapless DC police, would have us believe is that Guandique either:

1) hung around grove 18 out of sight, even though the number of people that come through there are hours apart, and the number of women alone is maybe never.

or 2) followed Chandra up a massive hill for 30 minutes or more that it takes to trek up the horse trail or Ridge Road, which run alongside each other, not the horse trail lower in the valley, yet somehow stay out of sight and yet somehow at some point running her down like a cheetah for who knows what reason place he chose.

But wait, the police also believe that Chandra was walking through the deeply forested trail back to the horse trail at grove 18, which means that she had to have gone further up the horse trail earlier, at least to the stables if not to the revered closed Nature Center which so many are enamored with, then say, oh shoot, I walked all this way and the dang place is closed, ok, I'm a trooper, I'll complete the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge that no one else will and walk back home now, but first I'm going cross country through a dark forest with nothing but my Walkman and my key, just in case I make it through the forest alive.

But unknown to Chandra, Guandique had followed at a distance all the way up from Beach Road and stopped at grove 18, either because he wasn't as crazy as Chandra or because he knew she would have to return, of course who would drive up there and drive her away, doesn't everybody walk!, and I'll ambush her when she gets back.

But wait. I also know that she, being crazy, will go crosscountry and around the peak and through the forest and I'll wait deep in the forest on the No Horses path for her to come back this way, just because, and knock her down and slide down the hill and tie her up with her tights even though I have to hang on to something to keep from sliding over the cliff!

yeah, I believe that.

rd

Or, does someone suppose that he mugged the Amazons simply because his short, dark, Hispanic girlfriend was not around on May 14 and July 1, 2001, to beat the hell out of...?

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 22, 2008 6:10 PM

Hey d...h..., IG was a predeator on women of a color other than his girlfriend. Tall, short blond or redhead it did not matter. He killed Chandra because the circumstances were more favorable at the time. You have to remember that she was probably at the lowest point in her life and about to confront Condit. She was in the wrong place wrong time. He may also have felt that he already killed someone and had got away with it so why kill again? Since most people do not carry valuables with them while jogging he wanted sex. Certainly makes more sense than a US Congressman dragging his girlfriend through the woods and strangling her with her stockings! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

To Michele, who asked the reporters in #7 if it was safe to jog alone in Rock Creek Park. NO! I grew up in Washington, please trust me on this. Jogging with another person during the day is fine. But not alone. And I'd stay clear from the park at night. Be careful but most importantly, have fun.

Or, does someone suppose that he mugged the Amazons simply because his short, dark, Hispanic girlfriend was not around on May 14 and July 1, 2001, to beat the hell out of...?

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 22, 2008 6:10 PM

Hey d...h..., IG was a predeator on women of a color other than his girlfriend. Tall, short blond or redhead it did not matter. He killed Chandra because the circumstances were more favorable at the time. You have to remember that she was probably at the lowest point in her life and about to confront Condit. She was in the wrong place wrong time. He may also have felt that he already killed someone and had got away with it so why kill again? Since most people do not carry valuables with them while jogging he wanted sex. Certainly makes more sense than a US Congressman dragging his girlfriend through the woods and strangling her with her stockings! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Posted by: dlg358 | July 22, 2008 9:21 PM

__________________________

Who said that the US Congressman dragged her through the woods and strangled her with her stocking?

Who said that what happened to Chandra really happened to her in Rock Creek Park?

Once again I don't believe that IG would attack one female with a knife to her chin and not kill her because she screams, but kills Chandra. I believe Chandra would scream also.

RD-

When I suggested that Chandra may have taken the Metro to Van Ness, it was not for the purpose of putting her at Grove 18 to fit with the Guandique theory. I have no view on Guandique's guilt or innocence and, as I said before, my real feeling is that she was murdered elsewhere and her body/remains were dumped in Rock Creek Park. I was merely trying to point out that it is also feasible that she could have gotten to the top of Ridge Road, where she met her fate, by whoever's hand, be it Condit, Guandique, some random murderer/serial killer, or even by accidental death. Sorry that possibility doesn't fit with your apparent theory that Condit arranged to meet her somewhere and then killed her. But there are other reasonable possibilities, some of which involve her getting to the top of Ridge Road on her own accord, without completing the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge. You may recall that I previously agreed with you that walking all the way from Dupont Circle to the top of Ridge Road is a ridiculous theory. I just don't think you have conclusively excluded either the random killer theory or the "she was killed up on Ridge Road/Trail" theory, although I, myself, do not subscribe to the latter.

dlg358 wrote: "Certainly makes more sense than a US Congressman dragging his girlfriend through the woods and strangling her with her stockings! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!"
*******
Of course she was not strangled there with her tights there, if ever.

