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American Morning

The Search for Chandra: Will Parking Lot be Searched?

Aired August 02, 2001 - 09:04   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 the latest on the Chandra Levy investigation: There's a new turn of events. It all started after investigators got an anonymous tip that the missing woman's body was buried under a Virginia parking lot -- then questions over whether the area will be searched.

We have two reports for you. CNN's Bob Franken is following the story from Washington and CNN's Eileen O'Connor is reporting from Virginia. Morning, both of you.

Bob, why this tip? Why did this get so much attention?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this one got so much attention because we gave it a lot of attention. The police say that they give all of the tips that they get at least some attention no matter how far fetched they might seem. This was one that had a tiny bit of credibility because the person who called it in gave a huge amount of detail, called it into a Web site in California, WeTip.com, and secondly, spoke specifically of a parking lot under construction in the Fort Lee area where he said Chandra Levy was buried.

That, of course, turned out to be true, that there was a parking lot that had had some work done on it. Therefore, the police decided that it was worth at least taking a look at. The news got out about that and of course it became public knowledge.

Now, where they are is that they're trying to decide how much they want to follow up the lead, but the police point out that after three months plus of having almost no idea of the whereabouts of Chandra Levy, they're going to take seriously any calls that they get and try and follow them up, at least to see if there's any credibility at all to them.

KELLEY: And talking about credibility, though, Bob, even one of the Levys' attorneys now called the Levy family and said there's nothing to this. So where are we between both of those, that this might be really a good tip and there's nothing to it?

FRANKEN: Well, he has exactly the same information we do. Law enforcement authorities say they don't believe this is going to be the one to pan out, but one of them that they believe this about could very easily be the one that surprises them and does pan out. That is the spirit that they're looking at this, nothing more than that, but nothing less than that.

KELLEY: Eileen, is the search still on hold? The FBI says hold off for a while?

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they are. I mean the FBI has issued a statement saying that they're looking into the credibility and the validity of the tip and until they have more of a reason to go further, they're not going to take any further investigative steps, physical steps. The military, the public information officer here at the base also said that she does not anticipate any search happening, certainly at this moment. But they say that they do stand ready to cooperate with the FBI -- Donna.

KELLEY: And Eileen, they were talking about bringing in the cadaver dogs. Did they do that or did they not do that?

O'CONNOR: No, they did not. And, in fact, the public information officer here said that she had never heard of, she didn't know where that report came from. Perhaps the D.C. police had talked about the possibility of that when they were discussing what to do with this tip. But at least for the military personnel here, that was not a question, according to her, ever.

KELLEY: So, Bob Franken, where do we go today? Anything on tap other than the ordinary? They were talking about winding down the investigation even by the end of this week, weren't they?

FRANKEN: Well, they've actually already wound down the investigation to a certain degree. They have finished the search of the woodland areas around Washington, at least for now. They've withdrawn the 25 recruits from the academy who had been conducting those searches and have made it clear that for the moment they have nowhere to go.

But, as we found out, this is not an investigation that has gone away. What might go away is all the attention that we've paid to it because of the romantic relationship that Congressman Gary Condit finally acknowledged to police investigators, according to our law enforcement sources. That, of course, is what really fueled all the wide interest in this. The police are going to great pains now to say that he is not a central figure in this investigation, but it is a very much open investigation. It's just that for the moment police have really not the massive efforts to do that they had before. They've done most of them.

KELLEY: Bob Franken and Eileen O'Connor, thanks very much.

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