Today’s episode: Part XI — The Secret of Rock Creek Park Unveiled:

The Gist — This chapter focuses on how the body of Chandra Levy was finally discovered a mere 386 days after her disappearance in a park that the police had already searched once before and found nothing. The body was finally discovered not by police but totally by chance by another visitor to the park. It was completely decomposed — only bones and articles of clothing remained — but enough evidence exists to declare it a murder. The various law enforcement agencies involved responded by continuing to do a half-assed job with the investigation while trying to dodge or shift the blame.

The Story Lede — “Shortly before 9:30 a.m. on May 22, 2002, Philip Douglas Palmer, a 42-year-old furniture maker, walked his dog down a steep ravine off the Western Ridge Trail in Rock Creek Park. Palmer had been hiking trails in the park for 30 years, and he was looking for items to add to his offbeat collection of deer antlers and animal bones.”

What I Didn’t Already Know About the Story — Philip Palmer is better at finding and preserving a crime scene than DC’s finest:

“Beneath the brush, he saw a bleached-out object that he thought was a turtle shell. He swept away some leaves, uncovering a human skull. Palmer marked the spot by hanging a blue leash and a sweatshirt on nearby branches and left to call 911.

The Big News From This Installment — This episode’s revelation is that even after the crime scene was discovered, investigators managed to screw up the investigation not once, but twice more. Two subsequent trips to the scene after the initial post-discovery sweep managed to turn up evidence that had been missed before:

“The discoveries highlighted long-standing problems within the understaffed and under-budgeted Mobile Crime Unit. Training was inconsistent, and equipment was lacking. Some technicians used their own money to buy markers, cotton swabs and evidence bags. [Chief Deputy Terrance] Gainer, the department’s second in command, acknowledged that his police force was not ‘forensically oriented.‘

Makes you feel safer, doesn’t it?

Also the evidence that is discovered plus the location of the scene threw the suspicion back on Ingmar Guandique, who had previously been ruled out by investigators and prosecutors. Kim Rossmo, director of research for the Police Foundation in Washington, said, hmm, there seems to be a connection here:

”Rossmo noted that around the time of Chandra’s disappearance, the Salvadoran immigrant lived on the outskirts of the park and attacked two women with a knife on isolated trails that traversed steep inclines. Such serial attacks were rare in the park, and they had stopped after Guandique was arrested.

“To Rossmo, statistically, behaviorally and geographically, Guandique looked like he might be their man.

Well, thank goodness for experts …

The Ironic Twist — There was so little left of Chandra by this point that it was hard to discover much of anything from the crime scene. The investigators were not able to determine the precise cause of death, for example, though strangulation appears to be the leading theory.

In a particularly gruesome note, one problem was that Chandra’s remains were scattered around a rather wide area. At first police suspected Palmer had moved some bones when he found the scene. They later realized that the animals in the park had done it:

“‘It appears that department technicians did not pass over the bone during the original search,” the [DC police press] release said. ‘There appears to be a greater likelihood that the bone was reintroduced into the area by wildlife.’

The Tabloid-y Goodness — We learn what it was like for the Levy’s when they were confronted with the fact that their daughter was truly gone from them:

“In Modesto, Calif., that morning, Robert and Susan Levy taped an interview in their living room for ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’ which was doing another segment on Chandra’s disappearance. Afterward, Susan crawled into Chandra’s bed because it always made her feel close to her daughter.

“Later that morning, the phone rang. D.C. police told her they had found the remains of a woman in Rock Creek Park. It could be Chandra. In the hallway of her home, Levy fell to the floor, sobbing so hard she could barely catch her breath.

The Story So Far –Part I: The Search of Rock Creek Park.

Part II: Chandra’s Forbidden Romance.

Part III: The Congressman’s Harem.

Part IV: The Living Horror of the Levys.

Part V: The Congressman’s Unhappy Constituents.

Part VI: Something Wicked in the Park.

Part VII: The Congressman and the Scent of Scandal.

Part VIII: The Wrong Man and the Art of Denial.

Part IX: The Congressman and the Horror of Prime-Time TV.

Part X: A Jailhouse Bird Sings.

Part XI: The Secret of Rock Creek Park Unveiled.

Tomorrow’s Chapter — The Exciting Conclusion!

The WashingtonPost.com’s resident Catholic blogger makes a bold declaration in a web column today:

I am not against Catholics in office following the moral teachings of the Church.

