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American Morning

The Search for Chandra: New Lead Surfaces

Aired August 01, 2001 - 10:08   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: And now the latest on the Chandra Levy case. On the very day that police abandoned their canvassing of Washington area parks, investigators focused on a new potential lead, the key that could unlock some clues to Chandra Levy's last known movements.

CNN national correspondent Bob Franken has been covering this story and he joins us with the latest -- Bob, if they're not searching the parks anymore, what does that mean? Have they stopped completely?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they have not stopped the investigation completely but there comes a point, according to police, when the aggressive investigation, the one where you initiate actions, really comes, when you run out of actions to initiate and that's where they are now. They made it a point yesterday, for instance, to say that this does not mean that they will never go back into the woodlands, but it's going to have to be for a reason as opposed to the blanket search that they tried before. That turned up nothing.

They're very perplexed, they're frustrated, surprised that after three months of this intensity they've turned up nothing -- Donna.

KELLEY: Talking about, Bob, the three months that you talk about, and now here comes this hardware store man talking about Chandra Levy making some keys. How credible are the D.C. police taking that?

FRANKEN: Well, the police aren't calling him a liar. The police are saying that after they talked to him he was a little bit more less forthright than he was in his comments to reporters. We're talking about this gentleman right here, 69-year-old John Woodfolk, who has been making keys at the hardware store near Chandra Levy's apartment and where she worked out, making keys for 16 years.

He said at first he was sure she had come in after April 30, which was a Monday. But after the investigators were through, law enforcement sources told us he said he wasn't quite so sure that it was before the 30th, wasn't quite so sure what kind of keys he made, how many, not quite so sure of his claim that, in fact, she had charged this on credit cards or debit cards.

The police are quite sure she did not because they very thoroughly searched the financial records and have found no transactions after April 30. KELLEY: How about the people that police might be interested in now? Who are they going to try and interview now?

FRANKEN: Well, they're to try, of course, anybody who comes forward to say he has information. They're going to try and interview the rest of the people who they have not yet talked to in the apartment building where Chandra Levy lived. They may decide they want to talk to some of the others and, of course, the question everybody asks, will they interview Congressman Gary Condit again?

They're saying probably not. They're saying very firmly he is not a central figure in the investigation. That's really quite a firm declaration that they're making. Of course, Congressman Condit and the relationship that he acknowledged to investigators, according to police sources, he's announcing that they're probably not going to proceed with him anymore. That's really just a media interest, not a police interest.

KELLEY: Yes, Bob, have you heard when the police might release what the amount of money is that they've spent on this investigation?

FRANKEN: How about never? They say that they just don't release that kind of information. I suspect it might come out in a Congressional hearing or something like that. They say that it's really, you can't really do it that clearly because it's all melded into one police fund. But it's been significant, there's no doubting that.

KELLEY: OK, Bob Franken, thanks very much as usual.

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