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CNN Live At Daybreak

The Search for Chandra: D.C. Police to Search Abandoned Buildings

Aired July 12, 2001 - 07:01   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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: The Chandra Levy investigation moves into a new area more than 10 weeks after she disappeared. Here are the latest developments in the story.

Washington police today begin looking at abandoned buildings in the area near the apartments of Congressman Gary Condit and Chandra Levy. Flight attendant Anne Marie Smith returns for more questioning today at the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. Smith has said Condit tried to get her to lie about their alleged affair. And police have asked three men to take lie detector tests.

CNN's Bob Franken is standing by in the Washington bureau with more on this developing story.

Bob, why are they searching these abandoned buildings?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well it's very similar, they say, to the search that they're still planning for the landfills. They're going to be using cadaver dogs. They're looking, quite frankly, for signs of foul play -- to put it very bluntly. They're looking to see if they can find Chandra Levy.

They say that there is no particular reason for it. But what they're going to do is, they're going to take people who are cadets at the police academy, have them go into this area of Washington -- which, by the way, is quite an affluent area -- and search out abandoned buildings. They expect that they'll find a couple of hundred. Then the dogs will go in and conduct their search.

Now, of course, this is just one of the many searches that's going on. There was the one overnight last night -- the night before, actually -- where the police detectives went into Congressman Condit's apartment. You can see that they used the strobe lights there. They used chemicals, looking for blood, for hair, that type of thing.

We really got a rundown of what it was they were looking for and what it was they got from Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRANCE GAINER, ASST. CHIEF., D.C. POLICE: Any television show or book you might read, you're interested in fibers and hairs or blood evidence or body fluids -- those type of things. That's very standard things. It's not limited to that. And our search of that apartment was not based on some specific, credible information that we had that made us look one place or for one thing more than another. It was an open-ended search of the apartment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRANKEN: Now that, of course -- that search was conducted with the permission of Congressman Condit, who was there in the apartment as the search was going on.

There's a negotiation also going on between Condit's attorneys and police to try and set up a polygraph test. They're bogged down a little bit. The congressman wants some limitations -- through his attorney -- wants some limitations on the questions that can be asked and perhaps the discussion about who administers the test. The police say they are the ones who would like to choose the person to conduct the polygraph and would use the FBI expert.

One other development: And that, of course, concerns Anne Marie Smith. She is the flight attendant who claims that she, too, had a romantic relationship with Congressman Condit -- she, along with Chandra Levy, had a romantic relationship with Congressman Condit. She also claims that the congressman tried to get her to sign a false sworn statement saying there was no romantic relationship. She spent about six hours yesterday with the U.S. attorney's office. She's going to be back talking to FBI agents, D.C. police and representatives of the U.S. attorney here to see if there were any illegalities.

She says that when she was talking to them yesterday, there were quite a few surprises. But she told them, she said -- quote -- "I think there is a lot more that he knows that he is not telling about the disappearance of Chandra Levy."

And that, of course, is what has caused this investigation, what has caused this focus on the life of Gary Condit. It is his relationship with Chandra Levy and the fact that the 24-year-old Washington intern -- former Washington intern -- has been missing now, as you pointed out, Carol, for more than 10 weeks.

LIN: All right, thanks Bob -- a new development everyday.

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