Return to Transcripts main page
Nancy Grace
Nancy Investigates the Chandra Levy Story; Mom of 4 Found Dead in Overflowing Bathtub
Aired October 05, 2012 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our precious daughter, I just want her back. I just want her back alive. It`s painful sometimes, but then I get a comfort looking at him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I also fear never knowing. That`s -- that`s worse. That`s worse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No matter what, your child is dead and gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You fear the worst.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think the worst.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We try not to, but it`s there.
REP. GARY CONDIT (D), CALIFORNIA: I had nothing to do with her disappearance!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have nothing at this time to connect him with the disappearance of Chandra Levy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, is it consistent with the possibility this could be the body of Chandra Levy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not know the identity of the person that we found.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remains recovered last week in Rock Creek Park were positively identified by the office of the chief medical examiner as those of Chandra Ann Levy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s no such thing as closure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just don`t forget about. You have to go through the rest of your life with a hole in it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: When I first heard of Chandra Levy`s disappearance, it was in conjunction with the name of congressperson Gary Condit from California.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congressman Condit, do you know what happened to Chandra Levy?
CONDIT: No, I do not.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?
CONDIT: No, I didn`t.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you say anything or do anything that could have caused her to drop out of sight?
CONDIT: You know, Chandra and I never had a cross word.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any idea if there was anyone who wanted to harm her?
CONDIT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you cause anyone to harm her?
CONDIT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you kill Chandra Levy?
CONDIT: I did not.
I didn`t think that I needed to go around responding to leaks or rumors or innuendoes or hearsay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: In criminal law -- and this is based on hard statistics, not anecdotal evidence. In criminal law, when a murder occurs, investigators routinely look first within the closest circle to the victim. With the murder of a female, an adult female, that would be husband, lover, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend.
Then you expand to boss, co-workers, neighbors. Then you expand to delivery people, people in your class, people on your bus route. You go out, out, out, out, out.
Also, statistically, killers are men. So the first place police and homicide investigators would naturally look, based on hard statistics, would be a lover or boyfriend, a male lover or boyfriend in Chandra Levy`s life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you have a relationship with Chandra Levy?
CONDIT: You know, we`re not going to go into that. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. But all this attention on me -- and it takes away from the seriousness -- just the seriousness of this tragedy. It`s about a missing person and somebody knows. And somebody knows what happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Most Americans had no idea who Congressman Gary Condit was before Washington intern Chandra Levy disappeared. That quickly changed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gary Condit became a household name as whispers grew louder and louder that Miss Levy herself talked about having an affair with a married politician from her home district. And for weeks after Levy vanished, news cameras followed Condit`s comings and goings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": We learned that Chandra Levy was participating in an internship in Washington, D.C., with the federal Bureau of Prisons. We learned that she was a young girl that had so many goals and so many dreams. She was also a young girl that was involved in an affair with Gary Condit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDIT: Well, I met Chandra last October And we became very close. I met her in Washington, D.C.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very close meaning?
CONDIT: We had a close relationship. I liked her very much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: May I ask you, was it a sexual relationship?
CONDIT: Well, Connie, I`ve been married for 34 years, and I`ve not been a perfect man and I`ve made my share of mistakes. But out of respect for my family and out of a specific request from the Levy family, I think it`s best that I not get into those details about Chandra Levy.
