Original subtitles

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

In May of 2001, 24-year-old Chandra Levy was packing

to return to her parents' home in California

when she vanished without a trace.

In the shadow of this mysterious disappearance,

another drama was unfolding,

this young intern's relationship with an older politician.

Add the possibility of foul play,

and you've got the kind of puzzling and irresistible

D.C. scandal that captivates a nation.

This is "How It Really Happened."

Blitzer: The disappearance of a young woman

who has worked as a government intern here in Washington

is capturing nationwide attention.

Velez-Mitchell: In the fall of 2000,

Chandra Levy leaves the West Coast,

leaves her home, leaves her parents,

and she heads to the exciting world of Washington, D.C.,

where she gets an internship

with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Karas: Chandra decided to leave Washington D.C. in May 2001.

She had a good experience there with her internship,

but she was moving on with her life.

She was going to move back to California

and attend her graduation at USC.

Tuchman: Her parents were very excited to have her back in Modesto.

They were waiting to hear final arrangements from her,

when she was coming, what day, what airline, what plane.

They didn't hear from her.

[ Dials ] [ Phone rings ]

Her father called, got her answering machine.

"Call me back, Chandra." [ Phone beeps, dials, rings ]

Her father called again.

"Call me back, Chandra." [ Phone beeps, dials, rings ]

Velez-Mitchell: She just isn't answering any of their calls,

and her father calls her repeatedly.

Finally, the father is frustrated

and very, very worried,

and he kind of snaps a little bit.

He just says on the answering machine,

"[Bleep] it, Chandra, call me."

Didn't get an answer, got the answering machine.

Then call her up again, didn't get an answer.

Then I got really worried. Then I called the D.C. Police.

The police immediately were saying,

"Let's not get too excited about this.

This is just a missing person's case.

Oftentimes, the missing person shows up."

I recall having one of my deputies come in

and at least alert me that an individual was reported missing.

It was brought to me because it's Washington, D.C.,

and anything that happens

tends to draw a lot of media attention.

Velez-Mitchell: The cops send a squad car over to Chandra's apartment

in Dupont Circle, and they go in.

Ramsey: There was no signs of forced entry or any disturbance

to make it look like there had been a struggle.

Velez-Mitchell: They see that her bags are half packed, but her purse is there.

Her id is there.

Her wallet is there.

There's dishes in the sink.

I mean, her cell phone is still in the apartment.

Police were somewhat suspicious

because when she was gone without,

you know, her cell phone and her ID card and other,

you know, very vital information in her purse,

something sounds not right.

Martin: Was she planning to return home?

Was she in a good mood? Was she happy?

Was she depressed?

Whoever would've seen her prior to her disappearance

would've known that information.

Could've been a kidnapping.

It could've been a rape.

It could've been anything,

but the police needed to follow all the leads.

Her parents also began to think,

"Well, you know, we've got her phone bills here.

Todd: We've been paying for her cell phone.

Let's just try to trace some of these calls,"

and they start to go through the records.

Susan: Well, there was sequential number of numbers

that she kept calling and calling

and calling, every few minutes almost,

it seemed like, and at odd hours,

and then I decided make a call,

and it turns out to be a private number,

which is -- leads to Gary Condit's office,

and she was calling at all hours,

I mean, like, 9 o'clock at night.

Tuchman: And alarm bells immediately went off in Susan Levy's head.

Susan: I kind of said, "Oh, my God,"

and something like a light bulb went off.

"My God, Maybe Chandra's da--"

because she talked about dating some mysterious person

who wanted to keep it quiet.

Bob: Chandra told us about her adventures in D.C.

Susan: ...and all you have to do is put it in here.

Bob: The Bureau of Prisons and a Congressman friend.

With all due respect to this distinguished group and --

Geragos: Gary was -- people may not remember this,

but he was a very well-respected

state representative in California

and represented the Modesto area,

then got elected to Congress,

was a rather conservative Democrat with a loving family

and was considered to be a pillar of the community.

The Levys leave a message

on Congressman Condit's answering service,

and he personally calls them back.

I told him what was going on.

You know, he was -- sounded shocked about it.

Susan: I asked him,

"Why is a constituent calling at 9 o'clock at night?"

"Well, I actually help people who want to know

about becoming an FBI agent or whatever,

and sometimes we work after hours."

Todd: Congressman Condit told the parents

that he knew Chandra Levy but not well,

that she had come by his office

and that he had given her career advice.

