Criminal Justice
Repeat Offender Accused of Chandra Levy Murder
Posted Mar 3, 2009, 01:30 pm CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A man serving a 10-year prison sentence for attacking two women with knives in a Washington, D.C., park has been charged with killing Chandra Levy in the same place.
Police charged Ingmar Guandique after several witnesses said he had confessed to the murder of Levy, a federal intern, the Washington Post reports.
One witness said Guandique, who is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, claimed to be a member of the gang MS-13 and he was known as “Chuckie” because of his reputation for killing and chopping up people, the Post story says.
Federal prosecutor Jeffrey Taylor said at a news conference that Guandique has been charged with first-degree murder, ABC News reports. "We believe that Miss Levy was a random victim of Guandique,who allegedly attacked and killed her as she walked or jogged through Rock Creek Park on May 1, 2001," he said.
Investigators probing the death of Levy nearly eight years ago at first focused on U.S. Rep. Gary Condit because he was having an affair with the intern. A Washington Post investigation detailed police missteps and revealed that one of the women attacked at knifepoint was Christy Wiegand, an antitrust lawyer for Arnold & Porter.
Wiegand, then a recent law grad of Cornell, fought off her attacker and screamed, causing the man to run away. Her description led to Guandique’s arrest and prosecution.
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