You know, one of the questions law enforcement asked me was, Where did she hang out? Well, I didn`t know where she hung out, but had I known that and I said that publicly, I might have jeopardized the case. There`s no telling what I would have said that might have hurt the case. But I did what I thought I was supposed to, and that was to tell law enforcement everything that I knew about Chandra and about the case. And I did that. And I did that in a timely fashion. I did it within 48 hours.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have nothing at this time to connect him with the disappearance of Chandra Levy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Who was she going to see? Was she by herself? Was she upset? Where was she going? What was she doing? All of those questions, which usually, we know at least an inkling off the bat in a missing person`s case, were just a mystery when Chandra Levy disappeared.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. park police received a call from a citizen who had been out walking his dog in Rock Creek Park and found what he believed to be human remains at a location very near to where we`re standing now. We have homicide investigators on the scene, our mobile crime, medical examiner`s responding. And that`s pretty much it right now. We don`t know who the skeletal remains, and we`re in the process now of processing the site.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: D.C. police and the authorities will investigate this matter as a homicide, with a murderer out there on the streets that we`d like to bring to justice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know. I think she`s been stolen!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don`t know...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she`s been kidnapped! Murdered! I think she`s -- oh!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: You know, it`s very hard to believe so many years have passed since the disappearance and death of the D.C. intern Chandra Levy. It was May 1st, 2001, when she went missing. And by all accounts, she was at home in her D.C. apartment that day. We know for a fact that she had been on her computer. As a matter of fact, her computer led police on an investigative trail that seemed to peter out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, is it consistent with the possibility that this could be the body of Chandra Levy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t know. We certainly are looking into that possibility. But at this point in time, we really don`t know. This is a very heavily wooded area, as you can see, and very easy to conceal something here, as we`ve said all along. This is just a very difficult place to search, so it`s possible that remains could have been here for some time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: She`d gone onto a couple of Web sites, one for Gary Condit`s office, one for Baskin and Robbins. She also looked at the Amtrak Web site. She look at the Southwest Airlines Web site. We know she was planning to go home to California.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chandra Levy was living in this apartment building in the DuPont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. April of 2001, she was getting ready to go home. Her internship had ended. She told her landlord she was moving out, canceled her gym membership. And then suddenly, she just disappeared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: She was also going to walk through the graduation ceremony for the University of Southern California, where she was about to get a graduate degree just 11 days after she went missing. So we know she was searching on her computer. Now, most importantly, the thing she looked at at 11:34 AM was at a map and an entertainment guide for Rock Creek Park.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police had also questioned Ingmar Guandique, who was already charged for attacking two other women in the same park not long after Levy vanished.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: One of the curious issues in this case are the bindings, how Chandra Levy was supposedly bound. That`s what the prosecutor said, that she was bound. And the question is, why would a guy like Guandique, who was attacking women in the park -- why would he bother to do that?
In all my experience with serial killers in parks and serial rapists in parks, they don`t usually waste their time. They usually hit someone over the head or they just simply manhandle them, push them to the ground. They don`t usually stop and bind them.
GRACE: The problem with Rock Creek Park was, although it was a very popular jogging path for young women that were jogging alone, were jogging solo, is that there were a lot of areas that were secluded and private, where an attack could take place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chandra also searched the computer on the day she disappeared to locate this mansion in the park, Klingle Mansion, suggesting she might have tried to come here. So why didn`t the police find the body nearby?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The chief of police at the time said, I want all the roads and the trails searched, 100 yards off of all the roads and all the trails in Rock Creek Park. When they executed the search that day, they only went 100 yards off the roads and not the trails. And they missed Chandra`s body by about a half a football field. And that would have changed everything. They would have had evidence. They would have had DNA.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: They really didn`t find anything unusual in Chandra Levy`s apartment. They found suitcases that were packed, but she was going back to California. They found dirty laundry that was in a bag in the apartment, and just really things that you would find there. They did find, though, some of her personal effects, driver`s license, things that you normally would take with you unless, of course, you`re just going for a hike.
JOSTAD: And it looks now like what she was doing is just looking for a place -- since she had just canceled a gym membership -- looking for a place where she could go out and get some exercise that day, and she was going to go to Rock Creek Park.
GRACE: Now, theories abounded that Condit had had her kidnapped from her jog, from on her way out of the building, that she was to meet him there for a tryst or an assignation. None of those ended up to be true.
JOSTAD: Gary Condit gave police a very specific outline, timeline of what he was doing in those days leading up to Chandra`s disappearance and then the days right around when she was last seen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remains recovered last week in Rock Creek Park were positively identified by the office of the chief medical examiner of those of Chandra Ann Levy, and that was done by comparison of dental X-rays.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Based on her computer search alone, it verifies tried and true police techniques because her body was found in Rock Creek Park.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: It was in such a secluded and overgrown area, though, her body, that of Chandra Levy, was found by a guy out walking his dog. The dog really found her bones, is what the dog found. She had been attacked and left for dead or left dead. And she died there in Rock Creek Park.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her death has been certified today by this office -- the cause of death has been certified as undetermined and the manner of death has been certified as homicide. In this case, there was not specific -- excuse me, sufficient evidence to ascertain conclusively the specific injury that caused her death.
