I know those cadets did a crummy job in their search, but surely a decomposing body would have been pungent enough for even their less-than-adequate wander.
I'm still in doubt as to her actually meeting her demise in that park, especially now that the Walkman first reported found is no longer on the list.
Filed at 4:28 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police found Chandra Levy's remains through happenstance and, although they have concluded she was killed, they'll need another big break to find who did it and how.
For now, the most likely scenarios are that she was strangled or suffocated. Police are visiting pawn shops in search of her missing jewelry and talking again to cab drivers, hoping to find someone who dropped her off the day she disappeared 13 months ago.
Levy's knotted leggings, found near her remains, suggest she could have been sexually assaulted.
The uncertainty about so much of what happened to Levy, 24, of Modesto, Calif., underscores the difficulty police face in trying to solve the case.
``Was it a sexual assault? An attack by a stranger, by someone she knew? All of these are possibilities,'' Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said Friday.
Dr. Jonathan Arden, Washington's medical examiner, classified Levy's death a homicide not through his examination of her remains, but by relying on the circumstances of her disappearance on May 1, 2001, and the discovery of her remains in a remote area of Rock Creek Park last week by a man walking his dog and looking for turtles.
Arden said he could not determine how Levy died, noting he saw no evidence she was shot, stabbed or beaten.
Medical examiners have said the absence of any such evidence makes it more likely she was strangled or smothered. Either would be difficult to prove in Levy's case because the soft tissues of the body that could lead to such a diagnosis had completely decayed after more than a year, leaving only her bones.
The question of sexual assault could be answered by the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Va., which is expected to analyze the clothing found with Levy's remains for blood, hair, fibers and semen.
Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI profiler, said investigators are handicapped in their search for a killer by the lack of information about how Levy died.
``From a profiler's standpoint, I have to know my victim and then I have to know what happened to her to be able to develop a profile of who might have killed her,'' he said.
Police spent more than a week at the park site where Levy's remains were found. They recovered a University of Southern California T-shirt, an exercise bra and athletic shoes -- referred to by police variously as tennis shoes and jogging shoes.
Searchers did not find Levy's keys, which were missing from her apartment when they searched it a year ago, a 14-karat gold pinkie ring with diamond chips on either side of the inscribed initials CL, and a bracelet that, according to Levy's aunt, was a gift from Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif.
Police learned nothing from cab drivers when they sought help last year, but Ramsey said they have yet to check the trip logs that drivers are supposed to keep. Similarly, investigators checked pawn shop records last year without finding anything, Ramsey said.
But he said it is worth a second look because the jewelry could have changed hands in that time. ``If someone has it, they may not have had any idea where it came from,'' he said.
Just as likely, the jewelry remains somewhere in the park, despite the police search, said David Schertler, a former homicide prosecutor in Washington. ``It could easily have washed away and still be there somewhere under the mud,'' Schertler said.
The best chance for police to resolve the case is for an informant to come forward, Schertler and former U.S. Attorney Joseph di Genova said.
``They need a snitch and there is a snitch out there,'' di Genova said.
Police had no leads in the killings of three workers in a Starbucks store in Washington in 1997 until a tipster led them to the killer more than 2 1/2 years later, Schertler said.
Ramsey said there are no suspects. Condit reportedly admitted to police that he was having an affair with Levy, but he has denied any involvement in her disappearance. Police have repeatedly said he is not a suspect.
Ramsey also played down police interest in Ingmar Guandique of Washington and Albert Cook Jr. of Bethesda, Md. Both men were convicted of violent crimes in Rock Creek Park last year, but Ramsey said there are many differences between their crimes and the Levy case.
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