Chandra Levy was a name heard on news reports around the world for months in 2001, after her body was found in a D.C. park and lab tests found DNA on her clothing from congressman Gary Condit. Now, a judge has ordered court documents from 2009 to be unsealed after the attorneys representing the man convicted of her murder said they have reason to call a key witness’s testimony into question.
31-year old Ingmar Guandique was convicted in 2011 to two 60-year sentences for murder with kidnapping and murder with attempted robbery in Levy’s case, but his attorneys say that the key witness in the trial–Armando Morales–may not have been credible. Morales was a convicted felon and gang member who testified that Guandique confessed in prison to the murder. He was doing time for assaulting two other women in the park where Levy’s remains were found.
The documents include transcripts of conversations Judge Fisher had at his bench with the lawyers during court hearings last year which couldn’t be heard by courtroom observers.
Levy–who was an intern with the Bureau of Prisons in Washington D.C.–went missing in 2001, and all eyes subsequently turned to Gary Condit. Although the congressman was never officially a suspect, he was in a constant spotlight throughout the rest of that year as the case grew colder and colder, because his semen was found on a pair of Levy’s underwear officials took from her apartment during the search for her. Until that point, he had denied having a relationship with her. In 2002, her skull and remains were found in the park.
Image: Jon Michael Terry/Wikipedia