Scapegoat: Guandique did not murder Chandra

A bizarre mystery

February 26, 2009

Editorial
nsnews staff

Renewed talk about arresting Ingmar Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador is absolutely farcical. Clearly he is a disturbed man known to assault joggers but he was cleared by police years ago. He even passed a lie detector test and the complete lack of similarity between his crimes and the Levy case make him an unlikely suspect.

Lunatic Fringe Activists murdered Chandra Levy because they wanted to destroy Gary Condit's political career.

When the media discovered that Chandra Levy was sleeping with Condit, the tabloids went after Chandra Levy but she was an intensely private person who did not want to sacrifice her career for a kiss-and-tell story the way that Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg essentially trashed the respectability out of Monica Lewisky's life.

Chandra Levy was an idealistic and ambitious young woman, she was not about to admit an affair with Gary Condit -her private life was her own business as far as she was concerned, and the attempt to use her the way that Monica was used was invariably apt to go terribly wrong.

When Levy's parents went on Oprah to plead for her return, the professional killers dumped her body at Rock Creek Park to make the gullible authorities think that it was a random killing. They made sure that the body wasn't discovered until it was "forensically useless" and that was certainly not the work of a lone nut.

When the media refused to let the story die, the murderers determined that they had to change the news cycle to get the heat off their backs -so they kidnapped Laci Peterson -another Modesto California target. Like Chandra Levy, her body was not discovered until it was forensically useless as well -same M.O.

Gary Condit inadvertently exposed the motivation that claimed the life of Chandra Levy in the following afterword to his new book: If I Could Speak To Chandra’s Killer...

On many sorrow-filled nights, I have yearned to speak to Chandra’s murderer face to face. I’m not sure I ever will, but if I did, I imagine I would say something like this:

I don’t suppose a man like you understands the joy that comes from real love or the pain that flows from loss. But I wish you did. I wish you could understand what I feel. Could appreciate the damage you’ve done. The pain you’ve caused.

Because I live every day with the result of your senseless violence. You did more than just commit murder. You stole something from us. Something beautiful and full of promise. That’s right. You stole my political future. When I think of all the people deprived of my brilliant leadership. And all the interns I never had the chance to have sex with. Well, it just makes me sick.

You miserable Bastard. No one even knew about the affair until you had to go and commit your stupid murder. And even then, an affair? That’s not fatal. I could have overcome that. I have an excellent handshake and when I remember people’s names at fundraisers they swear they’ve been touched by the ghost of JFK himself. But suspicion of murder? That was just too damn much.

You left me with nothing, except my good name. Well, nothing except the opportunity to earn a lot of cash on a book deal at least."

Don't blame Gary Condit for this lunacy, he has been deeply traumatized. Blame the people who murdered Chandra Levy, they evidently did it to expose Condit, and in that respect, the twisted minds succeeded.

The people who are currently promoting the ridiculous claim that Guandique, an immigrant who can hardly speak english, plotted the murder of Chandra Levy with Gary Condit ought to be arrested and charged with obstructing justice. Clearly, a thorough investigation absolutely vital to expose the source of these lies and they may in fact lead to the people who murdered Chandra Levy.

According to the fabricated account that is supposed to implicate Guandique, an un-named informant has disclosed that Gary Condit paid Guandique $25,000 to murder Chandra Levy. Gary Condit allegedly provided Guandique with Chandra Levy's picture and a location where he could find her.

Guandique allegedly took drugs and drank alcohol to steel himself for the attack. He allegedly went to the location Condit gave him and saw Chandra running on a path. Guandique allegedly hid in the bushes. When Chandra circled back, he allegedly jumped out and attacked her, stabbing her in the neck and the stomach. She allegedly fell to the ground, and Guandique allegedly carried her body into the woods. He allegedly dug a hole with his hands and covered Chandra with dirt, leaves and sticks. He allegedly left the knife in her body and later considered retrieving it but never did.

The informant claims he called his lawyer and said that he wanted to come forward because he felt badly for Chandra's parents after seeing them on TV.

If the police arrest Guandique, they will make a fool of themselves. If they arrest the people who are obstructing justice, they will prove that they are competent.