Where could she be?

Did she go somewhere and just disappear?

Did someone attack her?

Did she leave town with someone?

The possibilities in these people's minds

are almost endless, and they're all horrible.

Kagan: To look at now the disappearance of USC student Chandra Levy.

We are joined on the phone by Sergeant Joe Gentile.

Any new developments on this case you can share with us?

We are following up on some matters.

Sgt. Gentile: We're trying to interview people that may know

Ms. Levy or may know of her whereabouts.

♪♪

Karas: At this point, the Levys are desperate.

They now travel from California to Washington, D.C.

They meet with the D.C. Police, the FBI.

They even meet with their own U.S. Senators,

but most important, they take their story to the airwaves.

They get the media's attention.

Robert Levy crying with his head on his wife's shoulder.

[ Sobbing ] I think she's been stolen...

We don't know, though. ...or kidnapped or murdered.

It's impossible to imagine the pain

that these parents were going through,

and they were going through it all in a public eye like this.

I'm asking people throughout America

to help me out in a sense of finding her

and bring Chandra home back to her,

her family that loves her very much.

Franken: You had the parents desperately saying

that they needed to find their daughter.

So, it got everybody's attention

and of course it snowballed from there.

Susan: Of course I'm hurt.

As a mother, especially of someone who's missing

a daughter right now, that did not

show up for graduation, I'm not only hurt,

I'm scared.

And I just want my daughter home alive.

When they came to Washington, D.C., they talked to police

and made it clear they were very concerned

that the fact that a congressman was involved

would hamper or imperil the investigation

into their missing daughter.

Johns: It's so hard to imagine your beautiful,

young daughter going away to Washington, D.C.,

very excited about this internship,

ready to come home and just poof.

Phillips: Those home videos helped us so much

in giving the world eyes into who Chandra Levy was,

who this family was, the thoughts, the conversation,

the personality, the sense of humor,

and she loved her family, and it really put a,

a face and a personality to this victim.

Franken: Susan and Robert Levy have returned

to their Modesto, California, home,

left behind, the still unanswered questions

about their daughter, Chandra Levy,

who disappeared more than 7 weeks ago.

Police have three theories early on.

Number one, something that's not uncommon: That she ran away.

Number two, something that would be far less common:

That she committed suicide and far less common

because, why would they not be able

to find her? Number three, the most

worrisome: That she was a victim of foul play.

Johns: It's so hard to imagine that.

It's so hard to imagine your beautiful,

young daughter going away to Washington, D.C.,

very excited about this internship,

ready to come home, and just poof.

Karas: Everybody loved Chandra Levy.

She was very free-spirited, very focused,

independent, bright.

Bob: She was interested in applying for the FBI

and then sort of secondarily maybe applying to law school

but maybe go into public administration.

So she lined up an internship

with the Federal Bureau of Prisons

as part of her graduate program,

and so that was the ticket to D.C.

Todd: In October of 2000,

Chandra Levy went to Condit's office

with a friend from Modesto,

and he's their Congressman, so they go to meet him.

He's charming, he's friendly, and he offers to give

the two young women a tour of the Capitol.

Picture shows the Congressman with his arms

around both of the young women.

That seems to be the first meeting

he has with Chandra Levy.

Tuchman: Several days after that visit to Capitol Hill,

Chandra Levy called Gary Condit.

The alleged affair with Congressman Condit

began a few weeks later.

Our antennae go up any time that we hear of a politician,

an older politician with an intern,

in any way connected with an intern.

I mean, come on.

This was not long after the whole Monica Lewinsky business.

Ramsey: This was a very hard case for, for police.

It was a missing person.

I mean, this is an adult that can come and go as she pleased.

There was nothing initially that would indicate

that there was any kind of foul play.

Velez-Mitchell: Covering cases like this,

I was just flabbergasted at the twists and turns.

It's like nothing I've ever seen.

[ Chords strike ]

Todd: An officer was sent to Chandra Levy's apartment on May 6th.

Officers went there on May 7th and on May 8th,

three times, 3 days in a row, and on each occasion,

they failed to ask about surveillance tapes.

They neglected to ask for the videotape

that would've shown her leaving the apartment

that would've revealed what she was wearing,

whether she was with anybody, what her mood was.

They never asked for it.

Well, it's recorded over every 7 days.

By the time they decided to ask for it, it was gone.

Is that a missed opportunity? Yes.