However, the circumstances of her disappearance and her body of recovery are indicative that she died through the acts of another person, which is the definition of a homicidal manner of death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The remains found earlier today are, in fact, Chandra Levy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was the memorial like?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very sad. We were all hurting. And it was also healing for our family. We all came together and we`re strong and holding onto each other.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About one year after Chandra Levy`s disappearance, a man walking through this Washington park, Rock Creek, found bones and clothing about 100 yards off a jogging trail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why was she up in the park? Was she walking? Was she jogging? Was she brought there? Was she meeting someone there? So we have to look at simultaneous tracks. Was this a stranger who did something to her or was it someone she knew?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: What`s interesting is that had police stuck with that technique, instead of getting sidetracked with Gary Condit...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDIT: The only thing that was relevant was if I had any information that would help law enforcement people maybe find out her lifestyle or find out about her. And I did all that. I did -- everything that I knew about her, I told them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And I recall them doing a shoulder-to-shoulder search with police cadets, you know, pulling out all the stops to find Chandra Levy in the park.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The park is some 1,700 acres. We put officers in there for three weeks. It appears now, based on where we found her remains and where we have sites of where we visited, that we may have been within 100 yards of her remains to the east at one time and 100 yards or 150 yards to the west.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: According to Chandra`s aunt, Chandra talked about this five-year plan that she and her boyfriend, Gary Condit, had, that he was going to leave his wife, he was going to give up his congressional seat and become a lobbyist, that they were going to get married, Chandra and Gary Condit were going to get married, and start a family together.
So this was just a huge bombshell, to have a relative of Chandra Levy`s come out and say publicly, Here`s what Chandra told me. They weren`t just friends. They were planning a future together. So as you can imagine, that caused a huge stir that summer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDIT: Well, I don`t know that she was in love with me. She never said so. And I was not in love with her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did she want to marry you and have your child?
CONDIT: I only knew Chandra Levy for five months, and in that five months` period, we never had a discussion about a future, about children, about marriage. Any of those items never came up in that five-month period.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever make promises to her?
CONDIT: Never.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did she want you to leave your wife?
CONDIT: No. I mean, I`ve been married for 34 years and I intend to stay married to that woman as long as she`ll have me. In the first interview, I revealed every bit of the details about Chandra Levy. I answered every question that law enforcement asked me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: In another world, in another universe, had Condit not -- Congressman Condit not been a figure, I still believe to this day they would have continued searching that park and found her much sooner.
Now, question, query. Would it have been in time to save her life? Probably not. As it turned out, it was a random attack by a known attacker. He attacked two other women in the Rock Creek Park area, that we know of.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: In that investigation, the investigation of Chandra Levy`s disappearance and then death, we learned about what not to do. For instance, the surveillance video taken from her high-rise apartment building re-ran -- every, I guess, 72 hours it would start over. So police delayed asking for it, and then by the time they had asked for it, it was too late.
The tried and true techniques of police, of investigators, led them to her burial ground, led them to Rock Creek Park. She had searched for it on her computer. They followed that search to the park. They didn`t find her, right there where police were looking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cases, particularly cold cases, oftentimes take a long time to put together. I don`t need to tell anyone here, but the cases aren`t always the way they are on TV, where at the end of "60 Minutes," there`s a tidy piece of evidence from a satellite photo or videotape or what have you that cracks the case.
Here it was just the hard police work over the years putting together different pieces of evidence. And again, we reached the conclusion recently that we had the sufficient evidence to go forward with the charges.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Also in that search, police chased down so many wrong side alleys, misdirected side alleys. It`s not that police were wrong in what they were doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today we make a very significant announcement in the District of Columbia. We announce that the Metropolitan Police Department in conjunction with the United States attorney`s office have secured an arrest warrant in the homicide in 2001 of Chandra Levy. The arrestee is Ingmar Guandique.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t really want him to die, just want him to suffer for many, many years. That would be the best. Dying is too quick, and they get to go over to the other side and may be forgiven.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: Apparently, they interviewed Ingmar Guandique. There was a language barrier. This is all through a translator. And they showed him a picture of Chandra Levy, and he said that he`d only ever seen her on TV, that he hadn`t seen her in the park.
So the focus at first -- and because they weren`t quite yet connecting Chandra Levy`s disappearance with Rock Creek Park, they took that at face value. They didn`t give Ingmar Guandique a closer look that summer.
GRACE: So that was an education for a lot of people, A, not to have surveillance video that turns over and starts recording over and over after a 24, 48, 72-hour period. But the duty is not on them. The duty is on police to get the video immediately. So they, you know, were hung up on him and looking that way, when they should have been looking that way.
We also learned from the Chandra Levy investigation the importance of processing a crime scene, even a secondary crime scene. Chandra Levy obviously was not murdered in her D.C. apartment there at DuPont Circle. She was murdered and left, disposed at Rock Creek Park, nearby.
But the processing of her apartment was very, very important because in that apartment, not only did they find her computer, and the most recent search led them directly to where her body was, although they didn`t find it.
But they also found a framed photo of the young intern, Chandra Levy, with married congressman, a father, Gary Condit. It was framed and put in a position of prominence in her home. That led them to other evidence, such as on her cell phone, repeat calls to Gary Condit.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Now, she was not interning with Gary Condit. She was interning in a position with a correctional institute, with corrections. So there was not any real reason for him to be contacting her, other than a relationship outside of work. So she did not work for him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was supposed to fly home, come home, meet us in Sacramento. She was supposed to be in touch with friends in LA that she was going to stay with and see. And we -- you know, we didn`t hear from her, but we called and left a message.
