Posted on 05/24/2002 1:28:58 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON -- A woman attacked in Rock Creek Park two weeks after intern Chandra Levy vanished also had ties to Congress.
Halle Shilling, who was assaulted close to the park area where Levy's remains were found, covered Congress as a reporter for States News Service. The late Levy, who had an affair with Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., turned up missing May 1, 2001.
On May 14, 2001, Shilling, 30, said she was "jumped" by a man brandishing a knife while jogging along Broad Branch Trail, where Levy's remains were found on Wednesday. The two struggled, but she was able to escape by clawing her assailant.
Just two weeks earlier, Levy, 24, disappeared after looking up a map of Rock Creek Park. She logged off her computer at about 1 p.m. May 1. Her keys and a ring, but not her ID, were missing from her apartment.
At the scene where her remains were discovered, investigators recovered a USC sweatshirt, leotards, a jogging bra, sneakers and strands of dark hair. Levy was scheduled to return to USC to attend her masters graduation ceremony just before she disappeared.
Police also found a portable radio with Levy's remains. Shilling said she was wearing a Sony Walkman headset when she was attacked from behind. So was Christie Wiegand, 26, who was assaulted by a man with a knife in the same park on July 1.
Both women were attacked by Ingmar Guandeque, a 20-year-old Salvadoran, who in September 2001 pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and this February was sentenced to 10 years in prison (the maximum penalty for his crimes was 35 years).
Guandeque admitted in D.C. Superior Court that he pursued and grabbed the female joggers last year in a failed attempt to steal their Sony Walkmans. He never took any property from his victims, and the judge said he acted more like a predator, who enjoyed physical confrontation with his victims, than a thief.
Shilling said U.S. Park Police warned her after she was attacked to avoid wearing headphones while jogging, since they make it harder to hear possible attackers coming up from behind.
Roll Call, a Capitol Hill paper, reported yesterday that D.C. police interviewed Guandeque after Levy's disappearance. But they told the Washington Post he's not a prime suspect in her death.
Between the time Guandeque was arrested last July and his sentencing in February, no media linked Guandeque to the Levy case in any way, according to a Nexis search of media reports. In fact, up until yesterday, there was just one story on Guandeque -- a Metro brief in the Washington Post about his guilty plea.
She was found close to a road/residential area vs near the path.
Any bets that her keys show up in a place that incriminates this guy? Any bets that some of his DNA shows up on her clothing? Way too convenient for me.
I sure do miss Barbara Olson standing up to his disgusting spin.
Also, when Condit was making his midnight trips around D.C., is Rock Creek anywhere near where he was??
This is something that I have been bothered by also. I agree, a murderer simply does not go to being a person that accosts joggers, then lets them go. I really don't think that this guy who accosted these women had anything to do with Chandra Levy, and if he did, he was, maybe, indirectly involved and hired after the fact.
I do remember that story. I believe it was in Massachusetts because there was a lot of joking at the time wondering where Teddy Kennedy was. The name was released a few days later. It was a local that had been missing for a while.
Who is he going to 'tell it all' to? A public defender picked out for him by s friend of the killer?
I suspect the guy probably isn't overly endowed with brains or money. What kind of defense is he going to have? He admits guilt for attacking the women but denies the details of the attack?
In the two cases for which he confessed, was a rope, straps or tape involved in either one? Do simple park assualts, or rapes in such surroundings, usually involve tying up the victim, or does the fear of getting stabbed or cut usually suffice to subdue the victim? And if Chandra has been moved, is it reasonable to think a guy whose MO was sneaking up on women in parks went out, snuck up on Chandra, subdued her, dragged her off some place, conched her in the head before or after, tied her up, killed her, and took her all the way back to the park to dump the body?
Did either victim mention that he tried to bind them? Did either mention him trying to conk them on the head or did any have a head wound?
I think it's probable the body was moved to that location too, either right about the time this immigrant was arrested at the earliest, or if not, was only put there very recently. If a guy ever set up an ambush, it wouldn't be in a spot under thick brush and on a steep untravelled slope... no one would ever come by to be ambushed. So she had to have been moved there once subdued or killed. But the police search area ended before it got as far as her location in the park and if the body had been there, they didn't find it and evidently no dog ever came by a trail to trace it back into the brush. She is decomposed and animals had been at her, evidently, which implies that wherever she has been, the location was out-of-doors. If she had been frozen all that time, or kept away from insects and critters, she would be in relatively good shape. But then. we probably won't hear detailed forensics any time soon.
I bet Chandra had a bite mark on her cheek too. But is it this guy's? Maybe, but maybe it was someone into kinky sex, not a man clumsily lunging for women with Sony Walkmen... and then forgetting to get the Walkmen and maybe forgetting why he lunged in the first place. A guy who doesn't appear to be too successful with his ambushes. IMHO, The bite, which this guy denies, could be a detail inserted into the court record to 'cinch the case' should Chandra be found. Does someone know Chandra had been bitten before her death, perhaps? Was a portrait photo of the other victim's bite mark ever presented in his court case?
Now the bite detail will be unimportant because her skull has probably been defleshed by animals and insects. But had the body been found somewhere earlier, say, right after being deposited in the park on the news of this guy's arrest, perhaps the mark would have been useful in a case against this guy as his alleged 'MO.'
Maybe the Police should ask that guy with the fraudulent crematorium business in Georgia to tell them how long a body has to sit outdoors to decompose to that degree. He had plenty of bodies laying around his property until recently in all stages of decomposition... it looked like a spare parts salvage yard. Put on your tinfoil... maybe Chandra was in Georgia all this time. ; )
Remember how Chandra told her aunt that Condit always wanted her to leave her ID at home whenever they were scheduled to meet, in case a member of the press saw them together?
There's no doubt that Chanra was on her way to meet Condit the day she disappeared.
That is a very pertinent observation!
I'm not sure which maps you mean, but there have been several maps showing both apartments, the gym and Rock Creek Parks posted in threads the last few days. If the ones you want from last summer were indexed, you should be able to find them at Condidit http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/involved?group=12
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