Chandra Levy Part III: The Condit Scandal

Transcript

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Welcome to the murder book. I'm your host, Cara, and this is another episode in which we are taking a look at the Chandra Levy case from 2001. Let's begin. In Gary Condit's office in Washington DC, there were no photos of handshakes with the great leaders of the world or any pictures of his wife and two kids. There were only close-up shots of Condit himself. Referred to as Mr. Blowdry on Capitol Hill, the man was fastidious about his appearance. As a teen, he had dreamed of looking like James Dean. Over time, his role model had morphed into John F. Kennedy. He was young, well established in his district, nicked that was nicknamed Condit Country, and he knew how to make friends in the Capitol on both sides of the aisle. In short, Gary Condit has his eye on the presidency. Yet, unlike Kennedy, Condit was not from a privilege or political family. He was the son of a Baptist preacher from Oklahoma. Growing up in the Condit household, there was no drinking, no smoking, not even dancing. All three Condit

Welcome To The Murder Book

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sons worked the oil fields in the summer and were expected in church four times a week. Of course, young Gary did the exact opposite. As a rowdy teenager, his love of partying and fast cars repeatedly

Gary Condit’s Carefully Built Image

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got him in trouble with the cops. His wild years came to an end in high school when he fell in love with Caroline Berry, a well behaved petite blonde and the daughter of a respected middle class business owner, and she convinced him to stop drinking. On January 18, 1967, at the age of 18, they said I do in a discreet ceremony without any guests. There are two likely reasons for this. First, Gary told City Hall he was twenty five to avoid having to ask for his father's permission to marry. Second, Carolyn would give birth to the first child exactly six months later. So the marriage was likely a bit rushed. The couple moved to California right after Chad's birth following Gary's parents. This took them further away from Carolyn's parents, who disapproved of the union. A baby girl, Katie, was born several years later. Gary entered politics through his work to oppose the Vietnam War. At 26, he became the youngest mayor in the history of Ceres, a small city right next to Modesto. In 1989, when Tony Coelho, the district representative and the House Majority Whip, re-signed in the wake of a financial scandal, Condit jumped on the occasion and against all odds, won the vacant seat. As it turned out, he was a natural politician. Comfortable in public, polite with all ladies, and charming. He quickly understood this little corner of California that was geographically close to major progressive cities, but far removed ideologically. Inland, people mostly care about agriculture, and that suited Condit, a conservative Democrat, just fine. In 1994, he and others founded the Blue Dogs, a group of Democrats aligned with Republicans. Condit, who was re-elected six times, voted against the wars in Iraq and Kosovo, like all Democrats, but also bocked his party to vote in favor of the death penalty, mandatory prayer in schools, and releasing the identities of AIDS patients. In 1998, he vehemently condemned Bill Clinton's relationship with Moninga Lewinsky. In the spring of 2001, Condit must have regretted those words. This time he was embroiled in a sex scandal in a potential criminal investigation. His life had seemed so perfect, but now, layer by layer, his lights were beginning to disintegrate, allowing the truth to show through. The congressman was not who he claimed to be. After Linda Samsky came forward and shared the details of his affair with Chandra, another mistress surfaced. This came as a surprise. Flight attendant Anne Marie Smith, aged 39, had been having an affair with Condit for almost a year. They had first crossed path on a flight from Washington to San Francisco and since then had been meeting in hotels and at his condominium in Adams, Morgan. Smith knew Condit was married and didn't ask him for anything. He would make it clear that he would never leave Carolyn and confided that his wife was very ill. Smith understood it to be some kind of serious brain problem. She had not really followed the news about Chandra Levy's disappearance, so it wasn't until May 17 that she connected the dots when Condit called to say that he was in trouble and might have to disappear for a while. That night Smith asked Condit if he had actually had a relationship with the young intern, to which Condit responded that he couldn't believe she was asking him these types of questions. Smith