We didn`t hear from her the 1st or the 2nd. And 3rd and 4th -- well, actually, the 4th, started getting more anxious. And the 5th, I think that was that Friday night, I started calling the police in Washington, trying to get them to check into things. And finally, by Monday, I knew she was -- or Sunday, I knew she was missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chandra Levy had told her aunt that she was having an affair with Gary Condit. She had also told a friend. And when she disappeared and the police were looking for her, these people came forward. And Gary Condit didn`t want to talk about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did the responsible thing and tried to -- he contacted the FBI, contacted the Washington, D.C., police department to let him know that this girl was missing when the father contacted Gary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Other evidence found at the home, her home, her DuPont Circle apartment, suggested that she was planning a trip home. She had told her aunt she had big news. Many people speculated she was pregnant. The autopsy did not reveal that. Also, it is also speculated that she firmly believed Condit was going to leave his wife for her.
Now, the unraveling of a congressperson and a long-standing career in D.C. played out in front of the eyes of America because not only did Condit`s sex affair with a much younger intern -- I mean, for Pete`s sake, my sister was an intern on Capitol Hill. Parents send their children, their girls and boys, their teens, to Washington to learn about our country, about all the wonderful things about the U.S. government, about why we are different and why our government and our judicial system is superior to all others, why we would fight and die for it.
When congressperson Gary Condit was questioned about his movements, his itinerary the day Chandra Levy went missing, he had been on Capitol Hill. He had had a meeting with Dick Cheney.
And then he had dinner with his wife, one of her very rare appearances in D.C. in the last few years. She very rarely left California, Modesto, to come to D.C. to visit her husband, Gary Condit. But that evening, there was a visit and there was a dinner between them, which really only fueled more speculation as to when he would have had time to get together with Chandra Levy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDIT: In the second interview, I did the same thing. I answered every question that was asked of me and released every detail to law enforcement.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Truthfully?
CONDIT: Now, let me just say to you, Connie, if I may...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Truthfully? Did you answer every question truthfully?
CONDIT: I answered every question truthfully. That`s what you`re supposed to do when you`re cooperating with the police.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But did you reveal that you were having an affair with her?
CONDIT: I`m not going to go into the aspects of the details of -- the details of the investigation or the interviews. I`m just saying to you that I answered every question asked of me by the police department on every occasion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the police department has said that you impeded the investigation.
CONDIT: Well, that`s pretty confusing. I mean, it`s real confusing because a couple days after it was reported that Chandra Levy had been missing, after her father had called me here in California, two days later, I had two detectives in my house in Washington, D.C., and we had a 45-minute interview. So I answered every question, gave them every bit of the detail in that interview.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s been very hard. You see I`m not wearing a wristwatch. I have stopped wearing watches because time is really painful when you don`t have your loved one with you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s pretty tough after any time -- I mean, the first week was just horrible on us. It`s like that still. It`s just -- you sort of get used to anything. I mean, we`re not really used to it, but we`re just -- get used to feeling...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s been just a nightmare. I appreciate anyone and everyone helping me bring my daughter back, any kind of smallest little idea.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: And the longer the Chandra Levy investigation went on, the wilder the theories became as to what happened to her. As a matter of fact, based on a psychic tip, police went diving off a bridge over the Potomac, looking for her body. The Smithsonian warehouse was a possible burial ground, and a small town in Virginia -- we all remember that wild goose chase -- her being involved as a prostitute.
All of these were not true. None of those were true. And police devoted literally thousands and thousands of man hours investigating all these zany theories.
JOSTAD: We later learned that Ingmar Guandique, Chandra Levy`s killer -- he was a day laborer, worked construction sites. He didn`t show up for work that day.
And also, even more revealing, his landlady said she saw him on May 1st or shortly thereafter and he looked like he`d been in a fight. She said he had a little bloody blemish in his eye. She said he had bruises on his face, scratches around his neck. And when she asked him about it -- he had a fat lip, too -- he said that he`d gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and that she attacked him and scratched him. That was his explanation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just a short time ago, handed down a guilty verdict in Chandra Levy`s murder trial. Ingmar Guandique faces life without parole. He`s already doing time for attacks on two other women. Levy was a 24-year- old Washington intern who disappeared on a jog in May back in 2001. Her body wasn`t found, though, for more than a year after that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: But it was like a cat with a mouse. Police kept pawing at Condit, pawing at it, trying to uncover the truth, when all the time, the dog was running circles around them. Right in front of them was evidence that Ingmar Guandique had killed her -- two other attacks on young females in the same park.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are many have come to a conclusion -- sorry, I`m emotional here -- but no matter what my family has, in a sentence here, the results of the verdict may be guilty, but I have a lifetime sentence of a lost limb missing from our family tree. It`s painful. I live with it every day, and so do my son, my mother, and other family members.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And talk about miscommunications, right hand not knowing what left hand is doing, cops had a firm directive to search the jogging paths in Rock Creek Park. That was why they sent out hundreds of police cadets, literally walking shoulder to shoulder, looking for Chandra Levy, in the hope that they could actually find her alive.
