Intern’s remains found

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The discovery of Chandra Levy’s skeletal remains will reinvigorate a police and grand jury investigation that had floundered for lack of physical evidence, law enforcement authorities and legal observers said Wednesday.

District of Columbia police chief Charles Ramsey, while cautioning that "it remains to be seen" how much investigators will learn from the evidence found in Rock Creek Park, said an FBI lab analysis of the clothing near Levy’s remains may turn up blood, semen or hair that could prove helpful in solving the case. Another law enforcement source said the bones themselves could yield important clues.

Although police and FBI agents already have interviewed more than a thousand people since the 24-year-old federal intern from California disappeared almost 13 months ago, the certainty that Levy is dead will sharpen their focus and prompt them to ask different questions, Ramsey said.

"It shifts the focus, absolutely," Ramsey said. "Now you know you have a death investigation. It moves down a different path."

Levy’s skeletal remains were found on a steep, isolated slope in Rock Creek Park on Wednesday, more than a year after her disappearance touched off an investigation that fascinated the nation and ended the career of Rep. Gary Condit of California.

Drawn by the sniffing of his dog, a man on a morning outing in the park swept away loose debris and uncovered a skull that the Washington, D.C., medical examiner’s office identified as Levy’s using dental records provided by her family months ago when the search for the former federal intern was at its peak.

Police on the scene quickly found "quite a bit" of a skeleton, Ramsey said. Other police investigators said they also found a jogging bra, panties, tennis shoes, sweat pants and a portable radio.

Last summer, police recruits searched 1,700 of Rock Creek Park’s 2,820 acres, including the area where the remains were discovered, Ramsey said. The park was a focus then because police officers who examined the contents of Levy’s computer learned that on May 1, 2001, the last day she was heard from, she looked up the location of Klingle Mansion, located in the park about a mile and a half from where her remains were found Wednesday.

The new turn in the case comes as a D.C. Superior Court grand jury continues to investigate the Levy disappearance and allegations of obstruction of justice involving U.S. Rep. Gary Condit. The grand jury has been probing whether Condit tried to stop a flight attendant from telling investigators about an affair she had with the California congressman.

Condit admitted to investigators last summer that he had an affair with Levy before her disappearance, police said. He was interviewed by police four times and appeared before the grand jury last month.

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