I want to add part 2 to the Challenge, but only for those who have completed the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge so they have a full appreciation for part 2.

Part 2 is the Chandra Levy Find a Better Place to Dump a Body in the Park Challenge. Drive up Ridge Road from Beach and Broad Branch, back into grove 18 next to the picnic table, using the marker set up there to guide you, take something out of your trunk, preferably not someone, and walk staright on back from your vehicle and picnic table into the dark No Horses path, walk out a few yards, carefully as the path is narrow and eroded and roots sticking up, to a place where it looks pretty smooth to go downhill, drop down 240 feet or so, staying between the two ravines on your right and left, and taking care not to build up speed lest you go over the cliff below, then come back uo and toss a pair of broken sunglasses further on down the path into leaves and underbrush. Return to your vehicle and drive away.

Now try to find a better place to do that within five miles of Chandra's or Condit's apartment.

Oh, by the way, Guandique wasn't driving, hence the straining to place him up there. Almost every body ever found in Rock Creek Park was dumped there, Chandra was found at the best place to hide a body a person knowledgeable about Rock Creek Park could find, Condit lived a mile and half away on the Rock Creek Park trail running along Adams Morgan, and Condit was a prolific cyclist. Condit was a person knowledgeable about Rock Creek Park, including that all facilities were closed on Tuesday.

Chandra wasn't. She had to look it up.

rd

Thank you, editors, for the on-line transcript link.
You are very responsive to us readers and most of us do appreciate your hard work.
I do have another question which I can't find addressed, so far (I haven't had time to read the transcript text yet.)
I recognize Chandra's remains were months old.
Was a forensic autopsy done?
Did they find any evidence whatsoever which might lead to a suspicion about how she died?
Did they do a real DNA search of her clothing found at the scene?
Any chances there was any evidence that would lead to further investigation?
While trying to find the online transcript late last night, I found several other articles about the case online.
Had a good time doing it, too. :-)
The solution to the 1982 case using DNA was fascinating, which triggered my curiosity expressed in the questions above.
DNA evidence gathering and analysis is getting pretty sophisticated.
I understand exposure to the elements erodes the quality of DNA that can be developed, but I wondered again ...
And -- this is off-subject, but I can't find a report on what happened to the Chinese man who was still sitting on the 7-story ledge in the Hart SOB at 1AM?
(I found this story while perusing your site last night.)
Nothing on the TV news down in Texas this morning, either.
Even The Hill's reporter gave up at 1AM.
Thank you again for all your hard work.

***

"The very day that led a then-House Minority Leader to become the 38th President of the United States, in lieu of a convicted felon! I abjure any connection of this fact to the former Congressman from the 18th District of California....

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 21, 2008 1:22 PM " Who was this "then-House Minority Leader" who became President? I always thought it was then-Vice President Gerald Ford who was sworn in.

You know what chaps my ass? Nancy Graces's insatiable thirst for semen. Every other word out of her mouth in the interview quoted was "semen." Someone please help this poor disagreable woman out!

Posted by: Assless Chaps | July 22, 2008 6:39 PM

***

Vice President Spiro T. Agnew ['Ted' to his pals, like Frank and Sammy] copped to a plea bargain and resigned the Vice Presidency on Wednesday, October 10, 1973. Had he not been forced to do so, he would have become the 38th President of these United States within ten months [Noon E.D.T. on Friday, August 9, 1974, to be exact], upon Dick Nixon's own resignation as # 37. Instead, then-Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, Jr. [ne Leslie Lynch King, Jr.] was nominated by Nixon and then approved by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress to replace Agnew. (Nelson Rockefeller would follow suit the following year, once Ford moved up the food chain upon Nixon's resignation.) If ninety percent of life is just showing up, it seems that the other ten percent is not taking kickbacks!?! Or, at least, not getting caught.... Perhaps Nancy Grace is (in the words of the old New Wave spiritual) "turning Japanese?" ("I really think so!") [Kinda gives one the Vapors, no?]