The informant, who is serving a life sentence for armed sexual abuse of a woman in Washington, has obviously been coached to promote a fabricated account about the murder of Chandra Levy, and it would certainly be helpful to find out who is behind the orchestrated effort to blame Guandique and Condit for the unsolved murder.

At least two unnamed inmate informants are cited in the seven-page affidavit filed to obtain a warrant for the arrest of Ingmar Guandique. The informants offer gruesome details at the heart of the case against Guandique.

“Although inconsistent in some respects with accounts he gave to other witnesses, Guandique admitted to (one informant) that he had killed Chandra Levy, and claimed others were also involved with him in the homicide,” the affidavit filed by Detective Todd Williams states.

The inconsistencies include how, exactly, Levy died. One witness quoted Guandique as saying he cut her throat. Another witness quoted Guandique as saying he choked her. Details likewise seemingly vary about whether a rape was committed or whether Levy was gagged.

Some narrative inconsistencies are inevitable. Others may foreshadow the challenges facing prosecutors as they bring Guandique to trial.

“Inmate testimony is inherently unreliable,” Ellen Yaroshefsky, a clinical professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, said Wednesday, “and courts are cognizant of the fact that it’s really unreliable.”

Tellingly, Northwestern University Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions studied 111 death row inmates exonerated between 1973 and 2004. False testimony, most of it from inmates, occurred in 49% of the cases, the study found.

The scapegoat is innocent, and here are some reasons why the arrest of this person does not make any sense. Chandra was very security conscious...so much so, she'd often have people walk her home from the Dupont Circle metro station. What was she doing in the woods? Without a cell phone? She was known to constantly use it to check her home voice mails. This also isn't a path many would walk - it's a horse trail with a very steep hill. In fact, her body was found down a steep ravine off the Western Ridge Trail.

Her gym membership had not been terminated despite what the papers said. She was told that she had to give thirty days notice to terminate her membership but she had not actually done this. Why wouldn't she go to the gym? She was not much of a walker or a jogger from what friends reported. Indeed, Chandra was not known to jog on the streets near her apartment, why would she jog on a horse trail?

Here's what they (message board posters) say about the jogging story:

Have you looked at a map? Are you telling me Chandra levy *jogged* from her apartment at New Hampshire and M Street to a point in the park north of Brandywine? That's a distance of about 3 1/2 miles as the crow flies, and a good 4 1/2 miles on the ground--the park twists and turns. That's 9 miles round trip assuming she was planning on turning around at that very spot, which she probably wasn't. Was she practicing for a marathon or something? If not, then she got to that point in some manner other than running all the way there.

Who says she ran there? Bodies can be transported.

Conclusion? There are other people involved in this who are counting on the utter lunk-headedness of the police.

How was her body not found on mass searches in the area especially when there are people who frequent this path every day? It is very difficult to believe no one would have smelled decay in the area.

Police conducted numerous searches along the trails of Rock Creek Park with no success, probably because the body was not there. The claim that it was in fact there but they missed it, does not carry much weight. Some things, like scapegoats, are found out of desperation, rather than through a careful analysis of the evidence.

Why did Ingmar's cell mate fail a polygraph and Ingmar passed one? Why did the cell mate say Ingmar said he stabbed her, but there was no blood found anywhere on Chandra's clothes? Why was she found with personal possessions, to include a ring and Walkman, Ingmar is a known thief and his other thefts were found at pawnshops. The walkman certainly creates the impression that Chandra Levy was jogging on a horse trail.

Levy's body was found near a jogging path where female joggers were known to have been attacked, and in retrospect, that may not be a coincidence.

The appearance that Chandra Levy ran to Rock Creek Park to jog, dressing in tights and sweat clothes notwithstanding the 82 degree weather, does not make any sense. No one saw her leave her apartment, and the speculation is simply not reasonable, under the circumstances.

An arrest warrant to end the speculation was issued for Ingmar Guandique on March 3rd, 2009.

Before the arrest, media reports that Guandique's arrest was coming, were intended to startle him.