I’m not even Catholic and I find that moronic. Did Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo get this column because Dan Brown and Richard Dawkins turned it down or something?

In his future column, Stevens-Arroyo will no doubt explore such deep questions as:

1. Does the Pope always have to be Catholic? Why not Unitarian?
2. South Park’s Hare Club for Men episode: Just how close to the truth?
3. Why Latin? Why not Esperanto?
4. The Gospel According to St. Christopher Hitchens.

Today’s episode: Part X — A Jailhouse Bird Sings:

The Gist — This chapter focuses on how the investigation into Chandra Levy’s disappearance finally became aware of Ingmar Guandique, a man who had attacked at least two other women in Rock Creek Park at the time of Levy’s disappearance. A jailhouse snitch tells the authorities that Guandique confessed to the crime but the story is discounted because of some other, rather fanciful, details the snitch includes. That and an inconclusive polygraph test serve to exclude him as a suspect, as far as investors are concerned. When Guandique is sentenced for the attacks on the two women, the judge and prosecutors discount the possibility that he did it all.

The Story Lede — “On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the four-month-old Chandra Levy story quickly dropped off the front pages of newspapers around the world.”

What I Didn’t Already Know About the Story — There is apparently nobody in the Federal Bureau of Investigation who can habla Espanol:

“[T]here was a problem with the polygraph exams in the Chandra case: Neither the informant nor Guandique spoke much English, and the FBI polygraph examiners were not bilingual. A translator was used for both exams, a variable that can compromise test results, according to polygraph experts. Polygraph equipment measures minute changes in breathing, sweating, blood pressure and other bodily functions. If the polygraph examiner and the translator are not in sync, the test results can be skewed.

“‘If I had my druthers, I would have wanted to get a Spanish-speaking polygraph examiner,’ Jack Barrett, D.C. chief of detectives, later recalled. ‘It’s so much cleaner.’ But he would have had to wait for months because of different priorities within the FBI.

The Big News From This Installment — A lot. After a few tedious entries that gave little new details and just rehashed the record, the Post provides a gold mine of nuggets this time. The snitch not only says that Guandique confessed to it, but that Condit paid him to do it. Sleazy as he may be, its awfully hard to believe that Condit would go that far. That plus the apparently botched polygraph test — the FBI agent who administered the test decided to mark it as “pass” without noting it was a judgment call based on inconclusive results — resulted in him being completely ruled out. You can almost hear the investigators saying: “The informant said what? Aw, the Guandique lead’s gotta be bullshit.”

The Ironic Twist — In September of 2001, Guandique was interrogated in front of a D.C. Park Police officer who had earlier interrogated him in July. Guandique contracted his earlier responses, but the officer completely forgot about the earlier interview.

“On Sept. 21, Guandique was removed from his jail cell and brought to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for questioning by prosecutors and D.C. detectives. He was accompanied by a public defender.Guandique was shown a picture of Chandra. He said the only place he had ever seen her was on television.

“That contradicted what a former Park Police detective later told The Washington Post. Joe Green, who interrogated Guandique on July 2, said that at that time he showed Chandra’s picture to Guandique and the Salvadoran said he had seen her in the park.

“Green was present at the meeting in the U.S. attorney’s office. To this day, Green does not remember that meeting or whether he passed on to D.C. police or prosecutors the information he said he got from Guandique. ‘I should have said something,’ Green would later comment.

The Tabloid-y Goodness — We get a glimpse into the mind of one sick dude:

“On Feb. 8, four days after his FBI polygraph, Guandique was escorted into Room 321 of the D.C. Superior Courthouse to be sentenced after pleading guilty to the attacks on Halle Shilling and Christy Wiegand. A court-ordered report noted that Guandique had a wide range of behavioral, alcohol and drug problems.

“‘When I’m about to commit an offense, I tell myself to go ahead and do it, but afterwards, I feel bad about it,’ Guandique said through a translator in the report. ‘I feel good when I see someone alone and carrying something of value on their person because it makes it easy for me to take it from them. Then it crosses my mind, that after doing it so many times, I will eventually get caught. Sometimes, I cannot control myself when I see someone alone in a secluded area with something of value.’”

The Story So Far –Part I: The Search of Rock Creek Park.

Part II: Chandra’s Forbidden Romance.

