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America's Most Infamous Crimes with Katie Ring
Chandra Levy: Why Her Case Remains Unsolved To This Day Pt. 3
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Foreign. This is Crime House. After Chandra Levy disappeared, all eyes turned to the man she was having a secret affair with, Congressman Gary Condit. His alibi was pretty solid, but something about his story wasn't quite adding up. And then the FBI got a tip they never expected. The focus abruptly shifted away from politics to hunt for a cold blooded killer. This is our last episode on the case of Chandra Levy. Today we'll break down the quest to find justice. Tragic discoveries and surprising leads. The investigation led detectives down rabbit holes they never expected, rabbit holes that ended in questions. Where did they all lead? And who could be tr. Hi, I'm Katie Ring and this is America's Most Infamous Crimes. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I'll take you deep into cases that have a lasting imprint on society and still haunt us today. I want to thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate, review and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes wherever you get your podcasts and to get all episodes at once. Ad free. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Before I get started, please be advised that this episode contains descriptions of physical and sexual assault and murder. So please listen with care. This is our final episode on chandra levy, a 24 year old government intern who suddenly went missing in May of 2001. Today I'll tell you about the bombshell confession that led investigators in a new direction. A tragic discovery in the woods and why there are still so many questions that have yet to be answered. There's never been a better time to get outside and experience the benefits of nature, discover nearby trails and explore the outdoors with alltrails. Download the free app today and find your outside. This episode is brought to you by. Prime Obsession is in session and this summer Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off Campus Elle every year. After the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more slow burns, second chances chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. After Chandra Levy went missing in May of 2001, Congressman Gary Conant was put under the microscope. Not Only was the 53 year old Congressman having a secret affair with Chandra, he had a long history of problematic relationships with much younger women. And even though Conant had a solid alibi, he was weirdly evasive when it came to answering any questions about Chandra. It made the police wonder what else he might be hiding. And In September of 2001, they got a tip that could explain everything. Apparently an inmate at the D.C. jail named Ramon Alvarez knew what happened to Chandra. According to him, a fellow inmate named Ingmar Guandique had confessed to killing her, and Gary Condit had paid him to do it. The way Alvarez told it, Guandique was walking around the Adams Morgan neighborhood in D.C. when a car pulled up next to him. Gary Connit was inside, and he asked Guandique if. If he'd kill a woman in exchange for $25,000. When Guandique said he'd do it, Condit gave him a picture of Chandra and said she liked to go jogging in Rock Creek park, which is a giant nature preserve in the middle of the city. Think of it like DC's equivalent to Central park, but even bigger. It's full of secluded trails where people can get away from the chaos of the city and where a dangerous predator could lie in wait. According to Ramon Alvarez's story, Guandiqi ambushed and killed Chandra while she was jogging, then left her body in the woods, along with the knife he used to kill her. If this was true, it was a game changer. So on September 21, 2001, the authorities brought Ingmar Guandique in for an interview. And I'll tell you all about it. But first, let's get into Guandique's background for a bit. When he was brought in, Guandique was only 19 years old. And he wasn't very big, just 5 foot 7 and 130 pounds. But he'd been hardened by an extremely tough childhood. He grew up in a small village in El Salvador, and things didn't come easy. Guandique experienced a lot of abuse and had trouble in school. Once he was old enough, Guandique got out as fast as he could, and in 2000, he borrowed $5,000 to pay someone to smuggle him into the US. Guandique then made his way to DC, where he moved in with a family friend right at the edge of Rock Creek Park. He worked odd jobs, but it was barely enough to get by, on top of having to pay back the money he'd borrowed. Guandique also had an ex girlfriend back in El Salvador who'd just given birth to their son, so Guandique was also sending her money to help out. It was a lot for one person to handle, especially a teenager. Guandique numbed his problems with alcohol and spent whatever money he had left over on weed and cocaine. But as he got even more desperate, he turned to crime. In early May of 2001, right around the time Chandra Levy disappeared, Guandique was Arrested after he broke into a neighbor's apartment and stole a gold ring. After getting out on bail, he attacked two young women in Rock Creek park on May 14 and July 1. He was caught after that second attack, and this time, he was kept in custody. And that's how he met Ramon Alvarez. But when Guandique was asked about Alvarez's story, he said he hadn't killed Chandra. He said the only place he'd ever seen her was on tv. But they knew that wasn't true, because when he had been arrested again back in July, a detective had shown Guandique a picture of Chandra. And Guandique said he recognized her. He claimed he'd seen Chandra in one of the parking lots at Rock Creek