Instead of searching the jogging paths, somebody somewhere directed them to search the roadways, off the roadways, beside the roadways, not the jogging path that Levy would have taken. They missed her body by about 79 yards. All that time, she was there, her body decomposing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Crime affects more than one person. When you have a crime and someone dies of homicide, which there are too many in America, it affects probably 100 other people and their surroundings, cousins, friends, relatives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: She was tied up by her own jogging tights that she was wearing. By the time they found her body, it was drastically decomposed. All the near misses, all the miscommunications in that investigation should really be in a manual, what not to do in a homicide investigation.
JOSTAD: I think a lot of people have wondered if Gary Condit is owed an apology. There are those who think this is a guy who was raked over the coals, had his reputation destroyed, had his family destroyed, his family dragged through the mud, lost his congressional seat, lost his political career, in essence. And he never had anything to do with Chandra Levy`s disappearance.
GRACE: But again, I don`t fault the police as much.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Obviously, he lost his position as a congressperson. He was voted out. But the tragedy of what goes on behind the scenes on Capitol Hill was repulsive to many, many American citizens, including myself.
JOSTAD: Gary Condit`s story was on every news show, every talk show. Couldn`t pick up a newspaper, a magazine without hearing about it. But that all changed the morning of September 11, 2001.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This just in. You are looking at, obviously, a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. CNN Center right now is just beginning to work on this story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: The disappearance of Chandra Levy and her affair with a married congressman fell off the front pages, fell out of the news for quite some time after that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDIT: Listen, I just want to come out and I want to thank the voters of the 18th congressional district for allowing me to serve in Congress for 11 years. It`ll be 12 years when I finish.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a hard fall. The former Democratic congressman from Modesto, California, went from being a five-term elected official in D.C. to virtual obscurity in Arizona, selling real estate part-time, and as his son Chad told Larry King in 2005, ice cream.
CHAD CONDIT, GARY CONDIT`S SON: We scoop ice cream. We own a Baskin and Robbins and...
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": You own a Baskin -- where?
CHAD CONDIT: In Phoenix, Glendale, Arizona.
KING: Both of you own this?
CHAD CONDIT: It`s a family-run shop and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Along with a grueling bid back in 2002 to hold onto his House seat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As political matter, I think it pretty much killed his opportunities for being an incumbent candidate for office.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: When word of an arrest broke, I think many legal eagles and court watchers believed that somehow, Condit was still going to be involved. The fact that the death of Chandra Levy was almost an anonymous one by an unknown, unconnected thug who attacked female joggers, so random, was hard for many people to digest.
And so when it boiled down to it, all the intrigue and all the misdirection -- at the end of the day, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
Her computer said she was looking for directions to go jogging. She was seen leaving in jogging attire. One plus two equals three. She went jogging in Rock Creek Park, and that`s where she died. That is the equation. That simple equation was lost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I really appreciate it that you give me family, the Levy family, some time for being together, give me a little time to find out a new normal because this is very difficult. I am a trauma person, and so is my family.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Levy, does this verdict today give you a sense of peace?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know. There`s always going to be a feeling of sadness. You know, I like the word that you used, a sense of peace, because I have never heard too many people say that. I`ve planned (ph) to be here and have followed up on what happened to my daughter, no matter how hard it has been for me personally. I have a feeling that my daughter`s with me and I can speak her voice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: When I think of Chandra Levy`s parents, I remember her mother standing out in her front yard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s really bad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Badly -- really just...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every day is hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In fact, it gets more and more painful each day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Just her face was just blank. She looked like she had gone weeks without sleep. And she was trying to answer questions. She didn`t know where to turn, didn`t know what to think.
It was like the whole investigation was a stoning, where one rock after the next was thrown at the family, and they just stood there enduring, wondering, trying everything they could to find their daughter.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For my sister and for my sister`s death. And we`re hoping that will come one day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. It`s nearly one year to the day now that Uta`s body was found covered in bruises. Bruising around her mouth, her lips, an overdose of Xanax.