Mistresses Surface And The FBI Listens

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read between the lines, and when she looked into the Chandra drama, she recognized the hallmarks of the strange relationship she had had with Condit for the past year. The secrecy, the answering machine with the elevator music. On June 1st, concerned for her safety, Smith contacted the FBI. In fact, the FBI was already aware of her involvement in the story because two weeks earlier, a few agents had heard from yet another one of Condit's mistresses. So yes, they were all ears. Jolene Argentini had contacted the FBI as soon as she had read about the affair between the missing DuPont Circle Girl and Gary Condit. At first, she had refused to give them her name, so the agents called her Janet. When she told them her story, it was clear why she wanted to remain anonymous. In 1992, when Janet was a 22-year-old student, she had dated Mike Dayton, one of Condit's aides. One evening, the three of them had even had dinner together, but Janet promptly forgot about it. A year later, she and Dayton were no longer in a relationship when he asked if she could do him a favor. At the time, she was in school in Los Angeles and Dayton was hoping she could give the congressman a ride to an event in town. Despite the 22-year age gap, Janet and Condit started a relationship that would last three years. During this time, he often paid for her fights of sorry, flights to Washington so that they could spend time together. And after Janet graduated, Condit offered her a job in his office on Capitol Hill and had her live in his apartment. Like the other affairs, the relationship was all secrecy and softfuge, especially since Janet had to lie to her colleagues. Condit was also a jealous and manipulative lover. When Janet broke down in tears at the office one day, upset over their unhealthy relationship, he made her promise to say that she was just sad about a breakup. Eventually Janet reached her limit when Katie Condit, or Katie Condit, came to town and the two women became friends. The guilt was overwhelming. She broke things off with Condit, quit her job, and moved back to the West Coast where she went into advertising. But Condit wasn't ready to let go. Two weeks later he flew to San Francisco to see Janet. In the end the affair lasted for another year and a half until Janet met her future husband and found the strength to leave Condit for good. Again, Condit had to have the last word. Three years later, while visiting San Francisco, he pushed Janet to meet with him at Starbucks. Sitting across the table, he looked her dead in the eye and criticized her new life, her new job, her new husband. He told her that soon she would grow tired of her husband, and then she would come crawling, and she would beg Condit to take her back. That was the last time they spoke. Janet's story did not stay anonymously tucked away in FBI files. On July 10th, a few hours before police searched his condominium in Adams Morgan, Condit was spotted by a witness who watched him walk up to a public garbage can and push a small package deep into the bin. Intrigued, the passerby took a look at the package. It was a box for a luxury watch, attack hour, and investigators were able to determine that Janet had given it to him more than seven years before. Now, in Washington nearly everyone had their own story about Congressman Condit, but one person knew more than the rest. Vincent Flamini had been Condit's driver, friend, and bodyguard for nearly a decade. Ever since he was questioned by the FBI, Flamini had been having a field day with the media. According to him, Condit had been cheating on his wife since high school, had four separate phones to manage his affairs, told some of the women that his life was seriously ill and was obs that his wife was seriously ill and that he was obsessed with sex. And Flamini knew Janet well. He had driven the couple over San Francisco. He even claimed that his main job, in addition to the usual driver responsibilities, was to lie to Mrs. Condit. Although Flamini swore to anyone who would listen that he believed Condit was no assassin, just a fickle man, the congressman's reputation had become utterly unsalvageable. The tabloid smelled blood in the water. Condit was a motorcycle buff and was known to ride a Harley Davidson when he was back in his home state. It turned out he was also friends with some members of the Health Angels in the area.

