Chandra Levy Murder Case
Chandra Levy Murder Case Coming out of the cold
I Overview of the Case
On the 30th of April, 2001, Chandra Levy was seen at the health club located near her apartment in Washington, D.C. Preparing for her return to her home in Modesto, California, she went to the club to cancel her membership as her internship with the Bureau of Prisons had been cur short when Chandras supervisors during her internship at the agency discovered that she had completed her college coursework, thus making her ineligible for her to continue with her internship at the agency (Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., 2010). Levy was supposed to go back home to attend her graduation at the University of California. Robert and Susan Levy, Chandras parents, had tried for a week, spanning from May 1to 6, and after to contact her, called the Metropolitan Police Department and had her reported as missing (Charles Montaldo, 2010).
On May 1, 2001, Levy had spent much of the morning surfing on the Internet, with police stating that the star-crossed Levy had been looking at a map for Kingle Mansion, located at Rock Creek Park. The park had been a popular spot for hikers, bikers and joggers. And that was the last time that there was any contact of Levy. Apart from the police, the Levys contacted their Representative, California Democrat Gary Condit. Chandras last communication with them was the electronic mail regarding the schedule of he flight, to attend her graduation for getting her masters degree in public administration (Turner, 2010).
The murder of the beautiful 24 year-old Congressional intern in 2001 soon became one of the greatest unsolved crimes in the United States (Paul Harris, 2009). In the investigation of the Metropolitan Police, they went to the apartment of the intern, but found no signs that there was any foul play committed in the area. Her personal effects, such as her wallet, credit cards, and her luggage, all packed ready for her flight home, were all in the apartment undisturbed. But the issue took on a more sinister note when it was discovered that Chandra might have been involved in a romantic relationship with the California Congressman, Gary Condit (Montaldo, 2010).
Ironically, Condit donated 10,000 as a reward for information on Chandra, describing the intern as a good friend. On the 16th of May 2001, some news companies had gained possession of an electronic mail message, written by Chandra in December, where she allegedly talked about an unidentified romantic liaison with a man who had tied to Congress. At first the parents of Chandra were unsure of the identity of the man or if the man was Condit, though they remained in the dark on her relationship with Condit. A short time later, Susan Levy, the victims mother, met with Condit and his lawyers, and asked Condit to come out with any information he may have with regards to the disappearance of their daughter (Turner, 2010).
For months on end, the family of Chandra held vigils with the hope that Chandra will come home. They kept her pictures circulating in the media, hoping that news of her whereabouts can be acquired. In the woods that Chandra frequented on her jogging trips, teams combed the area, but did not turn up anything that was related to the disappearance (Montaldo, 2010). On the 25th of July 2001, three sergeants from the Washington Police Department together with more than 20 cadets scoured Glover Road in Rock Creek Park with the hope of finding leads into the disappearance of Chandra (Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno, 2008).
The cadets were under the command of the chief of detectives of the D.C. Police, Commander Jack Barrett. Barrett ordered the cadets to form a grid search of the area, combing 100 yards from the road that wind their ways inside the park. After a weary search in the area, the tired cadets boarded the bus to search out another area of the park. Little did they know that they were so close to the remains of the slain intern. Roughly 80 yards off the Western Ridge Trail near Glover Road, the pair of sunglasses were quietly resting on the ground. Further down, a white Reebok rubber shoe and a black sports pants were turned inside out. Finally there lay the body of Chandra Levy (Horwitz, Higham and Moreno, 2008).
The discovery of the body came on the 22nd of My 2002, as a man who was out taking his dog for a walk in the park and searching for turtles in Rock Creek Park, located near the D.C. apartment of Chandra found some bones and some pieces of clothing. Upon examination of the remains dental records, the Medical Examiners Office determined that the body was that of Chandra Levy. Though they could determine the cause of death of Chandra, they had enough evidence on hand to rule that the death was a homicide (Montaldo, 2010). By that time, 10 months had lapsed, and the evidence that could have pinned her murderer- blood, fiber, or hair, would have all but vanished (Horwitz, Higham and Moreno, 2008).
Detectives searched on the sites that the murder victim had visited earlier in the day with the hope that this could provide some information on the activities that Chandra had planned during the day of her disappearance. A police sergeant with the D.C. police who did not have computer training turned on the blue Sony Vaio of the victim to determine the last searches of the victim on the Internet. Unfortunately, the activity of the officer unwittingly corrupted the search listings of the computer. The mistake by the officer delayed the information on the murder by a month since technicians would need that much time to reconstruct the list of sites that Chandra had visited (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
The Search for a killer
Washington, D.C. law enforcement officials told Susan Levy, the mother of murder victim, 24 year old Congressional intern Chandra Levy, that they are on the verge of arresting a person in connection with the death of her daughter. D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier did not divulge the name of the suspect when she contacted the parents of Chandra. But sources close to the investigation claimed the name of the suspect was Ingmar Guandique, currently serving a 10 year sentence for two counts of assault in the same park that the body of Chandra was discovered in (Carol Cratty, Karen Zucker, Justine Redman and Rachel Streitfeld, 2009).