With me is her ex-husband`s defense lawyer, Fred Metos.
Fred, so is it your theory then that this was an accident or a suicide?
FRED METOS, ATTORNEY FOR THE HUSBAND WHOSE WIFE WAS FOUND DEAD: From the medical examiner`s report, the medical examiner says that it appears to be a suicide. I think the knife wounds or the sharp force injury wounds are consistent with a suicide. The Xanax overdose is consistent with a suicide. It looks to me as if it was at least an attempted suicide and maybe slip and fall into the bathtub.
GRACE: Well, as I`m reading the medical examiner`s report, and I state verbatim in response to your claim that he says it was a suicide, he says the atypical nature of her inflicted wounds, neck injuries, investigative findings while consistent with suicide questions as to the exact scenario, the manner of death remains undetermined.
You know what`s interesting is you`re completely leaving out the fact that there was a knife found under her body, Mr. Metos.
METOS: Well, that`s consistent with her carrying the knife with her. She inflicted -- if she inflicted the injuries with that knife before she went to the tub, you know -- you know, that would explain why the knife is there.
GRACE: Uh-huh, OK. I want to go to you, Clark Goldband. And then I`m going to Uta`s sister.
Clark Goldband, was there a confrontation between Uta, the mother of four, and the bio-dad just before she is found dead?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: According to the father`s now estranged son, yes, there was. It was a few hours before she was found dead. According to the son, about 6:00 p.m. that night apparently Uta had just filed some paperwork with the court a few days prior, seeking to change her custody agreement. She apparently tried to talk to her ex- husband --
GRACE: Wait, wait. Don`t -- don`t tell me she`s trying to change her custody agreement. Because, Clark Goldband, you know that begs the question, what did she want changed in the custody agreement?
GOLDBAND: Our understanding from seeing all the articles and talking to some people familiar with the situation is that she wanted more time with her kids.
GRACE: All right. So she wants more -- more time with her children. And then what happens?
GOLDBAND: And apparently as the husband is driving -- or her ex-husband is driving away with the four kids in the car, according to the 18-year-old son she tried to confront him about the change in a possible agreement, a possible change. He rolls up her window and according to the son, allegedly turns around to the kids and say, life would be easier without Uta. Something to that effect, according to reports.
GRACE: Joining me right now is Uta`s sister, Anna.
Anna, thank you so much for being with us. Apparently, the beliefs of her children don`t matter because her son is convinced, he says, that his own father killed his mother. His father, not a suspect or named a person of interest at this time.
Anna, what do you recall and what are your thoughts on your sister`s death? Do you believe it was a suicide?
ANNA VON SCHWEDLER, SISTER OF MOM OF 4 FOUND DEAD IN BATHTUB: No, no, no. No. I`m pretty sure that she would never have committed suicide. I know that she never took the drug Xanax at all. There was no bottle, no prescription found in her house. And no, no one in the family thinks that she committed suicide. We know that she wouldn`t do that.
GRACE: Why do you say that? Here she is in the fight of a lifetime, trying to see more of her children. And you know, I don`t know, Anna, if you are a mother but I can tell you there`s no way that I would willingly leave my children behind. I don`t care what`s going on. Leave them behind to be raised without a mother? No.
VON SCHWEDLER: Yes. I witnessed her -- I visited Uta in August shortly before her death. And we visited her with my family and we talked about this new custody evaluation which she -- that she started to bring up to court. We talked about that hours and hours at that time. Lots of time. And I -- and she was very happy. I witnessed her, how happy she was that she brought it to the court when we were there. We talked about that every day.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. And with me is Uta`s sister, Anna. Question. You`re saying that she never took Xanax. There was no prescription found at the home. Her husband has a defense lawyer. Her ex- husband for some reason has hired a criminal defense lawyer even though he is not named as person of interest.
Would you, Anna, describe the wounds all over your sister`s body as being minimal? That they were evidence of a suicide?
VON SCHWEDLER: No, not at all. I would believe all the things that we were told about what might have been happening at her house do not show that she committed suicide. So she had wounds and bruises on her body and she had, and the clothes were lying next to her bath. And the photo album of the youngest girl was floating in her bathtub together with her. The (INAUDIBLE) was lying on the ground of her bedroom. It looks like applied. And I don`t know how much evidence the police need to say that this was a place of a homicide.
GRACE: Well, Anna, you mentioned the photo album of the youngest daughter floating in the bathtub. What is the significance in your mind of that photo album being in the bathtub, overflowing with your sister`s dead body?
