Cause of Death Becomes Focus in Levy Case

WASHINGTON —  The search for the cause of death of former intern Chandra Levy proceeded Thursday in forensic laboratories and along the dense forest floor where her body was found, as teams of police investigators and medical examiners sifted for evidence of a violent end.

District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said that a decision on whether to pursue the case as a homicide awaited a coroner’s analysis of Levy’s cracked skull, which was recovered from under a foot-deep pile of leaves and debris on the western edge of Washington’s 1,754-acre Rock Creek Park.

But sources familiar with the workings of the Levy probe said that the investigation is moving “in that mode already.”

Ramsey said that senior police officials, detectives, and federal agents and prosecutors involved in the case would be drawing up a list of material witnesses. One possible name, the chief said, is Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres).

“He’s one of the many people we interviewed before,” Ramsey said. “Perhaps there’s a need to talk to him again.”

Condit lost a primary election in March after a year of revelations about his relationship with Levy and continuing questions about his strained dealings with police. Questioned four times by detectives, Condit privately acknowledged that he had had an affair with Levy but refused to submit to an FBI polygraph test. He was summoned in April by a federal grand jury in Washington that is investigating the Levy case and looking into allegations of obstruction of justice during the probe.

Ramsey also said Thursday that police likely would question a Washington man who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in February for assaulting two female joggers in Rock Creek Park last May and July.

The man, 20-year-old Ingmar Guandeque, threatened both women with a black-handled knife and attempted to steal the portable stereos they carried as they ran.

“We spoke to him some time ago, and we planned to talk to him again,” Ramsey said. But, he said, “we can’t make the leap from that to anything tied to” Levy.

On May 14, 2001, two weeks after Levy vanished, Guandeque bit one victim and tried “grabbing and restraining” her as she resisted, according to a federal prosecutor’s account. He then fled.

On July 1, Guandeque pulled a second jogger off a trail, “held a knife to her chin, covered her mouth” and ordered her to be quiet. The woman also struggled, forcing both of them down into a ravine. The woman escaped and reported her assault to U.S. Park Police, who arrested Guandeque 45 minutes later, U.S. Park Police Sgt. Scott Fear said.

In both cases, Guandeque attacked the women near dusk. At sentencing on Feb. 7, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Noel A. Kramer noted Guandeque’s “predatory” behavior as he issued two concurrent 10-year prison terms.

Deputy D.C. Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer said Thursday night that Guandeque had not been given a polygraph test. “We will go back and examine what that man has done,” Gainer said.

An Internet map search entry found on a laptop computer in Levy’s apartment indicated she might have gone to a stone mansion in Rock Creek Park, a fact Ramsey and other police officials cited in saying that she was known to jog there. But family intimates and friends seemed less certain Thursday in describing her exercise routine. While one source close to the Levy family said their daughter jogged in the park and worked out at a health club near her Dupont Circle apartment, others said her trips to the park may have been only occasional.

Gainer said that “our information was she did not often jog outdoors. She usually used a treadmill” at a health club.

It is four miles from Levy’s apartment to the site where her remains were found Wednesday. “She told me several times that jogging was not her favorite activity,” said Sven Jones, one of her Washington friends.

Gainer acknowledged that despite a monthlong effort by police trainees to comb the park, police never went to the remote hill where Levy’s body was found. Condit attorney Mark Geragos said police had “some explaining to do” for failing to find her body earlier.

“We may have been 125 feet east of her at one point and 125 feet west of her at another point,” Gainer said, adding: “We gave it our best shot.”

Among the articles detectives found Wednesday near Levy’s remains was a plastic headset for a Walkman-type radio. Police also reportedly found a running shoe, a sports bra and a tattered blue USC sweatshirt believed to be a gift given to Levy for her graduation last spring.

At the District of Columbia medical examiner’s office Thursday, the effort to learn the cause and timing of Levy’s death was well underway. Pathologists peered through dissecting microscopes, analyzing the recovered skull to try to determine whether a crack in the upper portion of the cranium was caused by a wild animal, a fallen tree branch or blunt force trauma from a weapon.

At the site where her skeleton was recovered, other scientists and evidence technicians plotted their findings; yellow-vested police recruits poked sticks into a rock-strewn creek and through deep underbrush, probing for more remains scattered in a location about 100 yards from the nearest road.

“My guess is in the next day or two they’re going to call this a homicide,” said Ted Williams, a lawyer and former D.C. police homicide investigator.

George Washington University Law School forensic scientist James Starrs said specialists would hunt for “trace evidence”--the telltale deposits left when humans interact. DNA traces, such as semen, blood or hair fibers that might be present and could provide clues, he said. So might something like old insect husks, which could be dated in an effort to “learn how long she was there.”