Chandra Levy case comes alive again

Time - A judge has formally granted a retrial in the case of a man convicted of killing Washington intern Chandra Levy.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher on Thursday granted a motion for a new trial the case of Ingmar Guandique, who was convicted in 2010 of killing Levy.

Guandique’s attorneys had been pushing for a new trial because they said a key witness in the case gave false or misleading testimony. Prosecutors last month told a judge they believe the jury’s verdict was correct but that they would no longer oppose the new-trial request.


2010 

NATIONAL ENQUIRER - Chandra was just 24 when she disappeared on May 1, 2001. Her body was found a year later in D.C.'s Rock Creek Park.

The hunt for her killer gripped America - fueled by the revelation that she'd been having a secret affair with former California Congressman Gary Condit. But it wasn't until nearly eight years after the murder that illegal alien Guandique was indicted in the pretty young woman's slaying. He is already serving a 10-year sentence for brutal knife attacks on two women in the same park.

"Detectives are confident Guandique is the guy - there is new forensic evidence that directly links him to Chandra's murder," said former Washington, D.C., homicide detective Rod Wheeler, who consulted on the case.

Wikpedia - Public interest was high, and Condit's reputation suffered from the contrast between his "pro-family" politics, adultery with a woman two years younger than his daughter, and his attempts to mislead the police regarding the nature of his relationship with her. In July, two months after Levy vanished, Condit agreed to let investigators search his apartment, and hours before the search police said he was spotted throwing out a gift box he had received from another woman in a dumpster in one of Washington's Virginia suburbs.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, interest in the case declined. Condit kept his seat on the Intelligence Committee, retained his security clearance, and was one of a small number of members of Congress who were cleared to see the most sensitive information on the 9/11 attacks. On December 7, 2001, he announced he would run for re-election. He lost the Democratic primary election in March 2002 to his former aide, then-Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, and left Congress at the end of his term in January 2003.

Progressive Review - Levy had looked up the National Park Service headquarters - aka the Klingle Mansion - on the Internet as one of her last known acts in her Dupont Circle apartment. Her body was found about a mile north of the mansion, which is about three miles from her apartment.

Levy's apartment was about four blocks from the former home of Joyce Chaing who had previously been found murdered in federal parkland in the capital. Chaing was last seen on an urban street corner in Dupont Circle.

Police did not search Levy's apartment for nine days.

Her body was found about three weeks after her disappearance by a man walking his dog despite an extensive police search of the area nearby. They claimed they had not searched the part where the body was discovered because of its remoteness.

The sexual attacks in that area of Rock Creek Park stopped after Guandique was arrested.

2002

ALLAN LENGEL, SARI HORWITZ, WASHINGTON POST - Joe McCann, a private investigator who found one of Chandra Levy's leg bones in Rock Creek Park this month, was happy to provide D.C. police detectives with details of the discovery. But during an interview at police headquarters, the detectives asked McCann if he would submit to a polygraph test and seemed to question the veracity of his story, according to sources familiar with the incident. McCann, a former D.C. homicide detective hired by the Levy family's attorney, was insulted by the request -- and declined. Yesterday, D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said it is standard procedure in major cases to ask witnesses with crucial information to take a polygraph . . . But former law enforcement officials who know McCann said the polygraph request was insulting and a possible way to divert attention from the real question: Why didn't D.C. police find the bone during an earlier search of that section of the park? "It's not routine" to ask for a polygraph in instances such as McCann's, said defense lawyer Louis H. Hennessey, who headed the D.C. police homicide unit in the mid-1990s. "I think they're looking like fools and they're trying to cast aspersions on other people."

ROLL CALL - D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officials investigating the death of Washington intern Chandra Levy have interviewed a man serving a 10-year prison sentence for attacking two women in Rock Creek Park last year. D.C. Metro Police investigators have "talked to" Ingmar Guandeque, who was arrested in July 2001 after attacking two females (one in May and one in July) who were jogging along the Broad Branch trail in Rock Creek Park . . . A second official close to the Levy investigation said that while Guandeque was interviewed after Levy's disappearance last year, investigators are now taking a closer look at him since the intern's body was discovered. "Clearly there are some coincidences and links -- just because of the proximity of where he [committed his crimes]," said a source close to the investigation.