Rumors Spiral Into Conspiracy Theories

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And of course, these news sent the rumor mill into overdrive. Soon the theories went a step further, suggesting Condit had rough bondage sex with other bikers, he was gay or bisexual, depending on the rumors, and the predilection had something to do with Chandra's disappearance. These new tales about his sex life stemmed from a statement made by Anne-Marie Smith's lawyer who claimed that her client had seen neckties knotted together underneath Condit's bed, as if someone had been tied up. Smith reportedly also mentioned that he had specific sexual fantasies. On July 23rd, the now defunct Aheadnews.com reported that a cleaning person in the Adams Morgan building who had been asked to clean the congressman's apartment twice between May 2nd and May 5th had discovered a closet full of sex toys used for domination play. The National Enquirer reported that another conduct mistress had heard him say he had a team ready to deal with a body if needed. And thus, like all criminal investigations involving an illicit affair, the Chandra drama led to the inevitable question. Had Chandra died during sex play gone wrong? The question got the public all worked up, but no one would push the theory further than John Le Boutillier. He had briefly been a congressman and was on his way to becoming a full-fledged conspiracy theorist when he wrote a 2001 Newsmax article entitled Congressman Gary Condit: Gays, Bisexuals, and Murder. The text wasn't online for long as the site quickly took it down, fearing a lawsuit, but it was published just long enough to make its way email by email through Capitol Hill. In the article, Le Boutoulier laid out his theory, based on a story from an anonymous source to whom he attributed significant credit. He claimed Gabby Condit had a habit of hiring prostitutes with a preference for Caribbean men who were into motorcycles and leather. Condit had allegedly asked one of these men to pick Chandra up at a place on his motorcycle, then kill her, and disappeared into his home country. Le Boutelier ended the article with buckle your seatbelts, things are going to explode soon. And this was simply too much for the good people of Modesto. Condit country then turned against its own congressman. At the 4th of July parade, protesters with placards demanded that Condet cooperate with the police to help find Chandra. In an editorial, the Modesto B officially withdrew its endorsement of Condit. The media pressure was so intense that the police had no choice but to take a closer look at the congressman. After first questioning him discreetly at his home on May 15th, then once again on June 22nd, investigators conducted a search of the Adams Morgan condominium on July 10th. Condit and his lawyer lowerwith were both present for the search, which yielded nothing. Up until this point, Condit had been particularly cooperative. Although he had submitted a DNA sample as requested by investigators, he had refused to take a polygraph test at the police station, instead, arranging to have a private test done with his lawyer and an examiner of his choosing. This made law enforcement furious. Condit was not unofficially charged with a crime, and therefore they had no legal obligation to comply with their requests. So over the month of July, however, this his attitude began to change, if only a little. During his third interrogation, Condit finally admitted to having an affair with Chandra. Although the revelation was immediately leaked to the press, Condit never reiterated the statement publicly.

Police Pressure, Alibis, And Hidden DNA

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But that didn't matter because the DNA he provided told the story for him when the police found his sperm on some of Chandra's underwear collected from her apartment. Strangely, that's the only fact in the entire investigation that didn't end up being leaked. The police also asked Conda to provide a complete list of his whereabouts in late April and early May. This was his opportunity to present what he believed to be solid alibis. On April 29, 2001, he had attended a luncheon at the White House to celebrate the first hundred days of George W. Bush's presidency. He had just bucked his party to vote in favor of the president's budget plan. In exchange, Condit had been granted a few minutes of Bush's time to talk about the energy problems in his region and a promised meeting with Vice President Sheeny, which did eventually happen on May 1st, the day Chandra disappeared. It was held between 12:30 and 1.15 p.m. around the time Chandra locked off the internet. The Vice President's office did not corroborate the timeline right away, likely in no hurry to have Sheni's name tied to this affair. Eventually they did confirm that the meeting had occurred, although their schedules show a slightly shorter conversation. So what did Conda do next? His staff mentioned an appointment with a doctor at about 5 p.m. or maybe it was at 6 p.m. But no one could say who the doctor was. Conda told investigators he remembered going back to his office afterward and possibly to the gym as well. Eventually he gave them a list drawn up to his by his aides, and included an interview at Trice Coffee House with an ABC journalist who later said that the meeting had actually taken place on May 2nd the following day. The truth in all, this is that Condit was just getting his dates mixed up. On May 1st, he had in fact spent the rest of the day in Congress where he had voted twice. Then he would spend the evening at home with his wife. On July 26, FBI agent Brad Garrett, who had just been assigned to the case, asked to see Condit again as a person close to Chandra. He didn't think the congressman was guilty. There was no clear evidence incriminating him. He just wanted to go over the case from the beginning to try to understand Chandra's personality. Condit was cooperative and told Garrett that Chandra was a vegetarian, took vitamins, stayed away from drugs, wasn't particularly interested in nice clothes and fashion, and that was about it. By the time Garrett left the interview, he was fairly certain of one thing. Based on the way the congressman talked about Chandra, Condit simply didn't care enough about Chandra to kill her. Still, it appeared that he was one of the last people to have seen her, possibly the last person and to have spoken to her before her disappearance. That's why when Bob and Susan Levy flew back to DC for a second time at the end of June, they demanded that he meet with them. This wasn't the first time the Levy parents were contacting Condit directly. When they were looking for their daughter on May 6th, before even notifying the police, it was his number they have seen on Chandra's phone bills. At first, they couldn't understand why the number never rang. Why just play a line of elevator music? Then as they have moved down a list of numbers, they came across the number for Gabby Condit's congressional office. Susan Levy had felt her stomach turn. Were her worst fears coming true? Contrary to what she had initially told the press, Chandra's mother knew her daughter was seeing Gabby Condit. She knew because her instincts told her so, and because Modesto was a small town. We'll be right back. A few months before Chandra's disappearance, Susan Levy was aware that her daughter was dating someone in Washington. But she still didn't know who he was. That day she was in the backyard feeding the horses and chatting with Otis Thomas, a local Pentecostal minister