[ Chord strikes ]

Todd: Another significant mistake by the police was

when they went into her apartment,

she had left her laptop there.

An investigator turned it on

and started to kind of mess with it.

He was not a trained computer specialist.

In the process of checking that computer

and messing around with it, he corrupted some of the files.

Ramsey: When a, a computer gets corrupted,

you can't get at the information right away, and there's a delay,

and that just further complicates the case.

Kobilinsky: As a result, the search that she did for the Klingle Mansion,

which was a site in Rock Creek Park,

it was delayed by maybe a month till finally trained I.T. people

were able to look at the search

and determine possibly she went to visit that site.

♪♪

Todd: We find out that, at about 10:27,

she's bouncing around the Internet.

She's visiting The Drudge Report,

National Geographic, Southwest Airlines,

just bouncing around, seemingly web-surfing.

Velez-Mitchell: At one point, she sends her mother an e-mail

listing a bunch of fares on Southwest Airlines,

and then she enters a search for Rock Creek Park

and the Klingle Mansion.

Ramsey: Once we got that information,

we did begin a search of Rock Creek Park.

Why the Klingle Mansion area?

Well, it could be because of jogging.

There are nice paths here.

We've seen joggers here all morning and into the afternoon.

Although we also heard that possibly she had a friend

or acquaintance that she wanted to visit who lives

in a small neighborhood near here.

Velez-Mitchell: She stops her Internet searches,

and that is the last indication of Chandra Levy, 12:24 P.M.

♪♪

Tuchman: Police in Washington knew they had a, a volatile,

potentially explosive investigation on their hands.

Bob: Yeah.

The parents of Chandra Levy are due back here

in Washington later today to keep pressing police

and their Congressmen for information

about their missing daughter.

My name is Billy Martin.

The Levys have retained our law firm

to assist them in obtaining both information

and, if necessary, to conduct an independent investigation

into the whereabouts

or the facts surroundings Chandra's disappearance.

I witnessed a mother and a father in deep depression.

I witnessed a family without any answers to questions

on what happened to their loved one,

and the emotion level was very high.

Franken: This is an investigation now

that has taken a large segment of the police force

to the abandoned buildings of Northwest Washington.

It is not, they say, that they've concluded

that Chandra Levy, in fact, has met foul play.

They just want to exhaust all possibilities.

Velez-Mitchell: The police are just looking everywhere for Chandra.

They're looking in warehouses and airports.

A woman doesn't just disappear off the face of the Earth,

but that's what appeared to have happened.

Blitzer: Here in Washington, authorities plan to question

Congressman Gary Condit of California

over the disappearance of Chandra Levy.

Ramsey: It was early in the investigation

when it became known that she had an association

with Mr. Condit,

and certainly that was something that we wanted to follow up on,

find out whether or not he had heard from her,

if he knew anything.

Tuchman: The police file indicates that when authorities,

law-enforcement authorities in Washington,

got in touch with Gary Condit...

He starts this pattern of being evasive and vague.

He says that he didn't know her well.

What we're seeing is Gary Condit vigorously denying

that he had anything but a platonic relationship with her.

The detective directly asked Gary Condit,

"Did you have an intimate relationship with Ms. Levy?"

He said, quote, "I don't think we need to go there.

You can infer what you want from that."

Reporter: What would you say to, to Mr. Condit?

Come out with the truth. That's all.

I want the truth. I want my daughter home.

Reporter 2: Do you know anything about where Chandra Levy is?

You can only get away so long with trying to deny something

that is becoming more and more obvious.

Johns: There was no way you could see him as a sympathetic figure,

it certainly made him look suspicious.

It made him look questionable.

Woman: He lied to the police.

Where is Chandra Levy? Where is Chandra Levy?

The more you withhold, willingly withhold,

then it takes an investigator down a path.

Why are you withholding information?

I mean, what it is it that you're trying to hide?

Blitzer: New reports are surfacing tonight about the relationship

between a missing Washington intern

and her U.S. Congressman from California.

Velez-Mitchell: Chandra confided in her aunt, Linda Zamsky,

that they were having an affair,

and that it had to be top secret.

Zamsky: We had conversations starting at Thanksgiving

where she told me she was dating an older married man and I,

and he was a somebody powerful in,

in Washington in the government.

Tuchman: Chandra Levy told her aunt

that when she would visit Gary Condit

he had told that she had to wear a ball cap out in public

so no one would be recognized.

