CRIME HUNTER: Murder of D.C. intern Chandra Levy remains an enigma

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“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

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– Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State

And they arrive in droves, like moths to a flame.

Nerdy girls from around the planet are drawn to the corridors of power in Ottawa, Washington and London. To them, the grey-skinned men running their countries are gods exuding animal magnetism.

But in these political sewers lie predators, willing to have sex with one intern before slithering off to the next starry-eyed public policy groupie.

Modesto, Calif. native Chandra Levy was one of these girls. A bookish A-student with a mop of luxuriant curly hair, she embodied the word “keener.”

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Levy moved to Washington, D.C. in the fall of 2000 for an internship at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. She impressed the brass with her skillful handling of the media in the upcoming 2001 execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

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However, the internship went off the rails in April 2001 because her academic eligibility had expired. She told pals she was perplexed why her local congressman, Democrat Gary Condit, did nothing to help her.

Levy grew up the daughter of a wealthy surgeon father. Her parents were described as “super crunchy boomer, granola types.” Her rebellion was an obsession with cops and police work.

She was a fit, outdoorsy girl who loved working out at the gym. She didn’t drink or do drugs and she dressed frugally.

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In the autumn of 2000, Levy and a pal met their local congressman, Gary Condit. She told family and friends the blue dog Democrat looked like Harrison Ford but as commentator Paul Begala once quipped: “Politics is show business for ugly people.”

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Not long after meeting, Levy and the three-decades-older and much-married Condit embarked on a sexual affair. Without naming the politician, Levy gushed to friends about him.

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After her internship imploded in April, Chandra Levy, 23, was returning home to California.

On May 6, 2001, D.C. cops were alerted by her parents that they had not heard from their daughter in five days and that was unusual. Detectives checked hospitals and entered her apartment in posh Dupont Circle.

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary but her father offered up investigators a curious tidbit: Chandra was having an affair with a congressman and he believed the politician in question was Gary Condit.

For the media, the story had it all: A pretty intern, a married congressman and a mystery. I would know, the New York Post sent me to D.C. to cover the story.

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Condit was less than forthcoming with cops and reporters. He was evasive. A friendly detective spilled the beans that the creepy congressman had indeed been engaged in a sexual affair with Levy.

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We began digging up everything we could on Gary Condit. There was the flight attendant, Anne Marie Smith, who was also having an affair with the pervy politico. She told detectives Condit ordered her not to speak to the FBI.

There were rumours that he was into BDSM and had accidentally killed Levy after a rough sex session came off the rails. And the petulant politician refused to take a lie detector test.

A poll revealed 44% of Americans believed Condit had a hand in Levy’s disappearance.

And then, Condit got a break: Terrorists struck New York and Washington on 9/11 and Chandra Levy’s disappearance faded from the headlines as the nation’s focus turned to terror.

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After Levy’s disappearance, investigators searched Rock Creek Park where her computer searches indicated she may have gone for a run. They found nothing.

By the spring of 2002, Gary Condit’s political career was over after he lost the Democratic primary.

More than a year after she was last seen, on May 22, 2002, a man walking his dog in Rock Creek Park discovered skeletal remains. The teeth matched the missing woman’s dental records. In addition, scattered in the area were Levy’s sports bra, sweatshirt, leggings and running shoes.

The medical examiner declared Levy’s death a homicide, adding that how she died would never be known although he suspected she had been strangled to death.

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In September 2001, detectives had been tipped off by a jailbird that a man busted for three rapes in the park was boasting that Gary Condit had paid him $25,000 to murder Chandra Levy.

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Cops were doubtful but the 20-year-old man, El Salvadoran undocumented migrant Ingmar Guandique, became a person of interest. He had failed to show up for work the day Levy vanished and his landlady told investigators his face had been scratched.

He went down on the rapes and the Levy case was headed to cold storage until 2007 when detectives took another look.

On March 5, 2009, reputed MS-13 member Guandique was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Levy.

He pleaded not guilty.

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***

He went on trial on Oct. 18, 2010, nearly a decade after the Levy murder. Condit was called to testify but still would not admit to the affair. An FBI forensics investigator said semen from Levy’s underwear found in her apartment matched Condit’s DNA.

Condit said: “I am not going to respond to that question out of privacy for myself, and Chandra.”

Jailhouse rat Armando Morales said Guandique confessed to murdering Levy while attempting to rob her, adding that he did not rape the intern.

On Nov. 22, 2010, after three days of deliberations, the jury found Guandique guilty of murdering Chandra Levy. But it later emerged that Morales had perjured himself and lied.

Prosecutors dropped the charges and Ingmar Guandique was deported from the U.S. in 2017.

In 2001, one of the FBI’s top cold case investigators interviewed Condit.

“He interviewed Condit for about an hour,” Washington Post reporter Scott Higham told the New York Post in 2011. “He felt that the congressman didn’t care enough about her to kill her.”

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@HunterTOSun

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