. . . The first attack occurred in mid-May 2001, at 6:30 p.m., about two weeks after Levy disappeared. In that case, Guandeque came upon an unnamed female jogger, attacking her from behind while brandishing a knife. According to a press release issued Feb. 8 by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, the victim reported that Guandeque grabbed her around the neck and pulled her to the ground, where her portable radio fell off. She also reported that Guandeque bit her when she tried to push him away. Guandeque fled the scene of the crime, leaving the radio beside his victim.

On July 1, 2001, he attacked another female jogger at approximately 7:30 p.m., running up behind her as she reached the crest of a hill and grabbing her from behind. The woman struggled, and when Guandeque loosened his grip on her she managed to get away and report the incident to the U.S. Park Police, who located Guandeque and arrested him.

Progressive Review - There remain several possibilities. For example, if, as some have alleged, there is a tie - either direct or coincidental - between this case and powerful individuals and their activities, there is a considerable probability that the case will never be solved or that a straw perpetrator will be charged with the crime. For example, some stories have suggested a connection with an S&M sex ring in which a number of well-known individuals are believed to have participated. As USA Today's Tom Sequeri put it delicately, there are "dark aspects of this story that we can't report yet." This is the sort of thing that Washington is highly skilled at covering up and in this case there may be more than adequate motive, especially since the DC police were badly embarrassed in 1997 by revelations of the practice of "fairy shaking," in which a cop followed a married man out of a gay sex club, got his license plate number, and later threatened to expose him unless he paid hush money . . . There also continue to be doubts about the handling of the last high profile DC murder, the Starbucks case in which the alleged perp confessed and then recanted. Added to the curiosities about the case was the fact that of all the 301 slayings that took place in DC in 1997, only these killings attracted the attention not only of the FBI but of Attorney General Reno herself. Reno overruled her own US Attorney and called for the death penalty in the case.


The Weekly Globe reports charges by James Robinson - attorney for one of Gary Condit's ex-lovers - that Chandra Levy was killed on orders from two well known politicians - a governor and a former presidential candidate - who belonged to an alternative sex ring. Robinson alleges that "this story is bigger than Watergate" and that Levy was killed because she was ready to blow the whistle on the sex club. The Globe offers no evidence to support Robinson's claim.

2001

Progressive Review - One of the leads being investigated in the Chandra Levy case is that Levy was murdered by a professional hit man involved in the local gay S&M scene. Whether or not this proves to be the case, the mere possibility has created unusual problems on Capitol Hill and for the DC police. We hear that some big names on the Hill are extremely nervous at the moment - not because of the Levy mystery itself but because what such a solution might reveal. The MPD could also face possible blow back because of its involvement a few years back in a major gay blackmail scandal, perhaps involving some of the same players.

Make no mistake about it. This is a big case. One classic solution would be to declare it a suicide or to find someone - such as a criminal already facing a murder rap - to take the fall as part of a plea bargain. For example, at least two fairly recent alleged suicides quickly fell down the memory hole - those involving Sandy Hume and House Intelligence Committee staff director John Millis - despite reasonable unanswered questions.

WILLIAM WALKER, TORONTO STAR: Washington police also revealed they are investigating the possibility 24-year-old Chandra Levy may have been slain by a professional killer skilled in the disposal of bodies . . . Levy's purse, wallet, personal identification and credit cards were all left in her apartment, along with a laptop computer and her packed bags prepared for a return trip home to attend her University of Southern California graduation ceremony. All that was missing from her apartment were her keys. Police found no signs of a struggle or forced entry and nothing was stolen. [Chief Charles] Ramsey confirmed that although Levy was last seen April 30, a search of her laptop computer revealed that she was on the Internet visiting travel Web sites the next day, on May 1, for about three hours up until 1 p.m. . . . [Levy family lawyer] Martin said his own investigation, conducted on behalf of the Levy family by two retired Washington homicide detectives, indicates the young woman went to meet someone she knew. ``For some reason, Chandra appears to have been lured, called, or brought out of the apartment expecting to return,'' Martin said.