Guandique was singled out as the culprit in the brutal and cold-blooded murder of Chandra as he was also convicted of the attacks of two female joggers that were assaulted in the time frame of the disappearance of Chandra, from the 1st of May to the 1st of July. Police theorized at this point that Guandique, a day worker and illegal immigrant form El Salvador, attacked the two women at knife point, wrestled them to the ground where he attempted to sexually assault them. When he was arrested for the second assault, Guandique admitted in seeing Chandra at the park. Another piece of evidence that police hoped to sue against Guandique was that Guandique allegedly confessed inside the jail that he had killed Chandra (Alex Altman, 2009). II Presentation of the Evidence
Guandique denied ever seeing Chandra in the park, or ever seeing her at all. He constantly denied any involvement in the death of Chandra, and even boasted of his innocence in the fact of the investigation being conducted by the police (Horwitz, Higham, 2010). After allegedly admitting that he had indeed murdered Levy, Guandique was made to undergo a polygraph test on the informant and Guandique himself. The informant failed the test, while Guandique passed the test, prompting the police to drop Guandique from their list of suspects, even though the administration of the lie detector as an accurate gauge of guilt of the suspect is far from absolute (Altman, 2009). But investigations on the veracity of the testimony of Guandique in regards to being involved in the case was shallow at best (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
In investigating the disappearance of Levy, the Washington Post had conducted its own interview with regards to the case. The paper reported interviewing a United States Park police officer who said that he had shown a picture of the young woman to the suspect, and Guandique admitted to the officer seeing Levy in the park at the time of her disappearance. By the end of the summer, detectives and prosecutors have continued to strengthen their case against the suspect. City prosecutors have convened a grand jury, and a new set of detectives and prosecutors were assigned to the case, immediately setting about the task of interviewing new witnesses and evaluating new pieces of evidence (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
Witnesses statements
Law enforcement officials have since gathered new pieces of evidence, with a team of veteran prosecutors and police detectives who have given new life to the languishing case. In the new affidavit gathered by the team, it was stated that there was another woman who was attacked on the day that Chandra disappeared. The woman averred that the attacker was a man of Hispanic descent, but she was able to escape and left the country on a trip abroad. One year later. The woman saw a photograph of the suspect in a newspaper about the time that he was considered as a suspect in the murder case (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
The two women who were attacked by Guandique were also interviewed by the police. Halle Shilling, who was assaulted by Guandique on the 14th of May and Christy Wiegand, attacked by the suspect on the 1st of July. During the sentencing hearing for the suspect, both of the women testified that they were of the belief that Guandique had intended to kill them. Both of the women were not interviewed by the police until after the Post had published the contents of its own investigation (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
Other witnesses revealed other details that pinned down the suspect in the murder. One of the witnesses interviewed by police told investigators that Guandique had wrote letters that stated that he owned up to the killing of Chandra. When the witness became anxious, he called up Guandique about the details in the letters, recording the phone conversation with the suspect. In the course of the conversation, Guandique affirmed what he had written to the witness about who the suspect referred to as the dead girl (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
Another witness interviewed by the police on November said that Guandique and him had been friends for a number of years, even saying that Guandique had prided himself as a member of the El Salvadoran Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). In the gang, the witness said that Guandique was known in the gang as Chuckie , named after the demoniac doll in the horror movie series, owing to his reputation of killing and mutilating his victims. In the statement of the witness, Guandique stated that he would rape the women as he lay in wait in the vicinity of a dirt path running near the park, tie them and proceed to rape them. Also, Guandique said to the witness that he was with two other men when they saw a female jogger in the park that had Italian features with dark hair (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
Seeking justice for Chandra
After nearly a decade after Chandras disappearance, the man suspected of murdering the young Washington intern was formally charged with first-degree murder. Ingmar Guandique was supposed to appear before the District of Columbia Superior Court for his first appearance with regards to the murder of Levy. The warrant issued a month earlier accuses the suspect of raping and brutally killing the woman in Rock Creek Park in May of 2001. As he arrived aboard a dark colored van, reporters rushed to interview the suspect, but Guandique did not respond to the questions thrown at him by the reporters. As he left the facility an hour and a half later, photographers scrambled to get a shot of the suspect, the tattoo of the MS-13 gang visible on the suspects neck (CBS Broadcasting, 2010).