park, but he insisted that was the only time. He was definitely a promising suspect. But the authorities still didn't have a lot to work with. They'd already searched Rock Creek park, and there wasn't any sign of Chandra. And unless Guandique confessed, their main source of information was Ramon Alvarez. So before they followed this lead, they decided to have both men take lie detector tests. Lie detector tests are known to be unreliable, and so they wouldn't be admissible in court. But it could at least help the authorities figure out if they were going in the right direction. It took a while to get everything lined up, though. The 911 attacks had just happened, and resources and attention were spread thin. So Alvarez's test didn't happen until November 28th. During the test, he was asked two important questions. First, did Guandique tell you he stabbed Chandra Levy? And then, did Guandique tell you he received $25,000 from a congressman and or stabbing Chandra Levy? Alvarez answered yes to both. And in both cases, he was found to be lying. It was a huge setback in the investigation. And although the tests were done with translators, they believed it was enough to discredit Alvarez's story. There was now zero evidence that Gary Condon was involved, so the authorities decided to rule him out as a suspect once and for all. The case wasn't at a total dead end, though. They still wanted to talk to Guandique and see how his answers came back. It took even longer to schedule. But on February 4, 2002, Guandique finally sat down for his polygraph. When they asked if he had anything to do with Chandra's disappearance, he said no, and the result came back as not deceptive. However, that didn't mean Guandique was a free man. He was still sentenced to 10 years in prison for attacking the two women in Rock Creek Park. But when it came to Chandra, he only remained a person of interest. The investigation was back at square one. And By May of 2002, a year had gone by since Chandra disappeared. There was no body, no evidence, and no suspect. But her parents, Susan and Robert, weren't giving up on finding her. On May 22, they appeared remotely on the Oprah Winfrey show to drum up more publicity. They told Oprah that they still had hope that Chandra was alive, even though they knew it wasn't likely at this point. The interview took a huge toll on Susan. After it ended, Susan went into Chandra's room and curled up in her bed. She fell asleep clutching her daughter's blanket, which was her way of keeping Chandra close to her. But when she woke up, everything had changed. What would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation. Another pina colada? Yes, please. Open a new retail location with 36% more square feet. Fantastic. Hire 36% more help. You're hired and you're hired. Shopify has the world's best converting checkout up to 36% better than other e commerce platforms. What you do with those extra sales is up to you. Switch to Shopify today@shopify.com setup and get a $1 trial. Shopify.com setup on the morning of May 22, 2002, the same day Susan and Robert Levy were talking to Oprah, a guy named Philip Palmer went out for a walk in Rock Creek park with his dog. One of Palmer's hobbies was collecting animal bones. So he decided to look along an out of the way path called the Western Ridge Trail. As he walked along, he saw a flash of red on the side of a steep ravine. Palmer climbed down to check it out and realized it was a piece of tattered red clothing. A bit further down the hill, Palmer saw a patch of something white with a few leaves over it. At first glance, it looked like a turtle shell, but when he got closer, he realized it was a human skull. Palmer didn't have a phone on him, so he put his dog's leash by the skull to remember where it was, then ran to find the nearest house. He started knocking on the doors until someone finally answered and let him use their phone. Palmer called 911 and quickly got in touch with the US Park Police Sergeant Dennis Bosak. Palmer led Bosak to the scene where he found a walkman and more clothes, including a T shirt that read Property of USC athletics, which if you remember was where Chandra went to grad school. A swarm of officers quickly arrived on scene, followed by a wave of reporters. And even though it would be a while before they could confirm the remains were Chandra's, the police decided to tell her parents that they might have found her. When Susan got the call, she was overwhelmed. Her legs gave out from under her, and she started crying so hard she could barely breathe. I don't know how you can even process something like that. And once the dental records confirmed it was Chandra, the Levies had to deal with another painful experience. Because finding her was just the first step. Now they had to figure out who killed her. But this time, the police had a real lead to follow. When Dennis Bosak saw the crime scene, he immediately thought of another case he'd investigated in the same area. A suspect had attacked a female jogger on July 1, 2001. And that suspect was none other than Ingmar Guandike. So the police decided to circle back to him as a suspect. And this time, they learned a lot more about him. On August 11, 2002, almost three months after Chandra's remains were discovered, detectives took a trip to Guandique's old neighborhood at the edge of Rock Creek Park. Going through a translator, they talked to a woman named Maria Portillo. Her daughter had dated Guandique, and he'd even lived with them for a while. According to Portillo, he was abusive and unstable, so she kicked him out. In April of 2001, right before Chandra went missing. The detectives felt like they were on the right track, so they started questioning everyone in Guandique's life, including his boss at the