D.K.H. [paleo-kyma]

"Every wave is new until it breaks!" --Neil Young

well, I certainly agree chevy chase that those kinds of things need to be considered as you are doing, and mentioned some suggesting those alternatives, such as yourself.

But there comes a point where one has to figure out that improbabilities are becoming improbably improbable. She had a Metrorail card, you have to to travel by Metro according to the site, and so without her card one is reduced to saying, oh, she must have bought a farecard, which is just another way of saying anything to place her and Guandique on top of that hill because we don't want to deal with the obvious, that she was dumped and hidden below grove 18, and in my opinion, well after the searches, probably after 9/11 when reporters quit following people around.

So good to consider, but also consider why people are trying so hard to place her there on her own, even though there is zero indication how she would know to get there and where "there" is. For example, how one gets to grove 18 if they approached the Nature Center from the north.

Also, even more important than this police whitewash nonsense, is what a real detective would consider of the facts known, or at least the facts as finally put together.

Chandra still didn't have any indication of how she was going to get to her graduation in LA in 10 days, still didn't have any indication of whether she was coming back to DC or not, still had yet to "know something on Wednesday" for her landlord, still hadn't packed or cleaned her apartment for moveout if she was leaving, still was in constant attmpst to check for messages from Condit.

That alone shows how silly this all is. Not one person talking about this walk on the park business gets into her mind and says, you know what, she is either by a phone or has her cellphone or is with Condit, because she checked her messages constantly!

But no, she must have gone off to whatever the heck a Nature Center is because well, she gave 30 days notice to cancel her gym membership and that's close enough for a romp in the park because it was a nice day from someone who had *never* jogged. No one making those suggestions even comes close to trying to understand what this person Chandra did in her life.

And lastly, for that person who keeps coming up with he can cancel his membership immediately if he huffs and puffs, Chandra's paperwork for giving her 30 day notice was in her apartment, so it's not a matter for speculation and she could if I could statements.

But really, I would expect all women to understand those two things about being in touch with Condit and the gym membership versus out on the street where she never was, the guy(s) defending Condit I have less hope for.

rd

RD-

When you say she had a "Metrorail card," do you mean a Smartpass, that can be reloaded? I don't think they even existed in 2001. If they did, how do we know she had one? And if you are talking about a regular Farecard, how do we know that she had one, and how do we know that she didn't take it with her on May Day? Is it only that the police did not report a farecard or Smartpass (if there was such a thing in 2001) as missing? And, if it was a regular farecard, the police would have no way of knowing she had one, so why would they report it as missing?

RD - I've known plenty of women who leave cell phones and ID behind and go out for a walk. I've known plenty of people who show an uncanny ability to walk 3.5 miles or even more. You're not really helping by pronouncing your opinions as incontrovertible and obvious truths.

The site today says you have to have a card to travel by Metro, don't know about 2001. But she was a commuter and travelled widely by Metro to go shopping, went back and forth between next stop north at Calvert to go to Condit's, so she certainly would be carrying a card.

I didn't suggest she bought a farecard, someone else did to figure out some way to get her on the Metro even if her Metrorail card was still in her purse.

There are different card names on the Metro site, I used the Metrorail name as a descriptive one. Locals would know what the more likely one she would be using, for example the Smartpass or whichever.

I would expect the card would be one you can recharge up for fees, and that it should be in her purse. As I say, if it isn't, that would be significant.

rd

Like I say, huggie, I lay the details out there and let people decide for themselves with real information.