As early as February 21st, 2009, message boards buzzed with the expectation that the D.C. police were finally going to arrest somebody in the 2001 murder of Congressional aide Chandra Levy in Rock Creek Park. On Feb. 26, 2009, prison officials pulled Guandique from his cell and searched it. Authorities said he had told someone he planned to kill the detectives and start a fire with a battery and a tissue when they closed in, then use a handcuff key he had fashioned from toenail clippers and a piece of metal to escape.

Personally, I think the authorities found weapons of mass destruction in Guandique's cell and this ignorant, media orchestrated arrest is absolutely inappropriate.

Timeline:

Chandra Levy went missing on May 21, 2001.

On May 23, 2002, the day after Levy’s body was found in Rock Creek Park, investigators talked about a Salvadoran man known as Ingmar Guandique. "We plan to perhaps visit again and talk to him once more," D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey told CNN.

Guandique pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree burglary and two counts of assaulting women in Rock Creek Park in separate incidents in May and July of 2001, when Chandra Levy's body was still missing

Guandique was the Rock Creek Park stalker. According to one of his victims, a 30-year-old professional woman;

"I went to Rock Creek Park, in the District, for a run at about 6:30 in the evening," she later wrote the judge in the case. "I was wearing a bright yellow Walkman radio with earphones and started jogging from the parking lot at Pierce Mill. About 200 yards into my run, at the next parking lot, I noticed a young Hispanic guy sitting on the curb watching as I ran by. I made a mental note, but kept running."

Guandique ran after her. He kept after her for five or six minutes.

"As I slowed, this runner jumped me from behind," she said. "We wrestled and it became clear he was physically attacking me. I twisted around, in the ensuing moment, and realized my attacker was the young male I had noticed watching me in the parking lot. Also when I had twisted around I saw that he had a small knife in his hand."

She fought for her life, grabbing Guandique by his lower jaw and pulling as hard as she could. He bit her finger then ran away. She ran in the other direction, and came across two other runners who brought her to a police station.

Five weeks later, Guandique, still free on his "personal promise," showed up to sign a plea agreement in the burglary case. The government charged him with second-degree burglary. He admitted it. The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for August 9. He walked back onto the streets.

Eleven days later he was in Rock Creek Park again. This time his victim was a 26-year-old attorney. She, too, was wearing a Walkman.

"On Sunday, July 1, 2001," this victim later wrote the judge, "I went for a run in Rock Creek Park with my fiancé and I will never forget what happened that day. Being attacked from behind by a man with a knife is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. When my attacker dragged me into the ravine, holding a knife against my throat and covering my mouth, I thought and still think today that he was going to rape me or try to kill me. I feared for my life. What struck me most was that within ten seconds, I was off the jogging path in the woods, struggling to scream and out of sight of any passersby."

"Until that day," she said, "I never realized how quickly someone with the advantage and a weapon can put a person in a position of total isolation and helplessness."

When she continued to scream, Guandique fled. She immediately reported the incident to the U.S. Park Police. They captured him on a street near the edge of the park.

After the second assault, the judge did not release Guandique on a promise. He was held without bail, until September, when he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with intent to commit robbery. Prior to his February sentencing, his two assult victims wrote their letters to the judge. the judge did not release Guandique on a promise. He was held without bail. In September, he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with intent to commit robbery.

Prior to his February sentencing, his two assult victims wrote their letters to the judge.

"I do not doubt for a minute that he purposefully stalked me as a hunter tracks his pray," wrote the first victim. "I know in my gut that, given the chance, he would not hesitate to repeat his crime on some other woman and it scares me to think what would happen if she was not prepared with some sort of self defense."

The second victim came to the same conclusion. "I feel certain that this man will attack other women if he is not incarcerated," she wrote.

The prosecutor repeated the point. "There is no reason to believe that the defendant will cease these attacks on women if released to the community," she told the judge in a sentencing memorandum. "Rock Creek Park alone could provide him with a constant stream of victims."

