Eventually, Chandra’s body was discovered, changing the case from a missing person investigation into a homicide investigation.
And that was when the case truly became convoluted, with more twists and turns than a Rocky Mountain highway!
Chandra Levy
Chandra Levy was born in 1977 to a Jewish family in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in the Central Valley city of Modesto, California. Although the Levy family was not particularly religious, they were members of a Conservative synagogue in Modesto because they wanted to instill Chandra with a solid set of values.
Education was also important in the Levy household.
Chandra did well in school and then went on to study journalism at San Francisco State University where she earned a Bachelors of the Arts degree. Although she did not use the degree to find employment in the field of journalism, she was able to use it to land a spot in the Master’s program for public administration at the University of Southern California.
The program was considered rigorous, but well worth the two years of study because graduates were almost assured a position in the field. As part of the program, students were required to complete an internship somewhere in the field. Chandra applied for a number of internships and was accepted to work at the United States Bureau of Prisons headquarters in Washington, D.C., beginning in the fall of 2000. The young Californian was ecstatic about the position and the opportunity to live in the Washington area. Although her parents Robert and Susan were sad to see their daughter move to the East Coast, they were also happy to see her become independent and they knew that the position would be vital for her career.
The plan was for Chandra to do the approximately nine month internship and then graduate from USC with her Master’s degree by the end of May 2001.
Unfortunately, someone intervened on May 1 and prevented Chandra from realizing her dreams.
The Disappearance
May 1, 2001, was the last day anyone saw Chandra Levy alive. She had contact with several people that day, primarily by phone, including her parents. Since the Levy parents usually talked to Chandra every day by phone, they began to worry when days went by without a phone call from their daughter and all of their calls to her went unanswered.
Extremely worried about the situation, the Levy parents contacted the Metro D.C. Police Department on May 6 to report Chandra missing. At first, the police assured the Levys that their daughter had probably just taken an impromptu trip for a few days, or perhaps she went away with a boyfriend. The Levy family was adamant that Chandra would have called them before going on such a trip, which would have been out of her character in the first place. The police agreed to do a search of Chandra’s apartment.
A quick search of Chandra’s apartment found no visible signs of foul play: nothing appeared broken or missing and the doors were locked. The search was for the most part cursory, though, because the police did not yet have a warrant to search her computer.
The more the police investigated the case, the more it appeared that Chandra did not just go away for a few days on a rendezvous with a lover. The authorities dug into Chandra’s background for answers and one name kept coming up that seemed out of place—Gary Condit.
The Congressman and the Intern
When Gary Condit’s name initially came up during the investigation into the disappearance of Chandra Levy, it raised red flags for a couple of reasons. First, Condit was nearly twenty years older than the twenty-four-year-old Levy. Sure, winter-spring relationships are not all that uncommon, but when one is potentially part of a missing person case it sets off the radars of investigators. Any number of scenarios may contribute to one of the persons in such a relationship killing the other, particularly when the younger of the two is the person missing and possibly dead.
The age difference between Condit and Levy was enough in itself to garner significant attention from the police, but more importantly, it turned out that Condit was a member of United States Congress!
In 2001, Gary Condit had served as the Democratic congressman for California’s 18th Congressional District since 1993, which happened to be the district where the Levy family lived. By all accounts, the citizens of Condit’s district were happy with his work because they reelected him numerous times by wide margins. Condit was also seen by most as a family man with good values; he had been married to the same woman for several years and had two children at the time of Levy’s disappearance. The congressman campaigned and voted in the congress as a conservative “blue dog” Democrat and was especially vocal in his opposition to President Clinton during the latter’s impeachment trial in 1999.
But oftentimes with politicians, looks are deceiving.
As investigators began to focus more on Condit and the nature of his relationship with Chandra Levy, they learned that the congressman was having an affair with a flight attendant.
They also learned that he and Chandra were having an affair!
In the days after the Levys reported Chandra missing and the investigation into her disappearance began, Chandra’s father and aunt told investigators that Chandra was involved in a sexual relationship with congressman Condit. The revelation was enough for the Metro D.C. Police to obtain a search warrant to conduct a more thorough search of Chandra’s apartment. A May 10, 2001, search of Chandra’s apartment uncovered several messages on her answering machine from Condit and a number of emails from the congressman on her computer.
Gary Condit quickly found himself in the middle of an epic scandal.
At first, Condit denied the affair to the police, but when presented with the evidence he eventually relented and admitted to the relationship.
Once the press got hold of the details, it quickly became headline news for months in the United States. The Levy family continually railed against Condit, who they accused of withholding information in the case. For his part, once the relationship was acknowledged, Condit was cooperative with the police. He allowed them to search his apartment and met them for interviews.
Did the sleazy congressman have something to do with Chandra Levy’s disappearance?