In the announcement of the United States Attorneys Office, they will consider in convening the grand jury to indict Guandique of the crimes, but did not give a definite time table for the convening. Suspects arrested in the D.C area must be indicted 9 months after they are charged of the crime (CBS, 2010). But lawyers intend to use the fact that none of the dozen witnesses that the prosecution has lined up can actually testify to the act that they saw Guandique attack Chandra in the park nearly a decade ago, with only two of the witnesses linking the suspect directly to the crime. In the past, prosecution teams have secured convictions on the basis of second hand and a preponderance of circumstantial evidence without the benefit of physical evidence (CBS, 2010).
Denial of Justice
In a twist of fate, the judge in charge of the case of Chandra ordered a 10 month delay in the trial of the murderer. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher agreed to postpone the Levy trial to October 4, instead of the original trial date of January 4. This is to give time to Federal prosecutors to amend the charges against Guandique to add on to the first degree murder charges already filed against the suspect. In the first indictment filed against the suspect, the charges were for first degree murder, attempted rape and kidnapping. But under the plan being devised by Federal prosecutors, led by United States Assistant Attorney Fernando Campoamor, they intend to file a superseding indictment by the middle of December. But the prosecution team would not divulge the new details in the new indictment (Michael Doyle, 2009).
Threats to the witnesses have been revealed by the prosecution as instigated by the members of the MS-13 gang, which the suspect is allegedly a member. Some of the correspondence and threats have come in the form of, according to the prosecution, calls from Guandique direct to the members of the witness pool or from the gang cohorts of the suspect in the Salvadoran gang themselves. One of the letters purportedly sent by the group avers that if the particular witness takes the stand to testify, the witness was threatened that the group knows where his was living , an implicit threat that the group will do harm to the family of the witness. Under Federal law, coercing a witness is considered a crime, punishable with 10 years incarceration, and the transmission of the same can get up to 5 years imprisonment for the offender. The new revelations on the threats to the witnesses may be included in the new indictment, charging Guandique with jury tampering, adding that the filing of the new charges against Guandique contributed to the prosecutors decision to have the trial date moved to a later time (Doyle, 2009).
But the disadvantage is being claimed as on the side of the prosecution. Defense attorneys, citing the lack of physical evidence that would directly link Guandique to Chandra, or even an eyewitness testimony of what happened on that fateful day, state that these weaknesses can help strengthen their case for innocence for Guandique. The team that also worked on the 1996 murder of Shaquita Bell, securing a conviction on the case, is also the same group that gathered the evidence for the Chandra. It is interesting to note that in the Bell case, her body was never recovered and there were no eyewitness accounts that linked her killer to the crime (CBS, 2010).
In the aforementioned case, it was proven that Bells ex-beau, Michael Dickerson, also a convicted criminal, had plead guilty to the slaying after the authorities lined the evidence against him, inclusive of ballistic reports, records of past incidents of domestic violence and witnesses that saw the couple arguing. According to former D.C. Federal prosecutor Thomas Di Biase, there are a host of cases that the suspect in the crime were proven guilty though there was a lack of the body of the victim and there were no eyewitnesses to the crime (CBS, 2010). Also, the DNA that was lacking in the evidence proved to be the link in connecting the suspect with the murder victim. In a statement of a law enforcement personnel who had intricate knowledge of the crime, said that the DNA samples gathered were retested and gathered, and the match linked the suspect to the murders (USA Today, 2009).
But the statement did little to calm down the firestorm of criticism that hounded the investigation of the murder of the young intern. At the onset, the investigation had been beset by mistakes by the police in conducting the investigation. Critics point to the time it took the police to locate the corpse of the victim, taking a full year to find the body. Others say that the problem lay with the police centering the issue on the victims romantic link to Congressman Gary Condit, who due to his silence on the matter, lost his seat in 2002 (USA, 2009).
In the March warrant and affidavit, the presence of DNA was not mentioned in the documents, nor were the presence of any pieces of forensic evidence that could link the suspect in the killing, but according to United States Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, though they do not have any physical evidence in their possession, the total weight of the circumstantial pieces of evidence eventually linked Guandique to the case. At the time that the warrant was served, the suspect was serving a 10 year sentence at the Federal Correction Institution-Victor ville, which is a medium security penal facility north of San Bernardino in California, with Federal authorities moving him to the government transfer facility in Oklahoma, then on to Washington for the trial of Levy (CBS, 2010).
