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American Morning

Searching for Chandra Levy

Aired July 06, 2001 - 10:54   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.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: We have been saying all day long, Daryn, that there are new developments in Chandra Levy's case. Now, one of the things that hasn't been talked about too much is the actual search for her. Chandra Levy's picture has been plastered on newspapers and on televisions around the country. Now, it's about to make the rounds again with NASCAR.

The missing poster has been turned into a sticker that now appears on Stacy Compton's car for tomorrow's running of the Pepsi 400 at Daytona Beach. The idea was the brainchild of TV's "America's Most Wanted" program. It includes a phone number to that show.

And for a closer look at the case from both the perspective of investigating it and publicizing it, we're going to turn now to Bo Dietl, a former New York city homicide detective and owner of his own private investigation firm who was also the inspiration of the 1998 movie "One Tough Cop." Mr. Dietl, thanks for joining us this morning.

BO DIETL, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, FORMER NYPD HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: Good morning.

FRAZIER: We haven't really pointed out what the police have been doing in addition to investigating by interviewing witnesses. They've talked to 100 people but they've also, sad to say, taken dogs out to landfills around Washington, for example. What else have they done?

DIETL: Well, I think they should be interviewing people. What you are trying to do is you are trying to get some contracting statements from people, people saying possibly they can identify if they see the young lady's face. They can remember maybe the Congressman with her, maybe another woman or someone else. So what you have to try to do is establish through the investigation some inconsistencies. And with that you can possibly even go as far as getting a judge to order a court order for a search warrant for possibly the Congressman's apartment or his car.

If you get a witness that says oh, they saw the young lady with the Congressman that day, that would be enough, I think, for a judge then to get some kind of a search warrant, if the young lady was seen in a car. Now you have also another factor come into play here. You've got the FBI investigating this. Now you have the Congressman making statements to them and, you know, you have perjury could come into effect here and you also can have, you know, where you're obstructing justice, which becomes a crime. He possibly has nothing to do with the disappearance of the young lady, but what's happening now, it could be compounding by him telling, you know, false things.

FRAZIER: Now, it's been nine weeks since Miss. Levy disappeared and they've been actively looking for her ever since. Are you surprised at the lack of evidence other than that generated by these interviews?

DIETL: Well, you know, the evidence, I think the important things are you're going to be pulling her phone records. Also you'll be pulling her charge records and all that to see when the disappearance happened. I also heard that on the day of the disappearance that they have some videotape with her being in a shopping, a store, a convenience store.

FRAZIER: A convenience store, yeah. Right.

DIETL: Right. And I think that has some bearing on it because that was the last time she was seen alive. The important thing they're to do is to get a break in this case and with her picture being all over the place maybe someone can remember seeing her that day with somebody to get some more evidence in that fact. You know, again, it's not a criminal investigation. That's the problem have you here. You still have a missing person. So the police are pretty much handcuffed as far as how far they can go with the investigation. But again, what's happening is by him speaking out the FBI is involved. You have obstruction of justice if he's telling people not to cooperate with the investigation of the FBI. And he could be opening up another can here of problems for himself with that. And if they open up a grand jury with him perjuring himself, then you have perjury involved.

FRAZIER: A lot of different front to keep track of. Bo Dietl, thank you for bringing us up to date on all of them.

DIETL: Thank you.

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