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CNN Live Saturday

Police Continue Chandra Levy Search

Aired July 14, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Reports that Congressman Gary Condit has submitted to a private polygraph test have done little to end criticism over his conduct in the Chandra Levy case. Condit's attorney said yesterday that Condit passed a lie detector test. However, authorities are expressing dissatisfaction over the results. CNN congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl joins us from Washington. Jonathan, hi.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Donna, and meanwhile the search for Chandra Levy continues rather intensively here in the Washington, D.C. area. The police have continued their search of abandoned buildings in Washington, D.C., and also looking into parks around the area. Police searched through the 2,800 acre Rock Creek Park which is the largest park in Washington, D.C.

It's also a place that is just a couple of blocks away from where Chandra Levy's apartment was. They were searching there explaining their process to CNN. .

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LT. RALPH NEAL, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE: Today we are basically searching the area looking for any clues or evidence that would help us with this investigation involving the missing intern.

QUESTION: What kind of things might you be looking for?

NEAL: Any kind of clues, any type of clothing or anything that she may have been wearing that day, or -- such as a pocketbook or identification, any personal belongings that she may have had on her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: And police still report that those searches, as they go on both in the parks and in the abandoned buildings, have continued to turn up negatively.

Meanwhile you mentioned Congressman Gary Condit the California Democrat his lawyers entered a major public offensive yesterday to try to dispel any doubts they are cooperating with police on this investigation. Abbe Lowell, Mr. Condit's attorney, pointed out that he's done all he can do.

He said that he's turned over his phone records, he has agreed to interviews, he's agreed to have his wife interviewed, he's had his staff interviewed. And of course he has taken that private polygraph test with which Mr. Lowell said was with one of the nations foremost experts on lie detection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBE LOWELL, CONDIT ATTORNEY: Mr. Colvert, who you will find is one of the people in this country deemed one of the best experts in polygraphs has told me that the charts were so clear, that the results were so solid that they are such the kind that anybody looking at them will come to the same conclusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Through their attorney, the Levy family has dismissed that polygraph test. The police are not as completely dismissive but they say it would have been much better if they had been there and had known about the test and they had participated in it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASST. CHIEF TERRANCE GAINER, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE: Examiner who Mr. Lowell says, does have a good reputation, he's very experienced, but I've never been involved in a polygraph in all these thirty some years of policing and homicide investigations where the polygraph examiner didn't want to know the facts of the case.

And generally the honest facts of the case, quite frankly, are given by law enforcement authorities. So this is a bit self-serving. However, he didn't have to take the polygraph examination. We will take that information like we take everything and we will examine it and see how it helps the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Police have not given up on the idea they could still find Chandra Levy alive. One of scenarios they are still working on is that she could have intentionally disappeared and she's altering her appearance to that end.

They have put out computer generated images that would show what Chandra Levy might look like if she were intentionally disguising her appearance. As that goes on here are some of those pictures right now which they have distributed both in pamphlets and there you see, on their Web site, showing what Chandra Levy could possibly look like if she were intentionally disguising her appearance.

Donna, that's the latest here from Washington.

KELLEY: Jonathan, do you have any more reaction from the Levy family to that private polygraph? You mentioned it along with the police, but any other comments from them?

KARL: Nothing new today from the Levy family. As you know yesterday their attorney dismissed the polygraph because it was done by a private source. The police were not present, the questions were limited, et cetera. But the Levy family also saying it's excruciatingly painful for them to them to watch television as they watch these searches of abandoned buildings and parks, looking for possible remains of Chandra Levy.

Mrs. Levy, Chandra Levy's mother, said this was basically another day in hell having to watching this search possibly for the body of Chandra Levy. They are of course very much hoping that she will still turn up alive.

KELLEY: From Washington, our Jonathan Karl. Thanks very much.

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