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Chandra Levy
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Chandra Ann Levy (April 14, 1977–ca. May 1, 2001) was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in the spring of 2001 and is presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park. The investigation into her disappearance uncovered an affair with then-U.S. Representative Gary Condit, a Democrat representing California's 18th congressional district and a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Although Condit was never called a suspect by police, the uproar led to his loss in his 2002 re-election campaign.
The circumstances surrounding Levy's death remained unclear for many years.
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Encyclopedia
Chandra Ann Levy (April 14, 1977–ca. May 1, 2001) was an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in the spring of 2001 and is presumed murdered after her skeletal remains were found in Rock Creek Park. The investigation into her disappearance uncovered an affair with then-U.S. Representative Gary Condit, a Democrat representing California's 18th congressional district and a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Although Condit was never called a suspect by police, the uproar led to his loss in his 2002 re-election campaign.
The circumstances surrounding Levy's death remained unclear for many years. On March 3, 2009 D.C. police and federal prosecutors announced they have charged Ingmar A. Guandique, a 27-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, with her murder. Guandique is currently an inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary-Victorville in Adelanto, California, having been previously convicted of assaulting two other women in the same park where Levy's remains were found.
Life and background
Levy was born in Cleveland and grew up in Modesto, California. Her parents are members of Congregation Beth Shalom there, a Conservative Jewish synagogue. She attended San Francisco State University, earning a degree in journalism. After interning for the California Bureau of Secondary Education and working in the office of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, she began attending the University of Southern California to earn a Master's degree in Public Administration.
As part of her studies, she moved to Washington, D.C., to become an intern with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Shortly before her death, this internship was abruptly terminated when her academic eligibility was found to have expired. She had previously completed her degree requirements and was scheduled to return to California for graduation.
Case and scandal
Disappearance and search
Chandra Levy disappeared on May 1, 2001. Her remains were found in Rock Creek Park, in Washington, D.C., over a year later.
Police were first alerted to Levy's disappearance on May 6, 2001, when Levy's parents, Robert and Susan, of Modesto, called D.C. police and said they had not heard from their daughter in five days. Police visited Chandra's apartment in Dupont Circle that same day and again over the next few days, finding no indication of foul play. On May 7, Levy's father told the police his daughter had been having an affair with a Congressman, and the next day told police he believed that Congressman to be Gary Condit. The same day, Chandra's aunt called the police and told them Chandra had confided about the affair to her. On May 10, police obtained a warrant and formally searched Levy's apartment. She had visited a web site relating to Rock Creek Park on her computer the morning of May 1, the day she disappeared. On July 25, three D.C. police sergeants and 28 police cadets searched along Glover Road in Rock Creek Park but failed to find Levy's remains, which were nearby but outside the police's sweep.
Controversy surrounding her disappearance was a main topic of the American news media, ending only after the September 11, 2001, attacks. All of this contributed to Condit's failure to win his party's re-nomination, and thus re-election to his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Levy's parents held numerous vigils and news conferences in an attempt to "bring Chandra home." Mrs. Levy later participated in the efforts to find another missing Modesto woman, Laci Peterson.
Condit, a married man, who represented the congressional district where the Levy family resided, at first denied that he had had an affair with Chandra. His later statements left open the possibility of an affair. Even though police repeatedly stated that Condit was not a suspect, many in the media, along with Levy's family, felt that Condit was still being evasive and possibly hiding information about the matter. Condit later refused to submit to a polygraph test to be administered by the D.C. police. He also tried to avoid answering direct questions during an August 23, 2001, televised interview with news anchor Connie Chung on the ABC News program Primetime Thursday. Condit later appeared before a District of Columbia grand jury investigating the disappearance.
Condit subsequently lost the Democratic primary election in March 2002, and left Congress at the end of his term in 2003.
Discovery of remains
District of Columbia Police Chief Charles Ramsey announced on May 22, 2002, that remains matching Levy's dental records were found by a man walking his dog and looking for turtles in Rock Creek Park near Levy's apartment in northwest Washington, D.C. Police had previously searched well over half the area of the park, which Levy had visited on many occasions, after determining that someone had used Levy's laptop computer to do an Internet search for the park's Klingle Mansion on the day police believed she went missing.
After a fruitless first and second attempt, it was strongly suggested by outside specialized consultants that the police go back and re-examine the Rock Creek Park location again. Police stated later that they had not searched a particular area before due to its remoteness. Her remains were found a mile (1.6 km) north of the mansion and about four miles (6 km) away from Levy's apartment. After a preliminary autopsy was performed, District of Columbia police announced that there was sufficient evidence to begin a homicide investigation. On May 28, the District of Columbia medical examiner officially declared Levy's death a homicide.
Police interviewed Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran illegal alien who assaulted two women in the park. Washington police chief Charles H. Ramsey called him a "person of interest." Police administered a polygraph test, which he passed.
The Levy homicide remained listed as a "cold case" until March 3, 2009, when the Superior Court of the District of Columbia issued an arrest warrant for an imprisoned Salvadoran illegal immigrant named Ingmar Guandique.
Similarities to Joyce Chiang case
Levy's disappearance came two years after the disappearance and declared homicide, under similar circumstances, of Immigration and Naturalization Service attorney Joyce Chiang. Levy's apartment building was four blocks away from Chiang's former building. Levy's remains were found in a D.C. federal parkland area, as were Chiang's belongings, before her body washed up in a nearby river. Both were young, brunette women of petite stature. These similarities have led to various theories that both women were killed by the same person.
Criticism of media coverage
The Levy case was the subject of a great deal of media coverage in the summer of 2001, especially on U.S. cable news networks such as MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. Following the 9/11 attacks, media critics and the cable news executives themselves cited the Levy case, as well as the concurrent sensational coverage of a supposed string of shark attacks, as being evidence of the media echo chamber in action, as well as illustrating the vacuity of U.S. news coverage immediately preceding a major attack on the country. Seven years later, in the summer of 2008, the Washington Post ran a 13-part series billed as "a tale of the tabloid and mainstream press pack journalism that helped derail the investigation." Although the series was phenomenally popular, reader comments were overwhelmingly negative; Post Metro reporter Robert Pierre wrote that emphasis on a glamorous white murder victim, in a city where the murders of hundreds of black and latino women remain unsolved, was "absolutely absurd and dare I say, racist, at its core."
External links
- , America's Most Wanted
- , Metropolitan Police Department
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- , Modesto Bee
- , CourtTVnews
- A 12 Part Series from The Washington Post revisits the crime and subsequent investigations 7 years after the murder
- , FindLaw
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