Part III: The Congressman’s Harem.

Part IV: The Living Horror of the Levys.

Part V: The Congressman’s Unhappy Constituents.

Part VI: Something Wicked in the Park.

Part VII: The Congressman and the Scent of Scandal.

Part VIII: The Wrong Man and the Art of Denial.

Part IX: The Congressman and the Horror of Prime-Time TV.

Part X: A Jailhouse Bird Sings.

Tomorrow’s Chapter — A Body in the Park.

Steven Spielberg always said [to me], “To play the dumb blonde, you have to be really smart. Except in your case.”

– Actress Teri Garr.

Today’s episode: Part IX — The Congressman and the Horror of Prime-Time TV:

The Gist — This chapter focuses on how the investigation into Chandra Levy’s disappearance ground on and by mid-July became a full-blown media frenzy thanks to the incompetence of Congressman Gary Condit’s damage control efforts and the police’s ineptitude. Condit consents to a fourth interview, this time with an FBI expert, who comes away convinced that Condit is not involved in Chandra’s disappearance after all. Meanwhile an interview with ABC’s Connie Chung goes disastrously for Condit. His hometown paper, the Modesto Bee, tells the California Democrat he should resign his seat for impeding the investigation: “His self-absorption has been a lapse not only of judgment, but of human decency.” A CNN-Gallup poll found that 63% of Americans were following the case closely.

The Story Lede — “The Chandra Levy case spun out of control in mid-July 2001 with a series of sensational tabloid stories, with such headlines as ‘The Congressman, the Missing Intern & the Sexy Stewardess: FBI Probes His Secret Double Life.‘”

What I Didn’t Already Know About the Story — Condit’s PR brilliance knows no end. Rather than submit to a police polygraph, Condit paid for a private polygraph session. He passed with flying colors and sent the results over to the police. They didn’t buy it:

“Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey dismissed the test as a farce with ‘no investigative value.’ FBI experts agreed. ‘He may have tried to sell it to us, but we’re not buying it,’ Ramsey said.”

The Big News From This Installment — A dog walker who was flashed in Rock Creek Park, the same place where Chandra was apparently headed the day she disappeared, was stunned the police did not investigate the possibility that her flasher might also be involved in Levy’s disappearance. Instead, another clue linking the case to a series of assaults on women in Rock Creek Park was missed:

“On July 24, when D.C. detectives contacted the Park Police for additional details about [the attack on dog walker Karen] Mosley, they said, they learned for the first time about an attack in the park. Ingmar Guandique, the Salvadoran, was being held for assaulting Christy Wiegand on July 1.

“Detectives later noted that police called Mosley the day they received the tip, July 20, but Mosley said no one from the D.C. police contacted her that summer.

“‘That didn’t happen,’ she later recalled. ‘I would have remembered that.’”

“As Chandra’s disappearance turned into a round-the-clock news story in mid-July, Mosley grew frustrated by the intense coverage of Condit.

‘It was making me crazy,’ she recalled. ‘The entire focus was on this guy. I kept saying to my friends, ‘They’re not focusing on this guy in the woods.’”

The Ironic Twist — Once again, Condit’s efforts at spin control only made matters worse for him:

“During the ABC interview, he declined to answer questions about whether he had an affair with Chandra. He said that he was not a perfect man and that he made mistakes. ‘But out of respect for my family, out of a specific request by the Levy family, it is best that I not get into the details of the relationship,’ he said repeatedly.

“Condit’s performance was uniformly criticized as evasive. Robert and Susan Levy were appalled - they said they had made no ’specific request’ that Condit be discreet about their daughter. Political party leaders and major newspapers called for him to step down.

“‘I knew within a couple weeks my career was gone,’ he recalled in The Post interview.

The Tabloid-y Goodness — Condit discovers that when you’re a sleaze, people find it easy to believe sleazy stories about you:

“On July 12, 2001, The Washington Post recounted a tale from a Pentecostal minister in Rep. Gary Condit’s home town of Ceres, Calif., who had worked as a handyman for the Levys. He said his teenage daughter once dated the congressman, but she was afraid to talk to the FBI and had gone into hiding.

“A week after the account became front-page news, the minister recanted his story to the FBI. ‘It really hurt me,’ Condit said in a recent interview. ‘It hurt me personally; it hurt me professionally; it accused me of committing a crime, of having sex with a minor. It put me in such a dark state, I didn’t think I was going to get out.’”