Franken: Did she ever describe her feelings

about Congressman Condit's marriage?

No, no, only that she knew that his wife was sickly

and that it was a marriage of convenience for him.

Chandra told her that Gary Condit was her man

and that she was in love with her man.

Franken: Did she describe her hopes for the relationship?

Keep it low-key and then move past that in 5 years.

For some reason, he had something going on in politics

and then hopefully have a relationship,

that they could come out and be together in public,

get married, have a family.

How did you make the whole Linda Zamsky story?

I just, it was unbelievable.

Because?

Well, I just, I mean, the accusations

of some of the things that were said were just unbelievable.

I, I'd never heard any of that.

I mean, what she said was new to me.

Geragos: There was never any suggestion or whiff of scandal

or anything else in connection with him.

On the adultery angle of this case,

I generally don't even want to know from the client.

I think they still have a right of privacy and dignity.

Velez-Mitchell: There's a lot of unanswered questions.

Here's a woman who called her aunt and said,

"I have big news," just a couple of days before she vanished.

The aunt never called her back, but what was the big news?

Some people wonder, "Could she have been pregnant?"

Blitzer: Was Chandra pregnant at any time during their relationship?

That seems to be a question that's asked quite frequently,

and what I have indicated to both the FBI

and to the D.C. Police, that I would not at all comment

on that issue.

But you never knew whether she was pregnant or not?

-No. -She could've been?

I don't know.

Crowd: [ Chanting ] Where is Chandra?

Where is Chandra? Where is Chandra?

Geragos: Gary Condit had absolutely nothing to do

with Chandra's disappearance.

This was the kind of irrational feeding frenzy

that had subsumed the public, and the media by definition had,

had colored this to the point

where you could not talk in a rational way about this case.

Todd: Reports are coming out of the woodwork,

incredibly exaggerated, almost fantasized reports,

the reports that she was buried in a parking lot somewhere.

The development is, is that D.C. Police

have told CNN that they are,

in fact, going to follow up on a tip

that Chandra Levy was buried under a parking lot

under construction by Fort Lee.

There are cadaver dogs down there.

They're organizing a search.

Police have to take all these things seriously,

and it just, it takes up their time.

It takes up their resources. Very, very frustrating.

The investigation into the disappearance

of Washington intern Chandra Levy

has led to new questions surrounding

Congressman Gary Condit and his relationship

with an airline flight attendant.

I remember when Anne Marie Smith,

the flight attendant, came forward.

I remember when she was on "Larry King Live,"

and she talked about an alleged relationship with Gary Condit.

We became friends, started seeing each other,

started calling, spent a lot of time together.

Did you feel like you were harming his wife?

I did.

I was very concerned about that.

But?

But Mr. Condit told me

she was very ill, and that they were,

they didn't really have a husband-wife relationship.

It's all tabloid stuff. I mean, that's --

But she had all this apparent evidence. I mean, she --

Well, yeah, she says she has evidence.

You know, it's just all tabloid stuff.

Alright. What is the story -- It's some of the people that --

From your viewpoint? It's tabloid.

It's, you know -- You mean you don't know her?

She has nothing to do with Chandra Levy.

No, I know who she is, but it's, it's all,

it has nothing to do with Chandra Levy.

♪♪

Karas: Days after Anne Marie Smith told her story,

Gary Condit was interviewed by the police for the third time,

and he finally admitted his relationship with Chandra Levy.

During an hour-and-a-half interview

between Condit and police officials,

Condit acknowledged under direct question that,

in fact, it was a romantic relationship.

Why did it take him so long?

I didn't have any particular impressions of Gary Condit

other than he was an individual that had something to hide,

which obviously having an affair if you're married

is not something that most men

would want to be forthcoming about,

but whether it was more than that remained to be seen.

Washington police are bringing in 50 police recruits

to help comb areas around the apartment of Chandra Levy.

They're focusing on 2,800 acres in Rock Creek Park.

Rock Creek Park is a huge, huge park.

You had a lot of overgrowth.

You had a lot of things there that perhaps evidence

could be hidden underneath,

and so you have to carefully grid it out

in order to know that you've done a complete search.

It took, it took weeks for us to have gone through the, the park.

Velez-Mitchell: Was she murdered? Was she kidnapped?

Was she hiding out somewhere?

Had she committed suicide?

We had zero answers.

