A Washington, D.C., station said D.C. police "submitted evidence to the U.S. Attorney's Office in an effort to get an arrest warrant" for Guandique, whose possible role in the crime was given less attention by law enforcement than the possible role of then-California representative Gary Condit.
In published notes
about the series, the
Post says, "The reporters discovered that the police investigation was overwhelmed with the white-hot media coverage fueled by the possible involvement of Rep. Gary Condit, a congressman from California."
Condit granted his first interview about the Chandra Levy case to Post reporters Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham for their series, published July 13-27, 2008.
The Post's story about the weekend's developments quotes the lawyer who represented Condit during the early part of the Levy investigation:
Condit's attorney during the case, Abbe D. Lowell, said the news vindicates his client.
"While very good news, it is a tragedy that the police and media obsession with former Congressman Condit delayed this result for eight years and caused needless pain and harm to the families involved," Lowell said. "This should give the Levys the answer and closure they deserve and remove the unfair cloud that has hung over the Condits for too long."
The reporters also spoke last summer with officials involved in the original investigation, two women attacked by Guandique, and another Post reporter, Sylvia Moreno, spoke with Guandique himself by telephone and through letters sent from prison.
In
their Reporters' Notebook, they list all the new information published in their series, including that as of July 27, "D.C. police and the prosecutors working on the Chandra Levy case have never interviewed the two women who were attacked in the park by Guandique."
The police investigation into the murder of Chandra Levy has ramped up in recent months, after The Washington Post in July published a 13-part serial narrative investigation into the case, pointing to Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant, as the most likely suspect in the case.
Since the end of last summer, D.C. detectives and prosecutors have been building a case against Guandique, who attacked two women at knifepoint in Rock Creek Park around the time of Levy's disappearance in May 2001. Guandique, 27, was convicted in those attacks and is serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison in California. He has denied any involvement in Levy's death.
Prosecutors have convened a federal grand jury in the District and new detetives assigned to the case have been interviewing witnesses and examining evidence in the case. The detectives submitted some of Guandique's belongings for DNA testing, and at least one of his victims has testified before the grand jury.
Police and prosecutors told the victim, Halle Shilling, that they were focusing their attention on Guandique. Shilling told The Post that the investigators apologized to her for the fact that the orginal detectives on the Levy case had never interviewed her.
Chandra Levy's father told the paper, "The
Post series really helped the police, because it brought new things out."
The Los Angeles Times says, "The Levys said that they were told that a possible breakthrough in the case came, at least in part, due to the increased attention spurred by a Washington Post series last year about the slaying and the Police Department's handling of it."
The Post series, called "Who Killed Chandra Levy?", was criticized by some for its in-depth attention to this case.
CLARIFICATION: This story has been modified to clarify that it was then-Post reporter Sylvia Moreno who spoke with Guandique.
Previous Poynter Online stories about Chandra Levy coverage:
Good, specific story. The role of the press (media) hits...