construction site where he worked. And he gave them another piece to the puzzle. Apparently on main May 1, which was the last time anyone heard from Chandra, Guandique didn't show up to work. Now, on its own, this could just be a coincidence. People miss work all the time, and Guandique wasn't exactly a reliable guy. But it was definitely a red flag. So the detectives kept digging. And the press was chasing down leads on guandique, too. On October 2, 2002, reporters from the Washington Post tracked down Guandique's landlady. She told the reporters that around the same time Chandra disappeared, she'd noticed that Guandique was hurt. He had a busted lip, blood in his eye, and scratches on his throat. According to Guandique, he'd gotten into a fight with his girlfriend. It was more evidence that Guandique had a history of violence, but nobody was able to find any physical evidence tying him to Chandra's murder. Despite all this, there was no proof that he was connected. So the police had to let it go and Chandra's case went cold. But that didn't mean she was forgotten. As the years went by, journalists from the Washington Post kept working on the story. They combed through every detail. Chandra's time in D.C. the affair with Gary Condit, his strange behavior after her disappearance, and how Ingmar Guandike figured into all of it. It took five years to put it all together. And In July of 2008, they dropped a shocking 13 part series that had a ton of new details, including some major mistakes that were made along the way. After Chandra was reported missing In May of 2001, the police didn't immediately ask for any surveillance video from her apartment complex. By the time they did, it had been automatically recorded over and couldn't be recovered. So they had no idea when she left the apartment or if anyone had been with her. The next mistake was a detrimental miscommunication. When investigators initially discovered that Chandra had searched for Rock Creek park on her computer, they organized a search of the park. The search teams were supposed to canvas about 100 yards from both the roads and the trails. But somehow officers didn't understand the instructions and only searched within about 100 yards of the roads. Chandra's body was discovered within a hundred yard radius of an internal trail. And if her body had been found then, investigators might have had more evidence and a clearer understanding of how she died. On top of that, it turned out that Ingmar Guandike could have been identified as a suspect much earlier. But the US park police never mentioned to the detectives on Chandra's case that he'd admitted to seeing her before at Rock Creek Park Park. When it came to the lie detector tests on Guandique and Ramon Alvarez, they were given by someone who wasn't bilingual. So things were also lost in translation. And even though Guandique's answers were labeled as not deceptive, the actual reading during the test was inconclusive. All of the sudden, Chandra's name was back in the news and her case was wide open. Detectives looked through old case files, tested Chandra and Guandique's clothes for trace DNA evidence, and started monitoring Guandique's communications from prison. By September of 2008, they had all of their ducks in a row and were about to take another crack at Guandique. And this time, they were ready. On September 8, 2008, a trio of detectives interviewed Ingmar Guandike at his prison in California. They told him they'd found crucial DNA evidence in Chandra's case and asked him for a DNA sample they could reference. But Guandique didn't take the bait. He told them that if they were so sure he was involved, they should arrest him for it. And he was right to be skeptical, because the detectives were bluffing, which legally, they are allowed to do. But they kept asking Guandique about the DNA, and it started to wear him down. Eventually, he said, so what if I touched her? Now, this wasn't a total confession, but it could be seen as an incriminating statement. And it was definitely enough for detectives to keep questioning him. When they asked why Guandigue was seen with injuries on his face the day Chandra was killed, he said two guys had beaten him up during an attempted robbery. But the detectives weren't buying it. They knew that Guandique had told his landlady he'd been hurt during an argument with his girlfriend. So it was their turn to call his bluff. And all of a sudden, Guandique changed his story. He said that actually, now that he thought about it, the busted lip he'd gotten was from a robbery attempt, but everything else was from the fight with his girlfriend. The detectives felt like they were close to cracking him. And they had one more question to ask before the interview. They learned he had a tattoo on his chest of a naked woman with long black hair. A woman that looked a lot like Chandra Levy. They wanted to know if it was a twisted memento to remind himself what he'd done to her. In response, Guandique just smiled and laughed. And that wasn't the only visible connection to Chandra. During Guandique's interview, prison officials were searching his cell, and they found a picture of Chandra that he had cut out from a magazine. Again, it wasn't evidence directly tying him to her murderer, but the circumstantial evidence was piling up. So after talking to Guandique, the detectives decided to track down some of his old associates. Shortly after the interview, they talked to someone who said that Guandique had bragged about killing a young woman with dark, curly hair who's running along a wooded path. And they also learned that Guandique had attacked another woman in Rock Creek park on the exact same day Chandra disappeared. Then, in early 2009, the detectives got their most detailed confession story yet. They