Kobilinsky: There was a fella who was walking his dog,

and his dog had gone up a hill and come back with a bone.

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

To legions of Gary Condit critics,

the Congressman deserved all the doubts

America was harboring about him.

His detractors said he misled the police,

the media and the public

by not telling all he knew about Chandra Levy,

and Condit's evasions about Chandra made investigators

want to probe

whether he had anything to do with her disappearance.

Franken: Congressman Gary Condit has just put out an announcement,

announcing where he will do the hard-fought-for

first television interview, a network-television interview,

that has been awaited almost since

the beginning of the Chandra Levy case.

We're starting down here?

On August 23rd, 2001, three and a half months

after her disappearance, Gary Condit,

after having issued statements through his aides,

he finally goes on a,

on a televised interview on ABC with Connie Chung.

They pick Connie Chung

thinking they're going to get an easy ride,

but nothing could be further from the truth.

May I ask you, was it a sexual relationship?

Well, Connie, I've been married for 34 years,

and I've not been a, a perfect man,

and I've made my share of mistakes,

but out of respect for my family

and out of a specific request from the Levy family,

I think it's best that I not get into those details

about Chandra Levy.

I never requested anything from him except that,

"Do you know where my daughter is?"

It's painful.

I don't, it's like a Cheshire cat

because there were a lot of women.

Once you put or inject adultery into the mix,

there are certain people who are unforgiving

and make the illogical leap that if you're an adulterer,

therefore, you could be a murderer.

Do you have any idea

if there was anyone who wanted to harm her?

No.

Did you cause anyone to harm her?

No.

Did you kill Chandra Levy?

I did not.

He's basically monosyllabic.

"No," and he just really doesn't elaborate on anything.

Geragos: I think Gary would agree with this.

You couldn't have done a worse interview if you had tried.

♪♪

Crowley: It's now been 10 months since Chandra Levy vanished

here in Washington, and the FBI tells

CNN there is not much new to report in the investigation.

They didn't find anything for over a year,

and what happened was they got lucky.

There was a fella who was walking his dog in,

in this relatively forested area in the park,

not near one of the major thoroughfares,

and his dog had gone up a hill and come back with a bone.

He found what appeared to be a human skull.

Blitzer: Human remains were found.

The police raise the possibility it's Chandra Levy.

A report comes in that the remains of Chandra Levy

may have been found in Rock Creek Park.

Police race to the scene, this remote area.

The remains are scattered around a tree.

Not laying in open ground, flat ground.

It was, like, at the bottom of a, a ravine.

Velez-Mitchell: And they see a tennis sneaker.

They see a sports bra.

They see a T-shirt that says property of USC athletics.

They see jogging pants, stretch jogging pants,

inside out, and each leg is tied in a knot.

That was a really, really gut-wrenching discovery.

It seemed like this was a scene of a terrible struggle.

Brown: The news came about 6 P.M.

from the police chief who had the sad news

that Chandra Levy was the victim who had been discovered here

at Rock Creek Park.

Ramsey: We have received word from the D.C. Medical Examiner's Office

that the remains found earlier today are,

in fact, Chandra Levy.

The identification was made through dental records.

Finally, finally, they found the remains,

and then, of course, we all wanted to know

what took so long.

Blitzer: Washington police today acknowledged

they did not search the specific spot last year

in a park where Chandra Levy's remains were found.

The area is now the focus of an intense hunt for clues

to try to find out when and how the former intern died.

Had the police properly searched Rock Creek Park,

had they not delayed in searching Rock Creek Park

at all and had they, in fact,

expanded their search to 70 yards off a footpath

as opposed to 70 yards off a road for automobiles,

they would have found the remains

of Chandra Levy early on.

Now that they've found her remains,

investigators are back on the scene

in Washington's Rock Creek Park,

seeking clues to the cause of Levy's death.

She left her apartment with her keys

but apparently little else.

Supposedly, they said that she went jogging in the park,

and I questioned, "Well, where's her keys?"

I don't know where the keys were.

She usually wears a necklace.

Nobody ever found them.

Something inside me says there's more than what is said.

McCann: What everybody tells me is that she didn't like Rock Creek Park,

and she was afraid to go to Rock Creek Park to jog,

and the trail that she's discovered on

is not a jogging trail, it's more of a horse trail.

And you have to ask yourself, what was she going there for?

And the only conclusion is she was going there

to meet somebody.

Did she meet that person?

Did that person cause injury to her?