The Levys Confront Condit Directly

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who sometimes picked up odd jobs as a gardener. And she said that they were talking about their kids, and she told him that Chandra was in DC, and we were kind of worried about them. And this is something that he recall she recalled later. Thomas was no stranger to worrying about his own daughter and confided that his daughter, who was now 25, had been a relationship with Condit when she was only 18. And Susan recalls the following quote: His daughter told him that Condit wanted her to come to parties with his friends, and it was more than a just a party. It was borderline prostitution. When Thomas's daughter ended her relationship with Condit, she was concerned for her safety. She had been told to keep her mouth shut and she left town afraid. Standing in the yard, Susan worried about her own daughter. What if Chandra's secret friend was in fact Condit, as she had suspected? The man had to be married, otherwise, why bother? With all the secrecy. He was probably old. What else could explain the fact that Chandra was suddenly listening to Frank Sinatra? And if he was Famodesto, it would make even more sense. Susan called Chandra and told her everything. At first, Chandra was surprised Susan had figured it out, then she told her mother to mind her own business. When they saw each other again for her birthday in mid-April, Chandra reassured Susan, saying she had talked to Condit about it and he had explained it all. Everything was okay. But on May 6, Susan felt that everything was very much not okay. She and Bob looked up the Condit family's number in the phone book. They initially got Carolyn on the line, but Gabby was quick to call back. Bob explained that his daughter had disappeared and asked if Condit had any information that could help. When Condit responded that he barely knew Chandra, Susan yanked the phone out of Bob's hand and asked point blank whether he was having an affair with her daughter, and Condit's answer was no. The meeting between Chandra's parents and her lover occurred on June 21st at the Jefferson Hotel. By this time, Bob and Susan knew for a fact that Condit had lied when they called his home a month and a half earlier. So what else could he be hiding? The interview was planned and conducted under the strict supervision of Condit's lawyer. Meanwhile, Susan had worked with their family lawyer Billy Martin to craft clear and concise questions that could ask the man she deemed to be suspect number one. At the last minute, Buck pulled out. He didn't have the strength to go through with it. So Susan would be facing Condit alone. When she arrived, she refused to shake his hand. The ensuing meeting was both very brief and very intense. Susan had questions to ask. She wanted answers. When did you first meet Chandra? When was the last time you saw her? Do you have any information about where she is now? Susan Levy can barely recall what little Condit told her. He knew nothing. He was sorry. After just 15 minutes, when they got up to leave, Condit asked Susan if he could give her a hug. And Susan said absolutely not. The pressure continued to build all summer long until it became unbearable. There were not enough sharks in the ocean to tear the public's attention away from the Chandra Leaving and Condit affair. Eventually, Condit's team told him what he was hoping he would never hear. It was time to make a media appearance. He would be interviewed by ABC's Connie Chung. On April 23rd, 2001, nearly 24 million Americans tuned in. The interview was held in a small beige living room overlooking a garden. Anyone who watched it can tell you the following 30 minutes were painfully long. Americans were expecting an apology from a man who felt bad about cheating on his wife. Instead, Condit just beat around the bush. He repeatedly dodged Chung's question, going on about his marriage and alluding to mistakes he had made over the years. He also denied hindering the investigation, even though the police chief had claimed quite the opposite at a recent press conference. Chung tightened the device and kept the questions coming. And when it was finally over, his reputation was in even worse shape. Six days later, Maria Marina Ain, Condit's PR

Connie Chung Interview And Public Backlash

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person, resigned. On September 11, 2001, Bob and Susan Levy were about to fly to Chicago to be interviewed on a TV show, the Ofra Winfrey Show. Afterward, they would fly to New York for the Today Show. But shortly after 9 a.m., the Levi's heard a ruckus out front. They peeked through the curtains that had been drawn for months and watched as dozens of journalists who had long been parked in the driveway packed up their things in a hurry. Within just a few minutes, the horde was gone. The only noise was now the squeal of tires as the trucks peeled out. Meanwhile, the same thing was happening in front of Samske's home in Chesapeake City and in front of Condit's apartment in Washington, D.C. At 8 46 that morning, the entire world came to a standstill. The Chandra drama, the media frenzy, the summer of the shark, the rumors to search America's as Americans knew it. That morning, American Airlines Flight 11 collided with the North Tower of the World Trade Center. And thoughts of Chandra were obliterated by the smoke that billowed out from the towers, by the dust that stuck to the faces of New Yorkers, by the fire that raged

