Levy remains await trip home
July 16, 2002 Posted: 05:10:07 AM PDT
By MICHAEL DOYLE
BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Chandra Levy's remains are ready to come home. Having yielded as many secrets as possible to investigators, most of Levy's skeletal remains have been packaged into several boxes and await a shipment that could happen at any time.
"It's just a matter of making the arrangements," Washington Medical Examiner Jonathan Arden said Monday. "We are completely ready to release her remains
."Arden talked Monday with Levy family attorney Billy Martin about getting the remains returned to her parents.
Some details are mandated, such as the legal requirement that a licensed funeral director take charge of the transport. Arden said for geographically distant next-of-kin, that typically entails hiring a local professional to handle the Washington end.
Other details remain unclear, including whether Bob and Sue Levy will travel to the nation's capital once more from their Modesto home to escort their daughter's remains.
"They're still working those details out," Levy family spokeswoman Judy Smith said Monday night. But at least a small part of the remains will stay in Washington, where Levy's disappearance 14 months ago and subsequently revealed friendship with Rep. Gary Condit, D-Ceres, pushed the former intern into the national spotlight.
Arden's office will hold on to some skeletal pieces for potential future use as the investigation warrants
Among the bones of interest, for instance, is the hyoid. This is a U-shaped bone about one inch above the Adam's apple, and its condition leaves investigators with at least a suspicion that Levy was strangled. "There is a little irregularity," Arden said. "There is some damage, but it is not conclusive."