DC DC - Chandra Levy, 24, Washington DC, 1 May 2001 *found deceased in 2002*

[Grainne Dhu]

I'm going to go with the "other assailant" theory as plausible. The informant sounded awfully bogus, didn't he?

Totally. I think he saw a way to get some extra attention and a trip outside his cell.

At the same time, I'm not entirely letting go my Condit theory, either. The fact that the police botched so much, including the initial computer search, means that anything that might have tied him, would have been overlooked just like her body was in the park.

As well, throwing away the watch box? One could argue he was too stupid to ever be involved in anything like murder.

LOL, I agree!

And really, as Medea pointed out, if Condit had someone who would kill an inconvenient girlfriend for him, surely that person could also throw away an inconvenient watch box as well.

 

[Medea]

First off, the park police officer who failed to tell anyone about Guanique's having ID'd Chandra Levy should have been fired. The two officers involved in the 'mix up' that resulted in the wrong search parameters should have been officially disciplined.

If anyone wants to know why the case wasn't solved, just look at the DC police reaction to someone else finding the rest of her bones...they blamed everybody but themselves...animals brought the bone back, the other technicians brought the bone back, anything but admitting 'we are so stupid and incompetant that even though a civilian found her body for us, we still are unable to get her remains!!...talk about pathetic.

I may be reading this wrong, but I read it that her shirt was off of her body and knotted...which leads me to believe she was sexually assualted before being probably stranged, otherwise why would the shirt be inside out and knotted? Of course it can't be proven, but its pretty strong evidence to me that she was sexually attacked, which is another piece of evidence that points away from Condit and toward a random park rapist, whether or not its the guy in jail for 2 similar attacks or another park rapist who has not been caught.

 

[Texana]

First off, the park police officer who failed to tell anyone about Guanique's having ID'd Chandra Levy should have been fired. The two officers involved in the 'mix up' that resulted in the wrong search parameters should have been officially disciplined.

If anyone wants to know why the case wasn't solved, just look at the DC police reaction to someone else finding the rest of her bones...they blamed everybody but themselves...animals brought the bone back, the other technicians brought the bone back, anything but admitting 'we are so stupid and incompetant that even though a civilian found her body for us, we still are unable to get her remains!!...talk about pathetic.

I may be reading this wrong, but I read it that her shirt was off of her body and knotted...which leads me to believe she was sexually assualted before being probably stranged, otherwise why would the shirt be inside out and knotted? Of course it can't be proven, but its pretty strong evidence to me that she was sexually attacked, which is another piece of evidence that points away from Condit and toward a random park rapist, whether or not its the guy in jail for 2 similar attacks or another park rapist who has not been caught.

I think those were pants that were off and knotted, but same point.

The park police were even more incompetent than DC police, which was a high bar to reach.

 

[twinkiesmom]

The knotted pants seem to indicate she was strangled by them. Yes, it could be a sexual assault. Or it could have been a planned hit made to look like a random sexual assault.

Condit's disposal of the watch box is evidence of a guilty mind, regardless of intelligence. He obviously didn't expect to have his trash habits reported to police and a McDonald's garbage can inspected.

 

[tuppence]

it is truly shocking how incompetent the police appear to be in this article. I think the 10 part series is important because it keeps a focus on all the problems in the police force in an article that many people will read becuase of the topic.

 

[Medea]

The knotted pants seem to indicate she was strangled by them. Yes, it could be a sexual assault. Or it could have been a planned hit made to look like a random sexual assault.

Condit's disposal of the watch box is evidence of a guilty mind, regardless of intelligence. He obviously didn't expect to have his trash habits reported to police and a McDonald's garbage can inspected.

How could the killer have had a reasonable expectation that her body, burried in a shallow grave right in the middle of Rock Creek Park would go undiscovered long enough that it would never be found out it was a "staged" sexual assault? And if the body was NOT supposed to be found, what is the purpose of the fake staging?

Again, if this was a "planned hit" her body would have either never been found or been found right away and she would have been seen to be the victim of a random robbery, especially if Condit planned the hit in order to keep his affair quiet...the fact that she was missing for so long is EXACTLY what kept him in the spotlight...it makes no sense...he can't be a cold hearted murder for hire type of guy who is also so deadly stupid he doesn't see that the finding of her body would get him off the hook and lying about the affair will make him appear suspicious. And I rarely buy the 'criminals do stupid things' defense for anything that doesn't make sense. He's a Congressman, we can assume he has a reasonably high enough level of intelligence that he's not going to put a murder for hire in motion or kill her victim himself and then proceed to do multiple things that make him look guilty. Crimes do make sense if they are seen in the correct context.