rd

A few observations.
1) There is no Ridge Road in Rock Creek Park. The road you all are referring to is Glover Road.
2) There is quite a lot of over-dramatization among these comments. Mountains in DC? Wild, desolate woods in Rock Creek Park? Hardly. The hill that the bicyclist refers to is a challenge for the cyclist on Glover Rd, but the walker needs only to follow the nearby sign to the Western Ridge Trail and walk up a slope to Glover Rd, cross the road and re-enter the trail. This is no mountain and is not an obstacle for the reasonably fit.
3)The Western Ridge Trail south of Military Road is lightly used, but it is rarely very far from a road.
4)Public transport to the park isn't great, but it exists. One can take MetroBus to a stop on Military Rd very near the Nature Center or one can take MetroRail to one of a few stops along the Red line and walk either the Soapstone Valley Trail or the Melvin Hazen Trail to the Western Ridge Trail near Peirce Mill.
5)It should be pointed out that it is not unusual for users of MetroRail to buy a low value paper card. God knows where such a card might end up after weeks or months in the "deep woods" (folks from Maine, Alaska or the West may laugh now) in Rock Creek Park.
You all may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

The overdramazitization is me only.

rd

RD-

I am a local here in the dc area; I did not realize that you are not familiar with the DC Metro system. If you think there is any significance to the presence or absence of a "card" in her purse, you need to understand the Metro card system.

Yes, you need a card to travel on the Metrorail. But that can be either (1) a paper farecard that you can purchase for a small or larger amount (for one trip or many); once the card runs out of money the turnstile system will eat it the last time you use it, or you can trade it in before it runs out of money at the farecard machine for a new paper card by inserting the card into the farecard machine along with some money. The paper card is totally anonymous, if you lose it, a stranger who finds it can use it; or (2) a plastic Smartpass, that is issued to you, and which you can register with Metro on-line so that you can report it as lost or stolen if that occurs, and Metro can deactivate the Smartpass. It is the size of a credit card and can be reloaded at the Farecard machines in the Metro stations. If you do that, you keep the same card (which many people register with Metro to protect against loss or theft of the card), unlike the paper cards which can only be traded in for a new card. My sense is that the latter, the Smartpass, has been around 5 years at most, I really don't think they existed in 2001, but if anyone has better information on that, I will defer to them. If I am correct that the Smartpass did not exist in 2001, then the only option then available would have been the paper farecard, and nobody, not Metro or the police, would have any way of knowing whether any individual had one or not, or if one was missing from a dead person's wallet. Some people would put a lot of money on one farecard and use it for a long time (but had to be careful not to lose it), while others would put just enough on it to make one trip.

Regardless of whether there was a paper farecard (or even a Smartpass) in her wallet, Chandra Levy could have purchased a paper farecard at a machine at any Metro station. Why would she have done this even if she had a card in her wallet? Because the card in her wallet may have been loaded with, say, $30, and she might not have wanted to carry that around and possibly lose it.

You are right, you did not raise the Metro issue, I did. And I did not do it in order to support any particular theory of what happened, only to point out that there are reasonable scenarios other than the Chandra Levy Walk in the Park Challenge that could have gotten her to the top of Ridge Rd., if in fact she was alive when she got there. So, if you want to consider all of the reasonable scenarios, and if you think her possession of a farecard is significant, you need to understand how the Metro system works.

Yes, my opinion is somewhat in line with yours in that I do not believe Chandra did, in fact, find her way to the top of Ridge Road, partially by Metro or otherwise, at least not while she was alive. But I don't think it can be ruled out, and I don't think her computer is the only way that she could have come into possession of a map of Rock Creek Park with enough detail to get her to the top of Ridge Road, where anything might have happened to her. As I've said before, my personal opinion is that she was killed somewhere else and dumped in the park. I just think that all reasonable theories have to be considered.

Yeah rd here's a quote from you laying out the "facts"

"we don't want to deal with the obvious, that she was dumped and hidden below grove 18, and in my opinion, well after the searches, probably after 9/11 when reporters quit following people around."

Nice touch there including a small piece of opinion in the "facts", adding weight to them. I'm at least glad you wrote that as you expose yourself as somewhat like the Bush administration: convinced of the rightness of your path, just needing the facts to support it.

yes, I agree wholeheartedly, but not to the degree of figuring ou a way to place Chandra and Guandique up there instead of Chandra being dumped as everything but a need to pin it on Guandique would leave any objective investigator.

Although not local, I read all that on the Metro site. I don't know what was in place in 2001, but I know commuters buy pass tickets. You're not a daily commuter and a frequent after hours traveller and buying a ticket for every time you get on the train, for an amount to be determined each trip, many would be one hops between DuPont Circle and Calvert.

