Police Search for `Missing' Links

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 20, 2001 | by Timothy W. Maier

Many people have second-guessed the Washington police and their methods of trying to find Chandra Levy, opening the door for the FBI cold-case squad to pursue new leads.

A 75-year-old Fresno, Calif., private detective claims he saw Chandra Levy alive days after she disappeared. Levy was walking alone on a road about 70 miles from her Modesto home carrying a summer jacket and wearing dark wraparound sunglasses, he tells Insight. "She looked disoriented and confused as I stopped to see if she needed a ride," the gumshoe says. "She mumbled something and then asked if Central Avenue was the next street."

After proceeding down the road, the private sleuth says, he realized the woman looked exactly like the photograph of the 24-year-old intern that has been all over television since shortly after Levy last was heard from on May 1. "I'm 100 percent sure it was her" the detective says now. "She looked scared and as if she didn't want to be found." The next day he returned to the same area and noticed firefighters putting out a car fire, but saw no sign of the mystery woman. The detective reported his finding to local authorities and to the Washington Metropolitan Police.

Despite many "Chandra sightings" police remain skeptical of such claims. "Right now, no one with real experience believes she is alive," says former New York City homicide prosecutor Sari Kolatch. "They are treating this case like a full-fledged criminal investigation -- not just a missing-person case."

At first police were trying to create a time line to retrace her movements, Kolatch says. "Now they are working backward and trying to find a body" she says, noting the use of cadaver-sniffing dogs in Rock Creek Park and the combing of the Potomac River for clues.

The missing woman's parents, Robert and Susan Levy, nonetheless remain hopeful. They pushed all the right buttons to keep their daughter's story alive in the press by putting public pressure on Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.) and raising nearly $200,000 in reward money. Police say officially that Condit is not a suspect because he appears to have an airtight alibi. Privately, however, they are saying his alibi has holes. He was with Vice President Dick Cheney between 12:30 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. on May 1, and Levy's last known e-mail correspondence came at 1:30 that afternoon. However, Condit has yet fully to account for his whereabouts between 1:15 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

The FBI meanwhile is pursing other leads. It entered the case on the premise that there could be a crime against a federal employee and that it was likely to involve crossing state lines. Levy was a paid intern for the Bureau of Federal Prisons, and the proximity of her apartment to both Virginia and Maryland suggests she easily could have crossed or been taken across state lines.

Now CBS has reported that the FBI's celebrated cold-case squad has taken charge because of concern that Washington police put too much emphasis on Condit. Indeed, the FBI has shown little interest in interrogating the congressman. Its lead investigators did not even attend the first three police interviews with him, although the FBI's evidence technicians did help search Condit's condo. The FBI also sent a victim profiler to the fourth interview on July 26.

The entry of the FBI didn't sit well with Washington police. "It's a slap in the head," says Chris Rush, a New York City private detective who is well-connected among Washington police. "They regard the District as their personal domain. D.C. police are pissed off." In fact, the same week that the FBI cold-case squad wrestled the case away, Roger Chiang claimed a Washington police detective told him that his sister, Joyce Chiang, had not been murdered but committed suicide.

Another Californian who had been an intern, Chiang disappeared in January 1999 and was found dead in the Potomac River in Alexandria, Va., three months later. The FBI, however, has assured the brother that evidence of foul play exists. Washington Police Sgt. Joseph Gentile says that the Chiang case remains open and that the medical examiner has yet to rule on the cause of death.

Chiang, 28, interned for Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) in an office directly adjacent to that of Condit before going to work as a lawyer at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She was last seen alive at a Starbucks coffee shop near Dupont Circle, which also was a favorite Levy hangout located only a few blocks from Levy's apartment. Gentile says there is no relationship between the Chiang and Levy disappearances.

Police also have ruled out at this point any link between the cases of Levy and Christine M. Mirzayan, 28, who interned at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. Christine was raped and her body found with her skull crushed in a wooded area near Georgetown University in 1998. That case also is unsolved. "We looked at all three cases, and there is nothing to link them," Gentile insists. "We still don't know if Levy is dead."

But there are similarities. Chiang left her pager and driver's license in her apartment. Levy left her cell phone and driver's license behind, along with all her belongings neatly packed. Both young women lived in the same neighborhood, frequented Starbucks -- usually alone -- and were ambitious Californians who more than likely met the same movers and shakers.