If she did not meet that person,

was she intercepted along the way

and never got a chance to meets that person

because some third party caused this foul play?

So the mystery only broadened.

We discovered the remains but not the answers.

A series of embarrassments for the police department

in a case that the world was watching.

With the mystery of Chandra Levy's whereabouts solved now,

police in Washington have turned their attention

to how the missing intern died.

Today police cadets searched Rock Creek Park,

where Levy's body was found, for more possible evidence.

Going on right now just behind me,

various police officers are extending the crime scene.

That is going to be, of course, so they can search this area,

looking for clues, looking for some of the remains.

Susan: My question is, was she dead for a year before she was found?

Wow-- I'm sorry, but I have --

Yeah, well, just believe what you want.

I, I, I, I toy with everything that's a scenario

that could or may have happened.

In this case, there was not sufficient evidence

to ascertain conclusively the specific injury

that caused her death.

However, the circumstances of her disappearance

and her body of recovery are indicative

that she died through the acts of another person,

which is the definition of a homicidal manner of death.

Now there is a bone in the neck.

It's called the hyoid bone.

It's a very fragile bone.

Very often when you have a strangulation,

that hyoid bone is fractured,

and it's one of the pieces of evidence of a strangulation.

Now, that hyoid bone was found fractured in Chandra Levy.

However, it doesn't conclusively mean she was strangled.

It's a possibility.

Ramsey: The fact that her body had laid there for so long in the open,

the chance of recovering any kind of forensic evidence

that would help us solve the case was,

for all practical purposes, not there.

These parents had been through so much.

They did not trust that the police were doing

a thorough enough search to find more clues.

They had their lawyers work with private investigators,

their own people, to go into Rock Creek Park

to see what else they could find.

McCann: I went back there just to see what I could see,

and when I got there, I noticed

that there was still a lot of debris on the ground,

in particular, leaves, and so I was a little puzzled

how you could search with so many leaves on the ground,

so I decided to get a rake and just start raking,

and within minutes,

I discovered her femur bone, the largest bone in the body.

After this embarrassment in which private investigators

found some remains the police did not find, the police,

embarrassed, went back into the woods in Rock Creek Park,

and they did indeed find more, more bones.

Ramsey: That sort of thing is sloppy, it shouldn't have happened.

Now, in all fairness, there were, you know,

some wildlife that had gotten to the remains,

and there was some scattered remains.

It wasn't like, you know, it was all in, in one location.

The last week or so has produced a lot of information,

not enough to go beyond designating

this a homicide at this point,

not enough to specify exactly how Chandra Levy was killed,

but that is just one of the mysteries

that now proceeds as the investigation goes on.

Of course, the ultimate mystery is,

who is responsible for her death?

Early on -- police will acknowledge this --

They were looking very, very closely at Gary Condit

because of his evasiveness, because of the alleged affair,

but as time went on, there was no other evidence.

He's got probably the best alibi you could possibly have.

Todd: Chandra Levy had signed off her computer

at 12:24 P.M. on May 1st.

Gary Condit on that day in the 11 o'clock A.M. hour,

he had gone to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney

to discuss energy problems in California.

He's having lunch with the Vice President of the United States.

Well, if not him, who was it?

The Washington Post focusing on subjects

other than Gary Condit.

Well, one of the subjects of their investigation

was a Salvadoran immigrant who had been convicted

of attacking two women in Rock Creek Park.

And one of them sees the story and says, "Oh, my God.

Why aren't they looking at the guy who attacked me?

It was right in that area,

and it would be an obvious suspect."

Toddy: His name is Ingmar Guandique.

It turns out that the chief suspect had been hiding

in plain sight the entire time.

Police had spoken with Guandique early in the case,

and he actually said that he recognized Chandra's picture

from seeing her in the park

but denied having anything to do with her disappearance,

but when new detectives took over in 2007,

years after her remains were found,

he became the prime suspect.

He was convicted for taking women joggers,

trying to grab them behind the back

and hold them at knifepoint.

Apparently, this is somebody who got his kicks assaulting women.

"Happy birthday. Love, Uncle Paul and Linda."

-Aw. -[ Laughs ]

I'll open the gift.

Thank you. -Did you get a gift with that?

Yes, I did. Thank you.

Karas: In April 2001, Chandra celebrated her 24th birthday.

Her parents came from California, of course,

never knowing that it would be one of the last times

they would ever spend with her and certainly her last birthday.