9/11 Suddenly Erases The Story

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in the heart of the nation. In Washington, journalist Michael Doyle left the Pentagon and was walking home from work. It must have been about 10 a.m. when he turned around to look back at the Pentagon. American Airlines Flight 77 had just crashed into the west side of the building. Doyle watched as thick black smoke began to fill the clear, the clear sky. On the sidewalk, he bumped into one of Condit's present managers, Randy Groves, who was standing by his bike, stuck still, his face upturned. For a few seconds they were silent. And then Groves turned to Doyle and said, Today is Gary Condit's lucky day. Philip Palmer, a 43-year-old furniture maker from DC's wealthy suburbs, was walking his dog Paco in Rock Creek Park. And we're talking about May 2002. On this day, America was a very different place than it had been eight months earlier. On the streets of DC, armed soldiers stood guard on every street corner on smiling. The air smelled of love and sulfur. For Americans, 9-11 was a reminder that life is short. So for because there was a a siege had begun in a war too. It was happening in a faraway place, but you could feel it all around. You could see it in rising paranoia and sideline glances in the subway, and dogs sniffing passerby and luggage. Studies have shown that a quarter of Americans were thinking about it, what happened on September 11 every day. A quarter of DC residents were having trouble sleeping, torn between anger and fear. In this moment of uncertainty, patriotic feelings provided a kind of lifeline for flandering

A Dog Walk Leads To Remains

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people. More than 60% of Americans say they felt more patriotic than before the attacks. There were flags and stickers everywhere. But soon the unity seen in the first few months would begin to crack. In the Overall Office, the Hawks, a small group of neoconservative interventionists, were almost done convincing President Bush that a war in Iraq was necessary. In addition to the war already underway in Afghanistan. Philip Parmer was quite familiar with Rock Creek Park. And what it looked like a regular urban park on a map, it was in fact a forest. Spanning 1,750 acres, the park featured winding walking paths as well as roads, bridges, sports fields, a zoo, an amphitheater, and a golf course. It was a long stretch of green space that straddled a state line and highlighted the divide between social classes. To the west, the park bumped up against affluent neighborhoods, embassies, and Georgetown University. To the south were museums and Capitol Hill. The eastern border was flanked by predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods, plague by truck trafficking and live with weapons. When you step into Rock Creek Park through one of the many paths along the perimeter, silence could set in within a few minutes, probably seconds. And while two million visitors came to the park every year, you could quickly feel quite alone in there. On May 22nd, 2002, that suited Philip Palmer was just fine. He had been collecting deer andlers and animal bones since he was a kid. So Palmer often wandered off trails to find remains when his when he went out walking his dog. Sometimes he made his way down steep slopes, holding onto trees that would gently bend under his weight. That morning it was nearly 10 AM when he spotted a piece of red fabric in the distance. He didn't think much about it. A little further down, Paco took off and ran into a small ravine. Parmer followed and noticed rounded mass on the ground that looked like a turtle shell. As he bent down to get a closer look, he realized he was looking at a human skull. His breathing became short and his pose raced, but Parma didn't want to mess this up. He threw Paco's blue leash over a branch by the skull to mark the spot and then hung his sweatshirt from a tree higher up the hill. He scrambled across a creek and walked up until he hit a road. And then with a cell phone borrowed from a construction worker, Parmer Cole 911. In Modesto, Bob and Susan Levy answered Oprah's questions from their living room. Three weeks after the first anniversary of Chandra's disappearance, they were hoping to get people talking about the case again, as the story had come to a standstill after 9 11. At 8 30 AM California time, the interview had just ended when the phone rang. Susan picked up. The officer used the word might. Might be Chandra. Not is Chandra. Not there's a chance it could be Chandra, he said might. And of course Susan collapsed in the hallway. Meanwhile, Michael Doyle, the reporter from the Modesto Bee, jumped into a taxi bound for Rock Creek Park. This was exactly the way he had imagined it would go down. Just a normal day, a day when he wasn't thinking about the Levy case at all. Just a regular day, then it fell into his lap. When he got there, the press was already gathering. And units from several different departments were sent to the scope of the scene. And Collins rushed over. Others joined him, and by the time Dole got to the park, he saw the hallmarks of a serious case. The police chief was there with his second in command as well as all the detectives working the Levy case. A TV presenter pulled up in a limo scene. With this was this what the world after 9-11 looked like. And then all it took was one dead body, and everything was back on track. Even on May 22nd, when there was a suspected bomb threat on the Brooklyn Bridge, TV and radio stations covered searching, but the body found in Rock Creek Park was what people were looking at. Just before 3 p.m., the phone rang again at the Levy residence. Susan and Bob don't remember which of them picked up, but it was their attorney, Billy Martin. There was no more mite. The stelato remains in the park were Chandra's. Chandra's skull was found somewhere between Broad Branch Road Northwest, which runs along the park, and Picnic Grove 18 on the Western Ridge Trail. From Broad Branch Road Northwest, you have to climb up a ravine to get to the crime scene. If you were brave and for and fit enough to claw your way through the dense woods to access the site from the Western Ridge Trail, you would have to upsell down a steep embankment and embankment with a precipitous 45 degree gradient in some places. Law enforcement found several bones, black underwear turned inside out, a red bra, cassette player, black leggings also turned inside out and knotted at the ends. Grey t-shirt with property of USC Athletics printed on the front. A little higher, closer to the hiking trail, they spotted sunglasses. Scattered throughout the surrounding area were headphones and white rebooks. It was hard to tell the difference between what could be a critical crime scene and what might have