Sure, his watch disposal is evidence of a guilty mind, GUILTY OF BEING A SERIAL ADULTERER AND LIAR, the same reason he lied and stalled about his affair with Chandra...guilty of being a jerk, a selfish *advertiser censored**hole who cared more about his reputation than a missing girl who was deeply in love with him.

I also may be reading the Wash Post series wrong, but my take is that the discrepancy between 100 yards off the road and 100 yards off the paths wasn't found out UNTIL either after her body was found...otherwise the police would have redone the search 100 yards off the paths and her body would have been found by police. So, nobody ever caught this exceedingly obvious error.

Furthermore, imagine in a city like Washington D.C., an international city full of foreigners..that the DC police couldn't summon up ANY OFFICERS WHO SPOKE SPANISH to freaking interview this guy and his relatives. OMG, WTF? How lazy can you possibly be?

 

[twinkiesmom]

How could the killer have had a reasonable expectation that her body, burried in a shallow grave right in the middle of Rock Creek Park would go undiscovered long enough that it would never be found out it was a "staged" sexual assault? And if the body was NOT supposed to be found, what is the purpose of the fake staging?

Again, if this was a "planned hit" her body would have either never been found or been found right away and she would have been seen to be the victim of a random robbery, especially if Condit planned the hit in order to keep his affair quiet...the fact that she was missing for so long is EXACTLY what kept him in the spotlight...it makes no sense...he can't be a cold hearted murder for hire type of guy who is also so deadly stupid he doesn't see that the finding of her body would get him off the hook and lying about the affair will make him appear suspicious. And I rarely buy the 'criminals do stupid things' defense for anything that doesn't make sense. He's a Congressman, we can assume he has a reasonably high enough level of intelligence that he's not going to put a murder for hire in motion or kill her victim himself and then proceed to do multiple things that make him look guilty. Crimes do make sense if they are seen in the correct context.

I think the terrain was so rugged and the placement so far off the path that whoever did it figured on her not being found for quite a while. She very well may have been buried, and animals dug her up....would explain why bones reappeared after the crime scene was initially discovered.

I do think whoever did it planned on her being disappeared long enough to remove any DNA evidence.

The fact is he was dumb enough to lie about the affair (thinking he as a congressman had more credibility than her relatives) and not smart enough to get his "fixers" to remove his DNA from her apartment.

The way in which he dealt with her family members revealed a cold and malicious heart. If he was uninvolved in the murder, he could have gone a long way to clearing himself by the way he submitted to law enforcement and how he handled the Connie Chung interview. If he took the 5th amendment before the Grand Jury (as postulated in Murder on the Horse Trail), it goes a long way to explaining things to me.

 

[Texana]

Next part in the series:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/chandra/ch12_1.html

 

[twinkiesmom]

So is the series over now? I see that they had 12 planned, but the writers reference future chapters.

 

[Texana]

So is the series over now? I see that they had 12 planned, but the writers reference future chapters.

I think tomorrow, Sunday edition, will wrap up the series.

Unfortunately, it won't wrap up what happened to Chandra.

 

[Texana]

Final Chapter: Police point to Gaundique; Condit points to himself as victim as well; Levy family tries to deal with the loss of their daughter, six years later:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/chandra/epilogue_2.html

 

[twinkiesmom]

The problem with Guandique is criminals improve over time they don't go from being smooth assassins to botched muggers....I think it would be much easier for Chandra to have been dumped where she was found than dragged down from the horse trail. Look at how relatively easy it was for the dog walker/turtle hunter from the neighborhood to find her remains vs. the police searchers starting from the trail. I remember when Greta was out at the scene....it looked like a residential cul de sac near the spot she was found.

 

[Texana]

One of the problems with Guandique is that anyone who wanted to pin Chandra's death on an unknown park assailant would be able to do it easily. There's nothing very special about his m/o other than the strategy of choosing the location.

She was meant to be found sooner, I think, and again, had the police not botched the search so terribly, she would have been.

 

[fran]

I may have missed one or two in this series but I did read the last two articles and watched the videos. How sad this is for her parents. How tragic for Chandra.

For years, I always felt Condit was somehow responsible. Not any longer. I know that Salvadorian guy denies it, but I think he may be responsible for Chandra's murder. The difficult part is, I think he'll get away with it. Not because he was so smart to cover his trail. It was just dumb luck, IMO.