So she would have some Metro pass in her purse, and if not there, then that should have been part of the we're trying to figure out where Chandra went, we checked trains, buses, flights, taxis, etc. investigation.

I just love the placing of Chandra on a train with a key and her Walkman and nothing else so she can go somewhere to be in a position to walk to Ridge Road (above poster didn't read the post to the reporters about the Glover split off I guess) to be in a position to be in a desolate forest (I welcome anyone to accompany above poster into said desolate forest on the No Horses path and tell me it isn't desolate, regardless of what he says) to be murdered by Guandique, who likewise must soomehow be placed up there. (Looks close on the map. Yup.)

Mapwise, she clicked on a map for Rock Creek Park that morning. If she had a detailed map then she would have been carrying that around, because she didn't have anything like that at home. So again, we can bring together any combination of what it would take for her to get there reasonably, and I appreciate that the Walk in the Park Challenge at least made that clear, but one would normally expect the most likely, being dumped in the park, to be considered ahead of these strange work arounds for Chandra to do something that no sane woman would do.

But that's the whole point. Condit's first story to the police was that Chandra was so obsessed with him that he had to refuse to take her calls, and if she vanished, well, who knows what a crazy woman will do. Suicide, revenge, running around in a Rock Creek Park forest with nothing but a key to get back home, who knows.

And that's what the police worked on, and to this day, it works for them.

rd

This statement is from Chapter 2 cited below

We've interviewed people close to Chandra who said she loved the outdoors and sometimes liked to take long walks. Could she have just been going for a walk in the park that day?
________________________________________

The people that were interviewed close to Chandra located in Washington, DC or in Modesto, CA? (her hometown)And if from her hometown, were those chosen asked if she would always walk alone, with someone, or both?

I still can not imagine a male and female jogging together in Rock Creek Park going their seperate ways. And she did marry him according to her letter to the judge. This I find strange...

Has anyone read if the five inch knife that IG had was apprehended by the police or FBI? Because I read in the police report that they found in IG possession a large and two small screwdrivers during the robbery of his neighbors house.

THIS IS IT! Chapter 10, wherein the runaway train that is the Washington Post's attempt to railroad Ingmar Guandique for the murder of Chandra Levy comes flying off of the tracks altogether. In this chapter, at last, we can separate the pathologically dishonest and unethical from the mere pathologically gullible.

***

On Sept. 21, Guandique was removed from his jail cell and brought to the U.S. attorney's office in Washington for questioning by prosecutors and D.C. detectives. He was accompanied by a public defender.

Guandique was shown a picture of Chandra. He said the only place he had ever seen her was on television.

That contradicted what a former Park Police detective later told The Washington Post. Joe Green, who interrogated Guandique on July 2, said that at that time he showed Chandra's picture to Guandique and the Salvadoran said he had seen her in the park.

Green was present at the meeting in the U.S. attorney's office. To this day, Green does not remember that meeting or whether he passed on to D.C. police or prosecutors the information he said he got from Guandique. "I should have said something," Green would later comment.

***

Let me be blatantly pedantic for a moment: That which precedes does not contradict that which follows; it is the other way around! In other words, it is the woefully belated Detective Green who has the need to explain himself-- and, as you may see for yourself above, he is just as woeful now as he was in 2001.

The Avenging Angel may wish to cut him all of the slack that she thinks he might need-- "Like many of the investigators on the case, I, too, remain haunted by the disappearance of the 24-year-old intern who walked out of her Dupont Circle apartment and simply vanished..."-- but those of us dedicated to truth, justice and intellectual honesty need not cut Mr. Green any slack at the expense of Senor Guandique's right to due process.

The former Detective Green of the United States Park Police, now safely retired to the public dole, is built up in Chapter 6, following the arrest of Ingmar Guandique for assault, as being a real paragon of public detection, who can seduce the truth from any miscreant, even Ingmar Guandique. This is necessary on the part of the Avenging Angel and her staff, for they need to attempt to build up Joe Green's credibility for the following:

***

Green later told The Washington Post that he posed one more question to Guandique.

He showed him a D.C. police flier with a photograph of Chandra Levy, the missing intern.

Have you ever seen this woman in Rock Creek Park? Green asked.

Guandique said he had.

He saw her one day when he was hanging around the parking lot near the Peirce Mill. Green then asked Guandique if he thought she was attractive. Yes, he said, but he never saw her again.