Lemon: A source close to the investigation confirms

that the suspect in the Chandra Levy case

is Ingmar Guandique.

One thing leads to another, and all of a sudden,

this is the guy who killed Chandra Levy.

Franken: Apparently, this is somebody who got his kicks assaulting women

and particularly women who had gone down

to secluded parts of Rock Creek Park.

He had a violence problem.

He had an alcohol and a drug problem.

Tuchman: There were similarities in these cases.

In all three of the cases, the women were white.

The women were wearing gym clothes.

The women had Walkmen with them, listening to music.

Guandique is detained by the U.S. Park Police.

During their interview with him,

he is shown a missing-person flier

with a picture of Chandra Levy, and he's asked,

"Have you ever seen this person in Rock Creek Park?"

And he says, "Yes."

He's then asked if he thought she was attractive,

and again, he says, "Yes."

He didn't show up for work the day

that Chandra went missing, and he had a cut lip

and scratches around his throat and a bloodied eye.

Tuchman: During the course of this investigation,

their antennae sprung up when they heard about an inmate

who had been in prison with Guandique.

This man, who turned out to be

what is known as a jailhouse snitch,

said Guandique admitted to him that he murdered Chandra Levy.

On the strength of that,

the prosecutors then built a case.

According to court documents,

Ingmar Guandique told at least two people that he killed Levy.

Guandique, who is in prison for assaulting two women,

also kept a picture of Levy in his cell.

Just a really creepy guy.

Bolduan: The jury, just a short time ago,

handed down a guilty verdict in Chandra Levy's murder trial.

Ingmar Guandique faces life without parole.

I have a lifetime sentence of a lost limb

missing from our family tree.

It's painful, but I have a feeling

that my daughter is with me.

Karas: Guandique was convicted of her murder

and sentenced to 60 years.

Key evidence that helped convict Guandique

was a jailhouse snitch, a guy named Morales.

Well, about 5 years into his sentence,

prosecutors learn that Morales has a credibility problem,

which casts doubt on the key evidence.

It turns out the snitch in jail, surprise, surprise,

isn't of complete ethical standings.

Based on this new information challenging

Morales' credibility, Guandique's conviction

is vacated,

and he's facing a retrial,

but then prosecutors decide they don't have enough evidence.

There was no DNA, no blood, no material evidence

that connects him to the case,

and there's a lot of unanswered questions.

Grace: Bombshell Tonight.

The man convicted of murdering Chandra Levy

has just been released, all charges dropped.

They don't have proof beyond a reasonable doubt,

so they dismiss the charges, and immigration holds Guandique.

Tuchman: Chandra Levy disappeared in May of 2001.

Sixteen years later in May of 2017,

Ingmar Guandique was led away on a small airplane

here in the United States and flown back to El Salvador,

deported from this country.

Phillips: So it was so sad to think you had answers,

and then that was retracted, and now, to this day,

we still are not for sure who killed Chandra Levy.

We suspected Mr. Guandique of that homicide,

and he may indeed be the person.

Franken: If it is not Guandique, then who's out there?

Geragos: Gary Condit's been vindicated,

not as much as he should be in the public's eye,

but ultimately, I think he has been vindicated.

Phillips: It's heart-wrenching, heart-wrenching to never,

ever know who killed your child.

I just can't believe that this has happened, and --

Yeah. I think it's like a can of worms

and untied ends, and somewhere in the universe,

somebody knows what really happened.

I don't know -- Yeah.

Who did it.

All I know is someone is responsible.

Yeah. And I don't have my child.

It's a nightmare.

Ramsey: What I'd want to say to the Levys

if I could see them now

is that, you know, the case is still there.

People still care. People are still working.

Somebody knows who killed Chandra Levy.

Somebody knows.

Chandra had a saying, and I really thought it was profound.

She'll say, "What difference does it make?"

Yeah.

And that is profound to me. Yeah.

♪♪

Mr. Condit declined our request for comment or interview.

As parents of a murdered daughter, Susan and Robert Levy

will never give up their quest to find Chandra's killer.

They hold out hope for some future advancement

in forensic technology that could uncover physical evidence,

and they hold on to the firm belief

that there is someone out there who knows something.

Until then, Susan tells everyone, "There is no closure,"

and she's not alone since the Chandra Levy case still endures

as one of Washington's most infamous unsolved murders.

Thanks for watching and good night.

[ Musical flourish ]