The Crime Scene In Rock Creek

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just been garbage left behind by passerby or carried into the woods by the wind. There were pantyholes, a condom wrapper, beer cans, lipstick, Baskin Robins ice cream wrapper. Dr. Jonathan Arden, the medical examiner for the Metropolitan Police Department, also known as the Metro PD or the DC police, left with a scold and was able to identify Chandra using her dental records. The rest of his work would prove to be far more complex. Chandra's body had likely been there for almost 13 months and was fully decomposed. The bones had been scattered throughout the area, the bone and likely moved by animals and the elements. On May 28th, Dr. Arden announced that he was unable to determine the cause of death. There was no evidence of gunshot or stamp wounds on the remains. And although the skull was fractured, it appeared that the fracture had occurred post mortem, because the bone showed no discoloration due to blood. Damage to the victim's hired small bone above the larynx indicated that she was possibly strangled. However, the bone was not fractured. And in a at a press conference, Dr. Arden acknowledged that it was possible that he would never know specifically how she died, and that it's also impossible to know if Chandra was sexually assaulted or if she had consensual sex in the final hours before her death. No evidence like hair, clothing fibers, or blood was ever found. In California, the Lady Parents and Judy Smith from the family's communications team organized a memorial service at the Modesto City Hall. Bob and Susan wanted something simple. Flowers poured in from all around the world. Her brother Adam stood up to say a few words, as did Posamski Chandra's uncle and friend, her godmother Bob and Susan, entered through a side door to avoid the hundred and so eager journalists. Without anyone noticing, Anne Marie Smith sat a few rows behind them. Condit's former mistress wanted to pay her respects to this young woman she had never met, but to whom she now feels quite close. The Levi's would have to wait another year for DC investigators to release Chandra's remains. The burial was held at Lakewood Cemetery, seven miles outside Modesto. Chandra had laid to rest, next to her paternal grandparents, and all three gravestones here obey, I would say, the same inscription. We are not here. Because none of them are really there, they are all in our hearts, according