The Story So Far –Part I: The Search of Rock Creek Park.

Part II: Chandra’s Forbidden Romance.

Part III: The Congressman’s Harem.

Part IV: The Living Horror of the Levys.

Part V: The Congressman’s Unhappy Constituents.

Part VI: Something Wicked in the Park.

Part VII: The Congressman and the Scent of Scandal.

Part VIII: The Wrong Man and the Art of Denial.

Part IX: The Congressman and the Horror of Prime-Time TV.

Tomorrow’s Chapter — The Jailhouse Informant’s Tale.

I can be reached at ink.stained at comcast.net.

Today’s episode: Part VIII — The Wrong Man and the Art of Denial:

The Gist — This chapter focuses on how the D.C. police came to the conclusion that Congressman Gary Condit was the sole suspect in Chandra Levy’s disappearance to the exclusion of any other. Condit eventually submits to a DNA test which proves that … he was having and affair with Chandra Levy. This was, uhh, something that had already been well-established by this point in the investigation, but the police see it as a breakthrough. Meanwhile Condit sneakily tries to throw away the watch a former girlfriend gave him, but is spotted, making him seem even more suspicious.

The Story Lede — “About 10 p.m. on July 9, Gary Condit and his lawyer met lead Detective Ralph Durant in the dimly lit parking lot behind the Giant supermarket on Wisconsin Avenue near the National Cathedral. Cooler heads had prevailed, and Condit had agreed to give a DNA sample.”

What I Didn’t Already Know About the Story — That the Post was going to stretch this series out for 12 days despite the lack of worthwhile new information. Today’s entry doesn’t have much in it not already told in the previous entry, save a few minor details.

The Big News From This Installment — The watch case that Condit tried to dump in a trash can far away from his DC condo was to the watch that a different ex-lover, former intern Joleen Argentini McKay, gave him. This boneheaded move was spotted by a person who alerted the police. They leaked the info to the media, which made Condit look even guilter than before. (Why was he trying to hide evidence, people thought?)

Also, Condit gave the DNA sample to the police in a secret meeting at the parking lot behind the Giant supermarket near the National Cathedral, like it was some sort of low-life drug deal.

The Ironic Twist — “Today, Condit says the watch box incident was the result of a misunderstanding. He said police and tabloid reporters were going through his garbage, and he merely wanted to preserve his privacy. ‘They’re saying a woman gave me a watch and I threw the watch box away,’ he said recently. ‘Even if that’s true, so? What’s that? What does that mean? It was nothing.’

“At the time, detectives were puzzled. They tried to eliminate Condit as a suspect, but he was making it difficult. Why did he keep a watch box for nearly seven years? And why did he throw it out hours before their search of his apartment? They believed that the congressman, at the very least, was obstructing the investigation.

“‘He did foolish things over the course of time,’ Barrett recalled. ‘We had to address him. There was so much energy that was wasted on this issue. ….. He goes and gets real goofy on us. We couldn’t eliminate him.’

The Tabloid-y Goodness — “Durant used a cotton swab to quickly take a sample of saliva from the congressman’s mouth. No words were exchanged. The procedure took less than a minute. The detective turned the sample over to the D.C. Police Mobile Crime Unit, which sent it to the FBI laboratory at Quantico for testing.

“During their initial search of Chandra’s apartment, D.C. police found a pair of black panties stained with semen. Prosecutors wanted to know if the semen belonged to Condit or if Chandra was seeing another man.

The Story So Far –Part I: The Search of Rock Creek Park.

Part II: Chandra’s Forbidden Romance.

Part III: The Congressman’s Harem.

Part IV: The Living Horror of the Levys.

Part V: The Congressman’s Unhappy Constituents.

Part VI: Something Wicked in the Park.

Part VII: The Congressman and the Scent of Scandal.

Part VIII: The Wrong Man and the Art of Denial.

Tomorrow’s Chapter — DC’s Thin Blue Line Gets a New Break.

Although I’m pretty sure his favored candidate is still this guy, he endorses the idea of a third term for Dubya in the Politico today:

That is, America would be better off with more of the mediocrity and genteel failure that the Bush presidency has become than with what it will get next.