VON SCHWEDLER: I know that Uta and her ex-husband fought about these photo albums for a long time. Uta made these photo albums with so much love. To put them together and everything. And she didn`t want to give them to him because she knew it is a messy house where he is living and she wanted to have them back properly to keep them for her children. And she would have never, never, never ever taken the photo album of one of the children into the bathroom.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Back in 90 seconds. But first, we remember Marine Sergeant Christopher Hrbek, 25, Westwood, New Jersey. Bronze Star, Purple Heart. Firefighter. Loved jet skiing, dogs, Guinness and Jersey. Parents, Richard, Sheryl, stepparents, Gayle, Jamie, sisters, Amy, Laura, Noel, brothers, Jerry, James, Barack Obama.
Christopher Hrbek, American hero.
Back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Salt Lake police will say only that their investigation into this suspicious death remains open. After his mother`s death, Pelle Wall says his father displayed disturbing behavior which made him afraid for his safety. He filed his juvenile court petition seeking to get his siblings out of their father`s home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: One of his sons seeks to have the other siblings removed from the ex-husband`s home.
Joining me right now is Uta`s sister, Anna.
Anna, why did one of her biological children ask to be removed from the ex- husband`s home?
VON SCHWEDLER: Because Pelle was very afraid of his father. He moved out as soon as he turned 18. He moved out of the house and tried to protect his siblings. Because he was afraid of him. He was afraid of his father.
GRACE: Why? Why was he afraid of his father, Anna?
VON SCHWEDLER: He had a very -- Pelle had told us when his father got back from the police where he was interrogated after Uta`s body was found, and he was in a very disturbed mood. He was out of his mind. And he -- when he came back, the police did not inform anyone about the children, someone like a social worker or family or friends, although the police saw him, saw John Wall being very irritated and out of his mind and very disturbed in everything he said. And so he made some really strange comments to the children. And --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Like what? What were the comments he made?
VON SCHWEDLER: Like something he asked the children, what do you think? Could I have murdered Uta? And something like that.
GRACE: So OK. Even though he has not been named a suspect -- out to his lawyer, John Wall, he asked his own children, could I have murdered your mother?
METOS: Yes, I`m not sure what the situation was there. And I -- at this point, commenting on what Mr. Wall said may -- may possibly violate a privilege. I have not seen the reports.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: What he said to his children?
METOS: Pardon?
GRACE: How does what he said to his children violate a privilege?
METOS: No. His comment on why he said it or the context of it may violate a privilege.
GRACE: OK.
METOS: And I`m not sure of what the situation was there other than he was extremely distraught and was ultimately taken and treated for depression.
GRACE: Did he have a prescription for Xanax?
METOS: My understanding is in May, he had ordered a prescription for his mother. His parents have indicated they received that in May of 2011. Some four or five months before the death of Uta.
GRACE: So while Uta is not prescribed or owns Xanax, your client does have access to Xanax.
METOS: Some five months earlier.
GRACE: OK.
METOS: And his parents received the prescription.
GRACE: And there was bruising around her mouth. All right.
Everyone, we are taking your calls. Out to the lines. Fred in Oregon. Hi, Fred, what`s your question?
FRED, CALLER FROM OREGON: Hi, Nancy. Thanks for taking my call. My question is, didn`t this woman have a boyfriend? Has he been questioned? And why are the children so convinced it was their dad?
GRACE: Well, it`s my understanding that the boyfriend, Nils Abrams, has been cleared.
Out to Anna, the sister. Has the boyfriend been cleared? He`s the one that called police, correct?
VON SCHWEDLER: Yes.
GRACE: Yes, the boyfriend has been cleared. OK. Let me ask you another question. Anna, again, thank you for being with us. The victim`s sister is joining us. Were police able to get any DNA, for instance, from the walls in the home?
VON SCHWEDLER: Yes, I was told so. That they took samples of DNA from all the male people. From John Wall and from his two sons.
GRACE: Did they find DNA in the home?
VON SCHWEDLER: Yes. We were told in April by one of the police officers that they found blood and DNA on one of the pillow cases, from Uta`s bedroom. And the only thing we were told by the police, that it should have been male Wall DNA. But they didn`t -- there haven`t been any more testing since then. They didn`t differentiate between one of the three children.
GRACE: So you`re telling me the DNA on the wall was a male in the Wall family?
VON SCHWEDLER: Yes. That is right. Mm-hmm. This is what he told us. They could say it is male blood, or male DNA from one of the three Wall people.
GRACE: Let me ask you, Anna.
VON SCHWEDLER: From the ex-husband --
GRACE: Why do you believe police are dragging their feet in the death of your sister? Why are they not pursuing this case?