Green did not include any comment by Guandique about Chandra in his report, and he does not remember telling any other officers at the time. Back then, it didn't seem important. He said he was focused on the assaults on Wiegand and Shilling.

Chandra could be anywhere. Her disappearance was not a Park Police case.

"It wasn't mine to pursue," he said recently.

***

Note how the article glides past that time element, "later"-- and five days and four chapters later, the Avenging Angel has still not informed her readers just how much later Mr. Green first laid claim to causing the admission from Senor Guandique that he had personally seen Ms. Levy in the park prior to his July 1 arrest, and also had found her notably attractive.

Regardless, from today's installment it is perfectly clear by now that the now-retired Detective Joe Green, formerly of the United States Park Police, was either guilty of gross malfeasance in that office in 2001, by never reporting Senor Guandique's alleged statements about Ms. Levy to other officials charged with bringing her justice; or else, he is guilty of lying to the Washington Post about Senor Guandique's seeing Ms. Levy when Mr. Green claimed later that Senor Guandique had made such an admission on July 2.

As I and and at least one other person have asked before, has the Washington Post found out who the interpreter was on July 2, 2001, and has he or she been questioned by you in order either to confirm or to contradict Joe Green's belated claims? On Sunday morning, the series' three reporters answered several questions from their readers; this seemingly crucial one was not among them. After today's installment, it seems clear: Joe Green has no corroboration for his claim that Ingmar Guandique admitted to seeing Chandra Levy in Rock Creek Park sometime prior to his arrest for assault, let alone that he had found her notably attractive.

I believe that Joe Green is lying, trying to position himself as holding the key to solving the Chandra Levy murder mystery after all of these years, giving the Avenging Angel just what she wants, as she attempts to railroad Ingmar Guandique into a life sentence for murder. Alas! It gets even worse:

***

On Oct. 19, D.C. police and federal prosecutors went to the D.C. jail to interview the informant, whose name is being withheld by The Post to protect him against reprisals from other prisoners.

The informant said that he had befriended Guandique during strolls around the jail's exercise yard. Guandique was awaiting trial on charges in the attacks in the park on May 14 and July 1. The informant said that one day in August Guandique looked depressed and said something was weighing on him.

Guandique, the informant said, confessed to murdering a woman in the park named Chandra Levy, the intern whose picture had been splashed all over television. There was more: Guandique said Rep. Gary Condit paid him to do it. He didn't realize who Condit was until he later saw his picture on TV. Guandique had been walking in the Adams Morgan neighborhood when a car pulled to the curb. Condit offered him money - $25,000 to kill a woman. The congressman provided him with her picture and a location where he could find her.

The informant said Guandique told him he took drugs and drank alcohol to steel himself for the attack. He went to the location Condit gave him and saw Chandra running on a path. Guandique hid in the bushes. When Chandra circled back, he jumped out and attacked her, stabbing her in the neck and the stomach. She fell to the ground, and Guandique carried her body far into the woods. He dug a hole with his hands and covered Chandra with dirt, leaves and sticks. He left the knife in her body and later considered retrieving it but never did. He sent the $25,000 to his family in El Salvador.

The informant called his lawyer and said that he wanted to come forward because he felt badly for Chandra's parents after seeing them on TV. The informant recently repeated his story to The Post.

***

There are only five known categories of humans-- not mutually exclusive ones-- who would give this inane tale a single iota of credence: (1) police; (2) prosecutors; (3) journalists; (4) lunatics; (5) retardates. I will give you one of the most robust rules of thumb in all of the forensic sciences: "If an inmate tells you that another inmate confessed guilt to a serious crime, the first inmate is lying and the second inmate is innocent of the crime."

Not only is what this unnamed felon did the moral equivalent of murder, by bearing false witness to a homicide; but, in many American jurisdictions, the inmate bearing such false witness could be sentenced later to death for capital murder if that false witness caused an innocent person to be executed for a crime that that person did not commit!

This is the unconscionable game that the Washington Post is playing, along with Joe Green and the unnamed felon who told this horrific lie about Ingmar Guandique. The Post is willing-- even anxious, it seems-- to railroad Ingmar Guandique for the murder of Chandra Levy, based on these patent and pathetic lies, and not a single, solitary shred of credible evidence; yet, it grants anonymity to a felon who is willing to send an innocent young man to his possible death (I suspect that there is a federal death penalty waiting in the wings here...) for a crime that he did not commit!