***

At least Bush, in the twilight of his presidency, has finally got his back up about things that we elect Republicans to be stubborn about. He’s rooted around under his desk, found that long-missing veto pen and started using it to send bills back to the legislature. His hostility to Congress, and the reciprocal hostility of the Democratic leadership to him, ensures that a lot less gets done than would otherwise.

Granted, this president is not terribly inspiring or far-thinking, or right on most issues that matter to the country. But is it too late to repeal the 22nd Amendment and reelect him anyway? I’d rather another term with the Bush we know than four years with the president we’re going to get to know.

Today’s episode: Part VII — The Congressman and the Scent of Scandal:

The Gist — This chapter focuses on June 2001, when the D.C. police focused on Congressman Gary Condit as the main suspect, having completely overlooked that fact that a man had been attacking women in the very same park where Chandra Levy had disappeared. Condit is cagey with police and his staff engages in some pretty aggressive efforts to try to keep this under wraps in the media. Unfortunately for them it all backfires, drawing police towards Condit and feeding the media frenzy.

The Story Lede — “By the first week of July 2001, D.C. detectives investigating the May 1 disappearance of Chandra Levy still had no idea that a man had been attacking young female joggers at knifepoint in Rock Creek Park. Rep. Gary Condit remained the center of police attention. The week would begin badly for him and rapidly get worse.”

What I Didn’t Already Know About the Story — That I had forgotten as much as I had. I didn’t remember that Chandra’s aunt had gone public, relating what Chandra told her about the affair. I had also forgotten that Condit’s other mistress, Anna Marie Smith, had gone public as well.

The Big News From This Installment — Condit’s staff tried to get Smith to sign an affidavit saying: “I do not and have not had a relationship with Congressman Condit other than being acquainted with him,” which was, of course, a lie. (Condit still denies an affair though). Smith talked to a lawyer and refused to sign.

The police interviewed Condit’s wife to discover what she knew. She persisted that her husband and Chandra were “just friends”. Police discovered some of Chandra’s underwear with potential DNA material on them. The police and prosecutors set up a meeting with Condit and his lawyer where they asked Condit to submit to a DNA test. It ended with shouting and Condit’s attorney telling the authorities to get the hell out of his office.

The Ironic Twist — Once again, the efforts to cover up the scandal on succeeded in making it worse. (Why do politicians never learn this?) In this case, it was the denials of the affair that prompted Condit’s aunt to seek out the television cameras:

“The next day, there was another explosive development: Linda Zamsky, Chandra’s 40-year-old aunt and confidante who lived near the Elk River in Chesapeake City, Md., went before the cameras. The fast-talking, curly-haired native of Philadelphia said she was tired of hearing congressional aides deny that Condit had an affair with her niece.

“Zamsky said Chandra had confided in her during numerous conversations and long walks when the intern visited her aunt for Thanksgiving in 2000 and Passover a few months later. …

“Zamsky said her niece told her that they had a five-year plan: Condit would leave his wife and start a family with Chandra. But until then, she had to avoid being seen when she was in Condit’s building.

The Tabloid-y Goodness — “During their initial search of Chandra’s apartment, Barrett’s detectives found a pair of black panties stained with semen along with other dirty laundry in a Williams-Sonoma bag on the breakfast countertop. The prosecutors wanted to know if the semen belonged to Gary Condit or if Chandra was seeing another man. A DNA test was the only way to find out.”

Also, Condit denies on the record the claims by Chandra’s aunt that he had promised Chandra he would divorce his wife and start a family with her:

“I don’t believe the aunt knows anything about me,” he said. “I had no interest in starting a family and leaving my wife. Those conversations never occurred. It’s just made up.”

The Story So Far –Part I: The Search of Rock Creek Park.

Part II: Chandra’s Forbidden Romance.

Part III: The Congressman’s Harem.

Part IV: The Living Horror of the Levys.

Part V: The Congressman’s Unhappy Constituents.

Part VI: Something Wicked in the Park.

Part VII: The Congressman and the Scent of Scandal.

Tomorrow’s Chapter — A Stain on the Congressman’s Reputation.

It was only a 10-minute role. It was only 10 days’ work. In Nassau. In the Bahamas. And they were going to pay me a million bucks for 10 days, and I said, “Hey, I’ll do that.”

– Michael Caine, explaining why he appeared in Jaws the Revenge, widely considered the worst film of his career. Taking the role meant he would miss the Academy Awards and, ironically, he won that year.