Finding Closure
With the impending solution of one of the most sensational cases in modern American history, the news that the man allegedly responsible for the gruesome murder could help in the redemption of the name of one of earlier suspects in the case, California Congressman Representative, Democrat Gary Condit. Condit was romantically linked to the victim before her death. As the police launched a massive manhunt to locate Chandra, Condit suffered under the eyes of speculation that eventually cost him his bid for re-election in his Congressional district. The situation of the young, fresh faced intern being swept off her feet by the married Washington power broker became a symbol of youth open to the whims of the older man. After the discovery of the body of Chandra in 2002, the media circus soon shifted its guns sights on Guandique from that of the embattled congressman (Harris, 2009).
In assuming the role of silence, Condit was contrived to be concealing his involvement in the murder of the young victim. But the defense that Condit pursued was not that of a man with a lot to lose in the affair, but a man who was trying to save his job and more importantly, his marriage. The media firestorm was relentless in the coverage of the incident, only being temporarily displaced by the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001. But the media circus may be harder to satiate than that. Unbound by the accountability bought about by stringent laws on libel as found in countries as the United Kingdom, the American media feasted on the case as the police searched for the body of the murder victim (Harris, 2009).
The issue that the police had taken a year to locate the remains of the victim also gave rise to the circulation, and speculation, on what really happened to the ill-fated congressional intern. As the media became hypnotized by the case, the name of Condit became a byword for the guilt of a person, since that Chandra was younger than the daughter of the congressman when the news that the two were in a romantic tryst and the reputation of Condit as strongly a family man politician left his career in tatters (Harris, 2009). After his ouster from the House, Condit briefly ran a couple of franchises of Baskin-Robbins, and have since filed a number of legal actions to rehabilitate Condits reputation. For the family of Chandra, they were forced into a situation that their daughter was missing, thinking of all what might have happened to he, all under the bright media lights (Altman, 2009).
III Analysis of the Evidence
In analyzing the pieces of evidence that were used and gathered in the case of Chandra, law enforcement officials followed a certain thread of logic, building the case against the suspect according to what the procedures they had been trained to follow. In the opinion of the American psychologist George Kelly, people are scientists in their own right. Not that people are constantly surrounded by laboratory equipment, Kelly was suggesting that for the individual to succeed, people are responsible in the collection of information, understand that set of data and attempt to predict the outcome of those events or data. A part of dealing with these data is good common sense (John Medcof, John Roth, 1979).
How does the assertion of Kelly and the instance of common sense deal with the case of Chandra Levy After understanding the dynamics of the environment around the individual, as the definition of common sense implies, we have to see if that will solve the issues surrounding the case of Levy. In effect, can common sense dispute what is being ingrained in the police officers that investigated the case Can this prove that the conduct of the investigation into the murder was done in scientific and set procedures, or would have thinking out of the box helped in the resolution of the case much faster
In this, what is being asked is that the set logic of the police failed in the early resolution of the case for Chandra Levy. In the examination, and especially in the conduct of the investigation of the case, we should assume that the police followed, even extended, the procedures in conducting the investigation. In Edward de Bonos concept of lateral thinking, the concept involves the setting aside of the traditional train of logic and looking at the issue using non conventional methods. In de Bonos method, he views the issue using two ways of thinking patterns. One is the vertical thinking method, basing on logic and the attendant train of information, and the other is the method being discussed, lateral thinking (CBS Interactive, 2010).
Creative, or lateral, thinking can be defined as any approach to a problem that does not conform to the established standards of thinking or solving an issue. Lateral thinking is the term for a system of looking at a problem to look for new and radical approaches to a certain issue- looking from the sides of the issue rather than from the front, which is common means of looking and solving problems. The concept came not as a result of solving crimes, but as a new way of presenting goods at a shop. The shops in the early 20th century were places where the customer would walk in to the premises, and the store assistant would meet the customer at the counter to ask how they can be of assistance (Paul Sloane, 2003).
Then in the 1920s, Michael Cullen took another view of the store set-up. He hypothesized on the effects of turning the store around, meaning the customer, instead of coming to the counter first, would make the customers shop around for the items that they needed and then come to the counter to pay for the items they purchased. With this act of lateral thinking, Cullen created a new method of selling products to the consumers, the supermarket (Sloane, 2003).