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

Daniel Kevin Hand in regards to your comment below

This is the unconscionable game that the Washington Post is playing, along with Joe Green and the unnamed felon who told this horrific lie about Ingmar Guandique. The Post is willing-- even anxious, it seems-- to railroad Ingmar Guandique for the murder of Chandra Levy, based on these patent and pathetic lies, and not a single, solitary shred of credible evidence; yet, it grants anonymity to a felon who is willing to send an innocent young man to his possible death (I suspect that there is a federal death penalty waiting in the wings here...) for a crime that he did not commit!

Posted by: Daniel Kevin Hand | July 23, 2008 3:00 AM

______________________________________

From Chapter 10 cited below, might give you some clarity to your above comment.

The prosecutor, Kristina Ament, told the judge that Guandique was a cooperative defendant. She said that he spoke to prosecutors and police about the Chandra case as part of his plea agreement and that he passed a polygraph exam that asked if he knew anything about her disappearance.

Ament said Guandique cleared his name by taking the polygraph.

"In other words, there's no suggestion that he is involved in the Chandra Levy case?" asked D.C. Superior Court Judge Noel Anketell Kramer.

"There is no suggestion at this point now that he is involved," Ament said. "And his polygraph went a long way in diffusing the suggestion."

The judge said she never believed that Guandique had anything to do with Chandra's disappearance. "This is such a satellite issue," Kramer said. "I never for a moment thought that . . . he had anything to do with Chandra Levy."

~~~~~~
I agree, I do not believe that IG had anything to do with Chandra Levy's death, but I do believe that certain sources would like to suggest that he did. And the reason why I don't believe that IG had anything to do with Chandra Levy's murder is because I do not believe that she was murder in Rock Creek Park. I believe that her remains (her bones and belongings) were brought to Rock Creek Park.

The prosecutor, Kristina Ament, told the judge that Guandique was a cooperative defendant. She said that he spoke to prosecutors and police about the Chandra case as part of his plea agreement and that he passed a polygraph exam that asked if he knew anything about her disappearance.
_____________________________

Why couldn't Condit be as cooperative as Guandique with the police and FBI? Guandique doesn't know Chandra, and Condit was having an affair with her, you'd think he would be just if not more cooperative as Guandique.

Questions for Post Reporters...

The 7/22 Preview says her remains rested in one spot for three months, and were discovered 10 months later in another (nearby?) site. How far away? Who moved the remains other than coyotes, etc?

If the jailhouse informant says IG left the knife in the body, where's the knife? Why wasn't it found with the remains?

What happened to the 5-inch knife used by IG in other attacks?

Obviously, the DCPD needs more Spanish speaking officers and Polygraph experts. Has this happened?

Where can you get a map that includes the numbered Groves?

----------------------------------------------

Questions on Body Dumping Theory...

Where was she killed, if not in the park? To answer you have to know where she was going and when she left her apt. she was dressed and carried only enough to go for a walk or jog. If she was headed anyplace else, she would have at least a purse, ID, CCs and money. Where was the body stored? If any place other than a freezer, there would be a telltale odor. Even if she were buried someplace, dug up, then brought to the park, how could killer inconspicuously take it (or even a bag of bones) out of his car in a public park, and carry it up a trail unnoticed?

My theory is unchanged...She was killed in the park by another predator, possibly IG or the flasher, but probably someone who's not surfaced as a suspect. This series has reinforced my view of the police in dc. Never have I seen so many police depts in one city, all at cross purposes. And the level of incompetence in Metro PD is the same high level as every other Govt agency employing people who get penalized for working hard, and rewarded for being lazy. DCPD has been this way since I can remember first moving to the city in 1969...from the way they handled the riots, the demonstrations, especially the round-up of protesters on the mall, illegal captivity at DC armory, all the strong arm robberies, murders, prostitution (police allowed hundreds to operate night and day everyday before they advertised on the internet), gangs and drugs. It's too bad because it can be a great city, but having moved away, I don't miss the crime.

There was no blood on Chandra's clothes, and the informaant who claimed Guandique confessed to him failed his lie detector test, while Guandique passed his.