JAMES RISEN & RAYMOND BONNER, NY TIMES: Washington police investigating the disappearance of the government intern Chandra Ann Levy have found no evidence that would link her case to other recent missing-person cases involving young women in the capital, law enforcement officials said today. In particular, investigators for the Metropolitan Police Department have reviewed two cases involving women whose bodies were recovered in the Washington area, Joyce Chiang and Christine M. Mirzayan. Ms. Chiang, a 28-year-old lawyer at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, disappeared in January 1999, after last being seen in the Dupont Circle area, a few blocks from where Ms. Levy, 24, lived. Her body was discovered three months later on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, but the authorities were never able to determine the cause of death. Ms. Mirzayan, a 28-year-old intern at the National Research Council in Washington, disappeared on Aug. 1, 1998. Her body was found in a wooded area near Georgetown University the next day. Her head had been crushed. No one has been arrested in either case. There are some striking similarities between those cases and the Levy one. All three women were Californians in their 20's and had similar physical characteristics. Like Ms. Levy, Ms. Mirzayan was an intern, while Ms. Chiang lived in the same neighborhood as Ms. Levy. 

Progressive Review - As we have noted, the Chandra Levy disappearance case may be far more complicated that it first appeared. For example, there are now possible ties to a local gay S&M group. The story is being kept under wraps by news media lawyers - Newsweek and the Village Voice have both spiked articles - but this much can be told: A former Republican congressman wrote a lurid account for Newsmax, allegedly based on knowledgeable sources, that claimed Levy to have been the victim of a gay prostitute who has since returned to his native country. Newsmax quickly removed the story, but it has been the subject of intense media investigation since.

The Levy case has also revived interest in another woman's disappearance two years ago, not far from Levy's apartment. The Starbucks mentioned in the case, incidentally, is in the same block and across the street from the Review's long-time former office. La Tomate serves as the Review's conference room. The site is also near one of the numerous locations where Vince Foster case witness Patrick Knowlton found himself under overt surveillance - a technique used by intelligence agencies for intimidation - in the aftermath of his visit to Ft. Marcy Park.

The Levy case has also revived interest in another woman's disappearance two years ago, not far from Levy's apartment. The Starbucks mentioned below, incidentally, is in the same block and across the street from the Review's long-time former office. La Tomate, also mentioned served as the Review's conference room. The site is also near one of the numerous locations where Vince Foster case witness Patrick Knowlton found himself under overt surveillance - a technique used by intelligence agencies for intimidation - in the aftermath of his visit to Ft. Marcy Park.

1999

EDDIE DEAN, WASHINGTON CITY PAPER, JULY 30-AUG. 5, 1999: At the corner of Connecticut and R Streets, [Joyce] Chiang hopped out of the car. She said she was going to the Starbucks across the street. She'd sworn off coffee and caffeinated drinks a few years before, after her doctor warned her of an impending ulcer. What she wanted was a cup of hot herbal tea to take the chill off during the walk through Dupont Circle. She had plenty of time to make it back for her 9 p.m. phone call. No problem. I'll be fine. Chiang stood on the corner in front of La Tomate restaurant. The car pulled away into the night.

When a crime happens in Dupont Circle, authorities know where to look to find evidence: nearby Rock Creek. It has long been a favorite drop-off point for everything from guns to bodies. But it was alongside the Anacostia where a couple found Chiang's INS identification card the next day. By then, Roger Chiang had figured that his sister had spent the night at a friend's house - a common enough occurrence. When she didn't come home Sunday night, though, he began to get worried. Monday afternoon, he phoned her office: She hadn't reported to work, and nobody had heard from her. It was one thing for Joyce to spend the weekend away, but quite another for her to skip a work day without calling. Her friends told Roger they had no idea where she could be. The next day, he contacted authorities to report his sister as missing.

1998

Progressive Review - Mary Caitrin Mahoney, a former White House intern, is shot five times in an execution-style slaying of three Starbucks employees in Georgetown. The other two victims are shot only once. No money is taken. No neighbors hear gunshots. An informant assisting police in the case is murdered when sent into a botched drug sting.

1997

Progressive Review - Monica Lewinsky tells Linda Tripp that if she would lie under oath, "I would write you a check." ... Also: "I mean, telling the truth could get you in trouble. I don't know why you'd want to do that." ... Also: "I would not cross these -- these people -- for fear of my life."...  Several reports have Lewinsky saying on another occasion that she didn't want to end up like former White House intern Mary Caitrin Mahoney, killed in the Starbucks execution-style murders.