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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Finally, a Conviction|in Chandra Levy Murder

WASHINGTON (CN) - A jury found Ingmar Guandique guilty of murdering Chandra Levy, whose disappearance in 2001 ended the political career of Congressman Gary Condit.

Condit's reputation was tarnished when it was revealed that he'd been having an affair with the 24-year-old U.S. Bureau of Prisons intern when she disappeared in May 2001. Condit, R-Calif., was ultimately cleared of involvement, though he lost his bid for re-election in a formerly safe district.

Prosecutors eventually honed in on Guandique, a 29-year-old undocumented immigrant from El Salvador.

The prosecution's case included testimony from Guandique's cellmate, that Guandique had admitted the crime, and from two women who claimed that Guandique had attacked them in Rock Creek Park around the time of Levy's murder.

Levy's body was found 13 months after she disappeared. Prosecutors acknowledged that numerous mistakes by police and forensic scientists had hindered the investigation.

Levy's mother, Susan Levy, told reporters after the verdict that "it ain't closure," and that she would endure a "lifetime sentence of a lost limb missing from my family tree."

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