Guandique, for his part, according to the prosecutor’s memorandum, "steadfastly denies possessing a knife during the attacks." At one point, she said, "he insisted that the victims may have mistaken his bracelet for a weapon." The prosecutor dismissed this claim as "ludicrous" in light of the "level of certainty" in the independent and uncoordinated testimony of the victims.

"In a debriefing," the prosecutor said in her memo, "the defendant represented that his attacks in May and July were both motivated by the simple desire to obtain a Walkman Radio."

In issuing her sentence, Judge Noel Kramer called Guandique "predatory." She gave him two ten-year sentences to be served concurrently. Another judge gave him nine months for the burglary, also to be served concurrently.

On May 22, Chandra Levy’s body was found in Rock Creek Park not far from where Guandique attacked his two victims. Chandra, too, had been wearing jogging clothes and a walkman.

If you dump Chandra Levy's body at Rock Creek park, what are you trying to do? Is it too trite to suggest that you are trying to blame the murder of Chandra Levy on Ingmar Guandique? It gets even better. If you dump a walkman at Rock Creek Park, what are you trying to do? Is it too trite to suggest that you are trying to create the impression that Chandra Levy is like Ingmar Guandique's other "jogging" victims? But if that's the case, why are Ingmar Guandique's other "jogging" victims still alive?

D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey was intelligent enough to reject the bait when Chandra Levy's body was found. What is so different this time around?

If the disappearance of Chandra Levy has anything to do with the disappearance of Laci Peterson, also from Modesto, the possibility will never be considered, outside of the Internet.

As soon as Chandra Levy was reported missing, Stanislaus County Sheriff Les Weidman, said, "We don't want there to be a loss of momentum and that is why my office is is urging Washington police to make this investigation a priority this weekend. Time is critical, and we understand that."

To help Washington police make investigating Chandra's disappearance a priority, he sent a detective, Mario Cisneros, to Washington to help.

While the FBI and a 31-year veteran of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department tracked leads, they advised the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department not to get involved in the Levy case.

"We're treating this as a critical missing persons case," Washington police Detective Ralph Durant said, adding, "That means she disappeared under suspicious circumstances."

Durant, a big, pony-tailed man who has handled some high-profile cases, made it clear that his department doesn't "really need" the hands-on help of Central Valley law enforcement officials. Durant said that while he welcomed outside information, he couldn't use the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department homicide detective who traveled to Washington over the weekend to offer aid.

Washington detectives instead asked the sheriff's office to provide all of its notes and documents. These included transcripts of interviews done with Levy's parents and friends, copies of cellular phone records received from the Levy family and notes on possible sources. "They told us that if they need any help, they'll give us a call," Sheriff's Department spokesman Kelly Huston said.

Sheriff's Detective Mario Cisneros, who arrived in the capital, was simply told to return home.

Washington police also asked the Sheriff's Department to stop gathering information on Levy.

The repudiation of local help surprised sheriff's officials, who according to Huston, had decided to send Cisneros to Washington because "we had a difficult time initially establishing a relationship with D.C. Metro."

Face-to-face talks did not yield a more welcoming response.

"I don't think we have any better relationship now than we did when we talked to them on the phone last week," Huston said. "(Cisneros) tried to establish a rapport with the agency there, and he really had no luck in doing that."

Huston termed the lack of cooperation between the two departments highly unusual. He said the lead investigating department typically welcomes assistance by a victim's hometown detectives.

"There are things we think we can do here in Modesto and we're surprised they do not want to take advantage of this resource," Huston said. "In cases like this, there's a lot of work to be done in the hometown."

Helen Kennedy of the New York Daily News reports further:

"We are going to interview anyone who knew her," said Washington police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile, who refused to elaborate. Cops in Levy's hometown of Modesto, Calif., said something was odd about the case because Washington police had told them to stop investigating.

"There's obviously a lot of clues to be uncovered here in California - who she talked to, who she may have dated - but they've chosen to decline our help," said Stanislaus County sheriff's spokesman Kelly Huston.

"They've basically said they don't want us to do any interviews. That's got us very perplexed," he said.

Washington's obsession to control the Levy investigation to the point of telling the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department to go away does not justify the current zeal to frame a man who had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Chandra Levy.