talked to an inmate who knew Guandique, and he'd apparently described exactly how he killed Chandra. As this inmate told it, Guandique and a couple of his friends were sitting in a park one day smoking cocaine laced marijuana, when they saw a woman with dark curly hair run by. Guandique thought she was attractive. So the three of them chased after her and dragged the woman into the bushes. When she started to fight back, Guandique allegedly said he'd strangled her to death, then buried the body under some leaves. It was a story with a lot of specific details, and it was finally enough for the police to make their move. On March 3, 2009, the D.C. police chief called a press conference with the mayor, the U.S. attorney and the detectives on Chandra's case. She announced that a warrant had been issued for Ingmar Guandike in connection with Chandra's murder. It was a huge moment. And there was one person who was notably missing. Gary Condit, who is now a former congressman. Even though he'd been cleared as a suspect. The truth about what Condit was up to behind closed doors and completely ruined his image. Since his exit from Congress, he'd moved to Arizona and stayed out of the public eye. And if you can believe it, he was still married. But Gary Condit wasn't the story anymore. Ingmar Guandike was. And the government was going after him with everything they had. His trial finally started in October of 2010. The prosecutors still didn't have any physical evidence tying him to Chandra's murder, but they felt like they could still get him convicted without it. Some of their first witnesses were two of the women who Guandique had attacked at Rock Creek Park. They both described their terrifying encounters with him and how he'd attacked them with a knife. The prosecution also had corroborating stories from at least nine inmates who claimed that Guandique had confessed to going after Chandra in the same way. But having all of them testify could make things confusing, especially if the details differed. So they decided to call the one with the cleanest story. His name was Armando the Mouse Morales. He'd been Guandique's cellmate in 2006. During that time, Morales testified that Guandique was nervous. Word was going around the prison that he'd raped Chandra before killing her. And that wouldn't make him a lot of friends on the inside. And. And it could even put a target on his back. Guandique knew he had to set the record straight. So he told Morales what really happened to Chandra. According to Morales, Guandique was high on drugs the day he saw Chandra run by him in the park. He was desperate for money and he noticed she was wearing a fanny pack. So he chased after Chandra to rob her. But when Guandique dragged her into the bushes, she fought back and he accidentally killed her. It was a convincing story. And it seemed especially credible because Morales confirmed he wasn't receiving anything in exchange for his testimony, like a reduced sentence or a transfer to a lower security prison. So he had no reason to lie. And the prosecution hoped the jury would see it that way, or else Guandique could probably walk free. The trial ended In November of 2010, about a month after it started. A lot of people thought the government hadn't done enough to get a conviction. One reporter even guessed that it would take the jury less than an hour to acquit Guandique. But that one hour went by and no verdict. Then another. And by the end of the day, there was still no decision. It took the jury three and a half days to reach a verdict. And on Monday, November 22nd, the jury forewoman announced their decision. Ingmar Guandike was guilty of first degree murder. After almost a decade, Chandra Levy's case was officially closed. Guandique was sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he would likely spend the rest of his life. But the story wasn't over yet. Five years later, in 2015, Guandique's attorneys discovered something while they were working on his appeal. Apparently, Armando Morales wasn't quite as reliable as he seemed. Turns out he had offered to help other prosecutors before, so it was possible that he'd made up what he said about Guandique so he could seem more credible. And during the trial, the prosecution hadn't given that information to Guandique's lawyers. This new information was enough for Guandique to get a new trial, which was scheduled for October of 2016. But the prosecutors dropped the charges before it could even start. Apparently, someone had a recording of Armando Morales admitting that he'd made up the entire story. Without it, there was no case. And now that Guandique had completed his sentence for attacking the other women in Rock Creek park, he was officially a free man. But he wouldn't be staying in the United States. Since he had entered the country illegally. He was deported back to El Salvador. Officially, Chandra Levy's murder went back to being unsolved. A lot of people are still convinced that Ingmar Guandike killed her. Others might think Gary Condon is still hiding a dark secret. But in the eyes of the law, neither of them are responsible for killing Chandra. And sadly, we may never know who it is. For Chandra's parents, Guandique's release was a tough pill to swallow. But They've tried to find a way to move on however they can. In the end, Susan Levy said it best. As horrendous as the story is, I think our daughter would want us to educate people to go on living and go on enjoying life. I think that is what she would want us to do. For the Levy family, remembering Chandra meant more than focusing on the tragedy of her death. Chandra had so much to give. She lived life to the fullest, loved to travel, and was always willing to help others and was dedicated to public service. This is what Susan wanted