With the definition and concept of lateral thinking in place, we can then proceed in the analysis of the study of the pieces of evidence gathered in the case, and were these examples of lateral thinking as put forth earlier. First to be examined was the location of the primary piece of evidence in the case, the corpse of the victim. As earlier stated, the police were alerted by the parents of the victim, then proceeded to scour the area with some cadets led by police sergeants where the victim might have gone to last, Rock Creek Park (Horwitz, Higham, Moreno, 2008). As the teams combed the area, they eventually missed for a year where the body of the victim was located. By the time that the body of Chandra was finally located, a good ten months after her disappearance, all the probable pieces of incriminating evidence had either been lost or decayed to a degree that they were useless in the resolution of the case (Horwitz, Higham, Moreno, 2008).
From the initial reading, the police did facilitate the search according to the procedures that they were used to. But maybe the reputation of the cases in the park could have an effect on the treatment of the case of the then missing intern. The park, located in the citys quiet 2nd District, are staffed by police officers whose counterparts in the meaner areas of the city call squirrel chasers . The police at the station mainly serve the small neighborhoods of Cleveland Park and Georgetown, with drunks, burglars and small time thieves as the main source of criminality in the area (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
Another serious misstep in the conduct of the police in the investigation was the failure of the police to secure the tapes from the surveillance system in the apartment complex where the victim lived. In the investigation of the Washington Post, the paper harped on this mistake by the police. The tapes could have aided the investigation on the matter of whether Chandra had left the complex alone or with a companion. As police frantically searched for clues on the possible whereabouts of the victim, they clumsily deleted the history of the sites in the laptop, sending them on a week back in their efforts to find the victim (Horwitz, Higham, 2010).
After the costly blunder was rectified, it was discovered that Chandra clicked on the sites for the maps and routes leading to Klingle Mansion, the three level farmhouse that doubles as the headquarters of the park staff. They then theorized that she might be meeting someone in the area , possible choices were friends she had developed in he stay as an intern at the Bureau of Prisons, or possibly her paramour, Gary Condit (Horwitz, Higham, 2010). The police had been criticized in sticking too much attention on Condit, rather than trying to find leads that would have helped move the investigation along in the right direction. Also, the police did not help in holding press conferences, fanning the media firestorm that destroyed Condit and the creation of the various theories and scenarios in the minds of the American public (Harris, 2009).
IV Preliminary Conclusions
As the case of the murder comes to a close, there are several items that can be noted in the conduct, policy and eventual resolution of the case of Chandra Levy. For one, the police followed steps, true to the training of gathering information, understanding the data as it arrives, and with the processed information, attempt to reconstruct what transpired on that day that led to the death of the victim. That is investigation for the police. But the question posed is in the analysis of the data, whether they used vertical thinking methods, basing their decisions on the logical conclusion of the evidence that they gathered, or did they use creative methods in the analysis, processing and prediction of the desired results in the investigation.
In the opinion of the defense lawyers of Guandique, the investigation of the case of Chandra were marred by flaws in the conduct of the case. In the information released by Santha Sonenberg and Maria Hawilo, Guandiques lead defense counsels, none of the witnesses that will take the stand for the prosecution have names, or are not identified, though the police have given general descriptions as to their identity. One of the witnesses is presumed to be the former girlfriend of the accused, who will testify that she and the accused constantly argued, and that the accused was given to fits of violence towards her, hitting her often and grabbing her, even going to the extent that the suspect bit her (CBS, 2010).
In the action of the witnesses being interviewed, the police even went to the extent of apologizing to one of the witnesses, Shilling, that they had taken too much time before even contacting her to get her statement on the crime that Guandique was convicted of. The police had assured the victim that their efforts are now concentrated on Guandique. Even the lawyers for the initial suspect, Gary Condit, blasted the media for their fixation on the congressman had caused needless delays and irreparable harm and pain to the families involved in the case, both the Condits and the Levys (Horwitz, Higham, 2010)V Recommendations for Further Action
In his speech to mark the 6th anniversary of the brutal September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, President George W. Bush reiterated his call to affirm the resolve of the multi nation against the threat. In the Washington speech, Bush said(Julian Borger, Ian Black, Michael White and Ewen MacAskill, 2002)
Inaction is not an option (p.1)
In the world of business, the need for lateral thinking must be focused on change. The quote of Bush on the need for action and that the option of not doing anything to change is ultimately not even a viable choice (Sloane, 2003). In the case of the murdered Chandra Levy, the polices situation could have been summarized into the answer of the clerk at the front desk of Chandras apartment complex he did not know. The attitude resulted in the case to gather dust for a year, before any concrete steps were taken. The police must therefore try to train itself in looking at crimes in other ways than from straight down, and observe the data and analyze the same in other ways. This could lead to a more creative thinking law enforcement agency, innovative and efficient in the manner that is handles criminality in the future.
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