Same issues involved in translators for the test, given by a federal agency that does this routinely. What, do these Guandique strainers think Guandique is the first Spanish speaking suspect ever given a lie detector tes? Has this "question" about lie detetector tests using Spanish translators been raised over and over before everytime a Spanish speaking person is given the test?

Sure, by defense lawyers. That's the level we're dealing with here, but from people who want to pin it on Guandique, who have the logic of defense lawyers instead of public servants.

I was going to add seeking the truth, but you know, show me someone seeking the truth and I'll add it.

rd

SJ wrote: "Where can you get a map that includes the numbered Groves?"

There are two different maps showing the groves in chapters Found and Horse Trail in the online Murder on a Horse Trail I've posted on my site www.justiceforchandra.com.

rd

According to a search of the Washington Post Archives, Smartrip cards first became available in April 1999. However--speaking as a local who is familiar with the metro system--it's unlikely that Chandra would have had either a Smartrip card or a regular Farecard in her possession. First, for quite some time, Smartrip cards were only available for purchase at limited locations. As I recall, there was only one station in the entire Metro system where you could purchase one--Metro Center, in downtown DC. Metro Center was not the closest stop to either Chandra's apartment (Dupont Circle), her work (Union Station), or Condit's apartment (Woodley Park). Second, a regular Farecard could be loaded with up to $20 of fare, which would have been plenty for a week's worth of trips from Dupont Circle. Smartrip cards were (and are)primarily for suburbanites who have longer and more expensive trips. Parking fees can also be added to Smarttrip cards, which Chandra would have had no need for. Most young people living in DC would use a Farecard for their trips, and would not necessarily keep one in their possession--they would buy one trip-by-trip as necessary. Chandra was planning to leave for California (at least temporarily) and was not working (so she wouldn't want to tie up her money on metro fares, and wouldn't have to worry about long rush hour lines if she needed to buy one), would not need to have a loaded Farecard (or a Smartrip) in her possession. As noted before, the machine eats your Farecard once the value is used up, so it would be expected that she would not have either a Farecard or a Smartrip in her apartment.

rd said:
"I just love the placing of Chandra on a train with a key and her Walkman...."

The problem with this statement is that I am not trying to place Chandra anywhere. Some folks here are very good at giving facts, and then stating things like "the only reasonable conclusion is "

What some of us are trying to do is show that there are other logical conclusions from the facts!!

Facts:
Chandra left her purse/id at home.
Chandra did this when meeting Condit.
She was found in that park.
She had her walkman.
There was a violent stalker active in the park at that time attacking walking/jogging women wearing walkmen.
It's a hefty walk from Chandra's apartment to where she was found.
Chandra was known to like long walks.
Chandra had the entire DC mass transit system at her disposal (taxi, metro etc)
Chandra's boyfriend's wife was in town for the 1st time.
Chandra had cancelled her gym membership, and might have had another 30 days.
There was no evidence of a struggle in Chandra's apt (as far as I can conclude from facts presented).
One park policeman claims that Guandique implicated himself in Chandra's death.

Other facts:
The 7 day tape in Chandra's apt was not pursued soon enough.
The only follow up to Guandique was a lie detector test, not under ideal conditions according to some, where his answers were in the "gray area," and that was several months later than it should have been.
The police botched the search for Chandra's body.

As far as I can tell, there is no proof that the body was moved, of course, there's so little proof that there is also no 100% certain proof that the body *wasn't* moved. So anyone can say "the body was moved, prove otherwise" and noone can refute the claim.

There is also no proof that Guandique is the killer, barring corroborating testimony by the translator from the time Green interviewed him. There is also no proof that Guandique is not the killer. The opportunity for obtaining such proof was dependent upon finding the body soon after she died or obtaining forensic evidence from Guandique's apartment, clothing, etc. The opportunity for directly questioning Guandique and his friend/etc about his whereabouts and/or obtaining forensic evidence has long since passed.

I'm respecting the Post more and more on this.

I'm guessing their conclusion is going to be:
It is *likely* that Guandique is the killer, but the many opportunities to obtain proof about this were ignored or botched. It is *unlikely* that Condit is the