The fact that Condit's career was ruined because of this case, well,.......sorry, I just don't feel bad for the guy. He lied about his relationship with Chandra, which made him look like the most likely suspect. He abused his power of office by having multiple affairs and then when caught 'cheating' he wouldn't own up to it. You reap what you sow.

JMHO
fran

 

[twinkiesmom]

I may have missed one or two in this series but I did read the last two articles and watched the videos. How sad this is for her parents. How tragic for Chandra.

For years, I always felt Condit was somehow responsible. Not any longer. I know that Salvadorian guy denies it, but I think he may be responsible for Chandra's murder. The difficult part is, I think he'll get away with it. Not because he was so smart to cover his trail. It was just dumb luck, IMO.

The fact that Condit's career was ruined because of this case, well,.......sorry, I just don't feel bad for the guy. He lied about his relationship with Chandra, which made him look like the most likely suspect. He abused his power of office by having multiple affairs and then when caught 'cheating' he wouldn't own up to it. You reap what you sow.

JMHO
fran

Condit richly deserves the cloud of suspicion over his head. Shame on the Post for spinning the story to try to acquit him.

 

[Grainne Dhu]

For years, I always felt Condit was somehow responsible. Not any longer. I know that Salvadorian guy denies it, but I think he may be responsible for Chandra's murder. The difficult part is, I think he'll get away with it. Not because he was so smart to cover his trail. It was just dumb luck, IMO.

It seems clear that Condit was not responsible.

I doubt the case can be solved at this time. The only argument against Ingmar Guandique is that if he killed Chandra Levy, he followed a very unusual, perhaps unique, pattern among predators. He kills Chandra on 1 May 2001, then 7 May 2001 he breaks into a woman's apartment and is scared off with a scream. On 14 May 2001, he attacks a woman in the park and she manages to fight him off within a minute, at most.

That just doesn't fit with the usual pattern of a predator becoming more efficient and more effective at what they do. Then again, there are factors such as blind luck--perhaps he somehow managed to stun or kill Chandra in the first few seconds after he attacked her but was never able to replicate the feat again.

The fact that Condit's career was ruined because of this case, well,.......sorry, I just don't feel bad for the guy. He lied about his relationship with Chandra, which made him look like the most likely suspect. He abused his power of office by having multiple affairs and then when caught 'cheating' he wouldn't own up to it. You reap what you sow.

The cheating doesn't bother me in a politician; some of the best, most effective politicians and leaders we've had were not faithful to their spouses (I know, I'm weird that way). I consider that a matter between Condit, his wife and whoever else he was having sex with.

But the sheer stupidity! He deserved to lose his office for that. No one that stupid should be representing other people. It's not like he was someone who had no education, who had good reason to fear the police--he was a rich white man who was well educated and could afford the best legal representation available. He had nothing to fear. So, I have no pity for his idiocy.

 

[Niner]

snip...
Looking back, I think it was probably the guy who was attacking female joggers in the park, although, at the time, I was convinced Condit did it.
I think that is the point this series is going to make, too.

me too! I'm looking forward to reading all the Washington Posts chapters! Good brush up on this case I believe!

 

[Niner]

snip...
Poor Chandra imo was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it's very unfortunate that it took so long for her body to be found but it does look like she chose to go to the park by herself and while there she became a victim of a terrible crime.
People that are involved with a sordid affair have just as much chance to become crime victims just like anyone else.

If I were Condit and needed to get rid of Chandra I would not have killed her like this, it would have been a death that looked like an accident so there would not have been this big investigation.

VB

Yes unfortunately it would look that way - did that Salvadorian guy ever get tried for this?? I still have a few more posts to read here...

 

[Niner]

snip...
I agree. But 10 parts? I have never, in almost 20 years in journalism, and many more years reading newspapers, seen a 10 part series on anything, let alone a sensational but largely meaningless murder case. It simply defies belief.

well - our local paper is doing a 10 part series on local Auburn icons!! We're up to #7 now... just sayin'

 

[nohwheregirl]

First off, the park police officer who failed to tell anyone about Guanique's having ID'd Chandra Levy should have been fired. The two officers involved in the 'mix up' that resulted in the wrong search parameters should have been officially disciplined.

I would guess that this never even happened and the detective is lying just to say that he figured it out before anybody else did. According to the article, there was nothing about Chandra Levy in the police report. And if it "wasn't [his case] to pursue," as he said, than why did he have a photo of Chandra Levy with him at the interrogation? Why did he bother asking? It really seems very contrived to me.

I do think that either Guandique or another random attacker probably killed Chandra and that Gary Condit just happens to be a sociopathic jerk who almost got him self thrown in prison b/c of sheer arrogance and stupidity.