everyone to remember her for. At the end of each episode, I'd like to take a moment to answer any questions you may have about the case and share my thoughts, so make sure to comment below. Going back to the question from last episode of whether I think Gary Condon had anything to do with Chandra's death, the answer is, unfortunately, we will never fully know. I definitely feel like Conant was extremely sus. Even though he was cleared as a suspect. Alvarez did claim that continent paid Guandique and the only thing that got that thrown out was the fact that the polygraph was unreliable. But again, the polygraph was done through a translator, so the person doing the polygraph didn't speak Spanish. So there are some things that could have gotten lost in translation. I do, however, have a little bit of a hard time believing that Gary Condon would be driving around in a neighborhood asking people if they would kill someone for 25 grand. I do wish we knew what the big news Chandra had for her aunt was because that would also, you know, if she was pregnant, like people might have thought, that gives a little extra motive. I don't know the truth, but Gary Conant is no saint and is definitely a sleazeball in my eyes. He is not a suspect, but very sketchy. And I think a lot of people at the time when this happened also thought he was low key, the one who did it. Yeah, it's so crazy how much more information we have on people nowadays in general. I mean, the number of people nowadays just from their computer activity and Google searches that get convicted is insane to me. I mean, I don't know why people still Google how to get rid of a dead body, but people aren't very smart. From what Chandra told her aunt, Condon was also very careful about having nothing on record. Like when they talked, she would even call him. He would wait to call her back. So they didn't really have very many texts. I don't know either way if he would have made A trail. He was clearly very experienced in cheating. But again, in the eyes of the law, he is innocent. And with what they had, they definitely didn't have enough evidence to arrest him anyways. There were also so many mistakes and gaps that police made in this case or didn't catch at all. In general, yeah, the mistakes here were so frustrating. The fact that they didn't pull the surveillance footage right away when they had a missing person and waited so long that the footage was recorded over, there could have been so many insights from that footage, like where she was going, her state of mind, or, you know, what kind of body language she was putting off if she was with anyone. So that was like the first real big fumble. The second one was the search for her after they looked at her computer. She had searched for Rock Creek Park. And the fact that they didn't search the internal trails, it's like that's the number one place you would find someone. They only searched around the roads. And the fact that if they actually searched the internal trails, they would have found her right away, within a couple days, and there would have been so much more evidence because they. By the time they actually found her about a year later, everything was decomposed and they didn't have the same kind of evidence. So we could have maybe actually have known what happened to her. So do you think Guandique was guilty? Personally, I definitely think he was guilty. Even though it was proven that Armando was lying. There were nine other prisoners who also testified that Guandique had said that he killed her. And, you know, there may have been something else. Conduct could have been involved. I'm not saying he was. He's been cleared. But even if he was involved, I think Guandike was definitely the one who carried it out. And the fact that he attacked another woman on the same day that Shondra went missing is very telling. And then had to attack two more women on top of that. I definitely think he was involved. This is also the problem why I will have a hard time being on juries. Because even if there wasn't exactly enough proof to put him away, the fact that he only did 10 years for attacking two women like he did, and they said that he wasn't attacking them to steal anything, like he was attacking them to harm them, seriously harm them. And as someone who's in my field, I know that he will reoffend. And luckily he's not in the United States, but I hope he didn't reoffend in El Salvador. I'm so glad the woman he attacked survived for obvious reasons but also because they were able to testify. Yes, I am so glad both of these ladies survived. One of them I actually read had just taken self defense classes and was able to fight him off. And a lot of people say that women have no chance against a man, but I always say many times it's not about winning a fight, it's about doing enough damage or drawing enough attention to be able to escape a situation. So they also both said that they got off feelings about him immediately and their intuition was just sending red flags. And having that awareness and always listening to your gut and your intuition is one of the biggest strengths, especially for women. We're very in tune and have very distinct intuitions and always, always, always trust that. And obviously I highly recommend every woman takes a self defense class or even better learns and trains how to fight. Not only is it the best workout in the world, but it is extremely empowering. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to subscribe below. If you're listening on audio, please rate, review and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes. And to get all episodes at once ad free. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Come back next week for another deep dive into a true crime that changed America.