The investigators did not think so and he was never very high on their suspect list. The rest of America, particularly the voters in California’s 18th Congressional District, had doubts about Condit’s innocence. Condit lost his reelection bid in 2002.
As quickly as the Chandra Levy disappearance came to dominate the headlines in the news cycle, it dropped from the headlines even more precipitously when the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place. Americans became more concerned with the deaths of thousands of their countrymen and the potential for many more to die in further terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately for the Levy family, Americans quickly began to forget about their missing daughter.
The Discovery of Chandra’s Remains
Although the media attention about Chandra’s disappearance was greatly diminished after the 9/11 attacks, investigators on the case continued to diligently search for the missing intern. The immediate focus was centered on Chandra’s laptop computer, which was found intact in her apartment.
In 2001, computer forensics was still a fairly new sub-discipline in law enforcement. Most American police departments, even in major cities like Washington, still did not have units or even officers specifically assigned or trained to search and evaluate computer related evidence, which often created problems. In the Chandra Levy case, eager investigators corrupted the hard drive of her laptop, destroying vital evidence related to the case. Despite this major problem early in the investigation, experts were brought in who were able to retrieve some very important information that helped investigators locate Chandra’s remains.
Computer forensic technicians were able to retrieve emails between Chandra and Condit and more importantly, they also recovered a number of search engine queries that pointed them in the right direction.
On the day of her disappearance, Chandra made a number of queries about Rock Creek Park in Washington. The par
k was a popular attraction for joggers, hikers, and anyone who wanted to escape the concrete jungle.
In the early 2000s it was also popular with rapists.
Police began to suspect that Chandra was either lured to Rock Creek Park by her killer, or she was preyed upon there by a stranger. Either way, the search for Chandra was focused on the park and authorities quickly came to the realization that they were not going to find Chandra alive.
On May 22, 2002, just over a year after she disappeared, the skeletal remains of Chandra Levy were discovered in Rock Creek Park. Since only bones remained of Chandra, valuable clues were missing that could have told the authorities about the manner of her death, or even point the finger toward a specific person if DNA was left behind. Unfortunately, the police were unable to extract any useable DNA from the scene, but an autopsy did reveal one clue. Damage to the hyoid bone in the neck region suggested that Chandra had been strangled, but other than that they learned very little.
The Levy family was devastated to learn that their daughter was dead, but grateful that they had her remains and could give her a proper funeral.
The revelation of the discovery of Chandra Levy’s remains brought the case back into the forefront of the news cycle once more. Political pundits and experts theorized what the location of the remains meant and others suggested that the police were close to making an arrest.
They were all wrong!
In the weeks and months after the discovery of Chandra’s remains, homicide investigators expanded their suspect pool from those close to Chandra, such as Gary Condit, to any known criminal who used a similar method of operation. This new tactic allowed them to focus on a suspect—Ingmar Guandique.
In many ways Guandique was the perfect suspect for this crime. He was an illegal alien from El Salvador and a member of the notorious street gang Mara Salvatrucha, often known as MS-13. Although the gang originated in Los Angeles during the 1980s, it has since spread throughout North and Central America with the Washington, D.C., area being one of their centers of power.
Clearly, Ingmar Guandique was not a nice guy, but being a gang member and illegal alien does not make one a killer.
But those were not the reasons why Guandique fell under police radar during the Chandra Levy investigation. When Chandra’s remains were discovered, Guandique was in jail for raping two women at Rock Creek Park! He was later sentenced to ten years in federal prison for those assaults, which he claimed to investigators were the only women he assaulted in Rock Creek Park.
The investigators were skeptical.
Part of their skepticism stemmed from the circumstances of Guandique’s life: he was a violent gang member in prison for raping two women around the same time and in the very same park where Chandra Levy’s remains were found.
Then there was the testimony of his cellmate.
Guandique’s cellmate, who was also an MS-13 member, told police and later testified in court that the Rock Creek rapist was also Chandra Levy’s killer. The confession seemed quite detailed and accurate, so the police were willing to use it to build their case against Guandique.
For his part, Guandique agreed to take a polygraph test administered by the FBI, which he failed. He then took a second polygraph exam that came back with “inconclusive” results.
Things did not look good for Guandique, but since he was already confined for the rape convictions, there was no rush to charge him with Chandra’s murder.
In the meantime, the media learned of the suspect. The Washington Post, which was essentially the local paper, covered the case from the beginning. When its reporters learned that Guandique was a suspect in Chandra’s murder, a series of stories were published in 2008 that chronicled the case and focused on Guandique as the prime suspect.
The Washington Post series on the Levy case put immense pressure on the Metro Police, who then charged Ingmar Guandique with the murder of Chandra Levy on April 22, 2009.
Perhaps the Levy family would finally get justice for Chandra.