Autopsy Limits And Unanswered Questions

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to Bob. No one wanted to bring up that fateful day. But one question still haunted every person who had come to pay the respects to Chandra was in July 2001 when in three police DC police sergeants, 28 cadets, and dozens of dogs searched Rock Creek Park, but had they not found their body or her body? So the answer is both sad and simple. DC Police Chief Charles Ramsey had ordered his men to search the park 100 yards from the roads and the trails run through the park. But Commander Jack Barrett, tasked with leading the search, either did not hear or misunderstood the second part of this sentence. So his team canvassed the area within 100 yards of only the roads. A year later, Chandra's body was found 79 yards from a hiking trail. And that's the part of a long list of mistakes made by the police. The blunders began in the first days following Chandra's disappearance. After Bob's call, police officers went to the Newport building for the fourth time on May 6th. They returned on May 7th and May 8. And on May 10th, they filed a report about their findings in the apartment. No one thought to ask for recordings from the building surveillance cameras, and yet the newport was a secure building with a garden on duty 24-7 and 13 cameras recording every person entering and leaving the building. All security tapes were overwritten after seven days. So on May 8th, the May 1st recordings were erased. No one was ever able to watch them. What time had Chandra left her apartment? Did she look like she was in a hurry? Was she alone? What was she wearing? These questions for well forever remained unanswered. Another important point is that when police enforcement first entered Chandra's apartment, one sergeant decided to take a closer look at her computer and accidentally caused a hard drive crash. Now, no one could see her search history or read email. The computer had to be let had to be seen to the FBI, which hired a private lab to take care of it. So the computer data, a critical piece of evidence in cases like wouldn't be recovered for two more months. That's why the first search of Rock Creek Park didn't happen on July 20th when Metro. The police department finally learned

Why The First Search Failed

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that Shandra had been on several websites about the pack and the the trails, and however, investigators initially focused only on one of the park buildings, the the Klingo mission mansion. It was built in the 19th century, long used as as the park's administrative headquarters. This is because Chandra had accessed the Rock Creek Park website via Washington Space post link on that brought her to a page about the the Klingo mansion. And one in quite some time when by before someone realized the URL may have not been Chandra's intended landing page, but rather a home page she had used to find a map of the park and its trail. So in one at one point, a small amount of DNA briefly gave investigators hope. It was found on Chandra's bra and was swiftly analyzed. But this turned out to be just another dead end when the DNA matched an employee on the forensics team who had accidentally touched the fabric. As the Washington Post reported at the time, the Metropolitan Police Department was no shining example in the profession. In fact, it was notoriously one of the most corrupt in the country in the 1980s and 1990s. And it wasn't the most effective either. In 1991, just two years before Chandra's disappearance, two-thirds of the city murders had gone unsolved. The mark was to no better hopes. Hundreds of bodies stored there had yet to be examined. Paper case files were never digitized. The lab that analyzed samples have no ventilation and identified skeletal remains sat abandoned in boxes. As for Dr. Jonathan Arden, the man who performed Chandri's autopsy and watch, I should say it stated that he couldn't draw any conclusions from her bones,

Evidence Mistakes And Department Dysfunction

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so he was forced to resign from his position in 2003 when five of his own employees accused him of sexual harassment and toxic management practices. A few months of audit later determined that Dumor was unable to fulfill even its most basic duties. The police were under immense pressure, and it didn't take long for them to start turning against each other. Jack Barrett, the man leading the Levy investigation, was not a fan of police chief Charles Ramsey and his second in command, Terence Gaynor. In 2001, Barrett had just left the FBI to start a career with DC's Metropolitan Police Department. He was used to tough investigations after working in drug trafficking cases and taking in organized crime, but he was unaccustomed to working with cops who blabbed two journalists. Meanwhile, Ramsey and Gaynor seemed to be holding daily news conferences. Since the beginning of the investigation, countless confidential details had been leaked to the press, and Barrett was beginning to run out of patience. Where were the leaks coming from? Who was talking to the press? This was unacceptable behavior. And after a few months, Barrett asked his detectives not to share their latest discoveries with him because when they did, he had to write a report for his bosses, and this new information inevitably would find its way to the press. So Gaynor and Barrett also had different opinions about where the investigation was headed. While Gaynor wanted to dig into the conduct lead, Barrett was hoping to broaden his horizon. The two prosecutors assigned to the case, Barbara Kitay and Heidi Passichau, they tended to agree with Gaynor and urged investigators to focus on leads related to the congressman, ignoring the rest. Kitey especially wanted to put pressure on Condit. And when she interrogated Caroline Condit and later Gary Condit with the police present, she was tough. Despite their different approaches, Kite shared Barrett's aversion to Leaks and made her strengths known. Her stance was that when just one day after the interrogation in which Condit admired, oh admitted, I would say, to the affair, the news was on the front page of the Washington Post and Kite asked to be taking off the case. So now the Levy family was starting to wonder if they couldn't count on law enforcement, who could they turn to? Thank you for listening to the murder book. Have a great week.