VON SCHWEDLER: I don`t know. Perhaps they made so many mistakes in the beginning that they are lying to us now to hide their own incompetence.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VON SCHWEDLER: We would all like to see justice for my sister and for my sister`s death. And we hope that come one day. But the immediate worry are the children`s -- is the children`s well being and their safety.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Nearly a year now that this mother of four, a university scientist, was found dead covered in bruises and lacerations, including bruising to the mouth. She did not have Xanax nor a prescription to it but had an overdose in her body. And in the tub there was a knife and a beloved photo album she had created of her daughter. Yet no arrest.
To Alexis Weed, is it true the family is upset about how the crime scene was handled, including that one of the friends of the ex-husband, a cop, took the photo album with him?
ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right. So, Nancy, that photo album that we talked about that was dedicated to one of Uta`s children that was found in the bathtub with her body, that photo album when cops arrived one of those cops was a friend of Uta`s and that friend cop said well, I`ll just take this album home and I`ll dry it out because she knew how important it was to the family.
But Uta`s family has said, wow, that`s a real misstep. They would have really liked to have seen that album observed for finger prints as well as the shelf where the album would have come from.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uta Von Schwedler.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The University of Utah scientist was found dead in the bathtub of her Salt Lake home.
VON SCHWEDLER: She died a violent death.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The family and friends say there is absolutely no way Uta took her own life.
VON SCHWEDLER: The didn`t die of suicide.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The official cause of her death was drowning.
VON SCHWEDLER: I believe it was a premeditated --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Potential evidence includes bloody footprints located in her sister`s home. Von Schwedler`s ex-husband, John Wall, was questioned immediately afterwards.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The police had seized and search John Wall`s car looking for, quote, "blood."
VON SCHWEDLER: I`m glad they did something. There was so many unanswered questions.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police will only say that Uta Von Schwedler`s death is suspicious and their case remains open.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Search warrant filed in Third District Court showed up at John Wall`s home and seized one of his vehicles. A blue Subaru. He`s never been named a suspect or even a person of interest in this case.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Family and friends say there is absolutely no way Uta took her own life.
VON SCHWEDLER: She didn`t die of suicide.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And a large amount of Xanax in her system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Out to Uta`s sister Anna, why did she get a divorce in the first place?
VON SCHWEDLER: Because she couldn`t live with this man anymore, I think. She -- we talked about that many times. He was depressive and he didn`t take his medication. And she couldn`t live -- she couldn`t stand it anymore.
GRACE: Peter Odom, let`s hear your side.
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, the reason -- police are not dragging their feet on this case. They`ve apparently done a brief diligent job about collecting evidence. The problem is that the evidence is ambiguous. Nothing categorically points to murder. And that`s the reason they can`t make an arrest at this point.
GRACE: Well, maybe not to you. Steve Kardian, what do you think b?
STEVE KARDIAN, FMR. POLICE DETECTIVE, SELF-DEFENSE EXPERT, LEAD INSTRUCTOR AT DEFEND UNIVERSITY: Nancy, I think that law enforcement investigated this crime as a suicide prematurely, when in fact it was a homicide. After reading the affidavit, everything screams out homicide investigation.
GRACE: Eleanor?
ELEANOR ODOM, FELONY PROSECUTOR, DEATH PENALTY QUALIFIED: Totally agree. And I find it very disturbing that the police, although trying to be kind hearted, took a piece of evidence, a potential piece of evidence that photograph album and decided oops, this isn`t evidence. I`m just going to take it and keep it for safekeeping for the family.
GRACE: You know, what`s extremely disturbing to me, Eleanor, usually children even adult children will not believe one of the parents killed the other. They just can`t mentally and emotionally take that in. But here you`ve got one of the sons so convinced the ex did the killing that he petitions the court to have his siblings removed from his father.
E. ODOM: That just sends a huge message, Nancy. Remember kids see and hear a lot more than their parents or the adults think they do. And it just makes me wonder what he heard over the years, what he observed, that gives him such grave concerns now.
GRACE: Out to you, Rachel Kent.
RACHEL KENT, NANCY GRACE SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCER: Nancy, people on social media are really torn on this. They`re either -- they think that maybe she was a drug addict. She had Xanax in her system. Other people think maybe the husband or estranged husband didn`t do it.
GRACE: Out to John Phillips, KABC. John, what is the status of the investigation?
JOHN PHILLIPS, HOST, 790 KABC: Well, right now it`s up to the friends of Uta to keep the pressure on the police. I agree with what has been previously said. There`s --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: The Salt Lake City police?
PHILLIPS: That`s right. The police investigating this crime. There needs to be pressure. There`s two billboards up right now, Nancy, including one right over this guy`s house. Keep the pressure on.
GRACE: Everyone, "DR. DREW" up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