The Trial of Ingmar Guandique
When Guandique’s murder trial finally began in 2010, it had been nearly ten years since Chandra Levy was killed. Outside of the local press, the media attention given to the trial was minimal. Apparently to many in the media, it would have been more interesting and sold more copies if a congressman had been Chandra’s killer rather than a convicted rapist gang member.
But in the courtroom nearly every day were Chandra’s parents. The stress of the case had put several years on both of them, but they were determined to see their daughter’s killer receive justice and they believed whole-heartedly that Guandique was guilty.
Despite the lack of physical evidence linking Guandique to the murder, most people agreed with the Levy family.
And who could blame them?
The prosecution’s star witness was the jailhouse snitch, a man named Armando Morales, who as a member of MS-13 had committed numerous crimes throughout the Washington metro area. Morales testified in court that on May 1, 2001, he and Guandique cruised around Washington looking for people to rob. The two gang members eventually ended up at Rock Creek Park where they spotted Chandra Levy alone—a perfect mark. Morales then testified that he helped Guandique rob Levy, but did not participate in her rape and murder.
Guandique’s defense attorney pointed out that Morales was testifying with the hope that he would receive a reduced sentence and that he therefore should not be believed. The attorney further pointed out that there was no other evidence linking his client to the murder and that he should therefore be acquitted.
The jury disagreed and on November 22, 2010, Ingmar Guandique was convicted of Chandra Levy’s murder.
The Levy family was relieved that they could now move forward with their lives and the police and prosecutors were convinced that the right man would be spending the rest of his life in prison for Chandra’s murder.
But not everyone was convinced that the right man was convicted.
Gladys Witherspoon, who defended Guandique in the 2001 Rock Creek rape cases, thought that the jury convicted her former client solely on emotion.
“I just think they were going to convict anyway,” said Witherspoon shortly after Guandique was convicted of murder. “They felt bad for that woman. She’s sitting in there every day.”
Who would not feel bad for the Levy family?
An Incredible Twist
Once Guandique was convicted of Chandra Levy’s murder and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, he did what most people do who have that much time on their hands and filed an appeal. Guandique’s appeal lawyers quickly learned that not only were there plenty of reasons for their client to receive a new trial, a number of previously unknown facts actually pointed toward Guandique’s innocence.
Since Armando Morales’ testimony is what essentially convicted Guandique, the Rock Creek rapist’s lawyers decided to focus their attention on Morales. They learned that Morales later admitted in a recording to perjury and that he never saw Guandique kill Chandra Levy.
When Morales’ perjury was made public, the government dropped opposition to a new trial for Guandique.
It appeared that Ingmar Guandique would get another chance to prove his innocence in court.
Guandique’s lawyers also learned that there was a witness who potentially heard Chandra being attacked. The “new” witness testified that she heard the scream of a female from the direction of Chandra’s apartment around four thirty am on the last day she was seen alive. This new revelation possibly moved the timetable up on Chandra’s murder and possibly placed the scene of the crime, or at least abduction, at her apartment.
This new revelation, along with the discovery that prosecutors failed to turn over important evidence to the defense during Guandique’s murder trial, resulted in the government dropping the murder charges against Guandique on July 28, 2016. Since he had already served his time for the Rock Creek Park rapes, Guandique was technically a free man, but since he wa
s an illegal alien and a convicted felon, he was turned over to Immigration Customs and Enforcement where he currently faces deportation back to El Salvador.
The Levy family was shocked with the turn of events.
"We all want our truth. I want to make sure we find out the truth. My husband and I hope that justice is found for our family," Susan Levy said. "But even if I get justice, (it) doesn't bring calm back to a family that's been fractured by a horrendous crime like this."
Unfortunately for the Levy family, the police currently have no suspects for their daughter’s murder.
Chapter 9: The Abduction of Colette Aram
The term “random crime” is used a lot to describe a crime where the victim is unknown to the perpetrator. These types of crimes are most common in larger urban areas and often involve muggings and burglaries.
But is the term truly accurate?
Even in most stranger-on-stranger crimes, the victim is carefully vetted. Muggers rarely attack groups and tend to focus on people who they believe have money. The same can be said for burglaries and even sexual assaults. Criminals rarely randomly just decide to commit a crime—they usually do their nefarious research before striking.
We can do as much as possible to protect ourselves from random crimes. We can keep our homes properly lit, make sure to stay away from certain neighborhoods, and try to stay in groups at night, but the unfortunate reality is that if a criminal wants to take advantage of someone, then he or she will probably will.
On October 30, 1983, sixteen-year-old English girl Colette Aram became the victim of one such “random” criminal. Even though the horrific crime took place in broad daylight, there was little she could have done to prevent it. Her abductor meticulously planned to abduct and murder a girl—any girl. Unfortunately for Colette, that girl just happened to be her.
True Crime Stories Volume 4: 12 Shocking True Crime Murder Cases (True Crime Anthology) Page 6