Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: The Chandra Levy Investigation

Aired August 04, 2001 - 09:32   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.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, now it's time for our "Reporter's Notebook." And the Chandra Levy investigation, more than three months old now, but there's still no major break in this case.

REA BLAKEY, CNN ANCHOR: National correspondent Bob Franken has been covering that story from day one. He joins us now from Washington to discuss the case and to answer some of your e-mail questions.

Hey, Bob.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Good morning.

NELSON: Morning, Bob, good to see you back again.

FRANKEN: Thank you, thank you.

The -- you've pretty much summed it up. They have -- they don't know where to look. Nothing has panned out thus far. And the family waits and anguishes in California back home, where now Gary Condit is. Of course, he's been the central figure in this case. He's back home to try and, frankly, make up with his family and his constituents.

NELSON: And we had that tantalizing lead this week that turned out to be a hoax.

FRANKEN: It was a hoax, and it was -- and part -- a chance for us to show just how the police are checking out any possibility, any possibility. They warned us from the moment that we started expressing an interest in this that they were checking it out even though it had all the aspects of not being a valid one. They still want to check it out. They are checking out everything because everything they have checked out has thus far failed for them.

NELSON: OK, Bob, we got our e-mails ready for you. Here's the first one, it comes from T.J. in Biloxi. Here's what he says -- or she: "I think we should stop wasting taxpayers' money on this disgraceful episode taking place in our nation's capital. It's a case of young women prostituting themselves to get a cushy job. Correct this by overhauling the whole damn government."

That's quite a statement. You want to tackle that one, Bob?

FRANKEN: Well, I -- well, I always -- I'm always amazed how people hold their emotions back when they get...

(CROSSTALK)

FRANKEN: Where do you start? I presume she's talking about the intern system, and of course there have been questions raised about how interns are exploited in Washington. But it is a way for young people to get very valuable government experience, of course, not including some of the ways that they might get exploited.

BLAKEY: All right, Bob, we've also heard from Mike Bitton, not certain of where Mike hails from, but he says, "In my opinion, incredible as people, we have reached the ultimate low of accepting Condit's adultery with a ho-hum attitude. Never mind for a moment the tragic fact that Miss Levy is missing and most likely met with foul play, just the fact that Condit was having sex with her should be enough to put us all up in arms and demand his resignation."

What are you hearing from the Hill, Bob?

FRANKEN: Well, I think that the fact of the matter is that the opposite point is probably true. Forgetting for the moment the controversy over whether Gary Condit should resign, his relationship with Chandra Levy, which was an affair, has been covered to an extreme degree. I don't think that it's easy to argue that this is something that has been glossed over. In fact, it has been really what's fueled this investigation.

So I think that quite a bit of attention is being paid to that. As a matter of fact, there are many who believe way too much attention has been paid to that.

NELSON: Well, we've got another question in an e-mail that comes from Winton Bieber. It reads, "It seems that the $205,000 reward is offered only for the return of Chandra Levy. Why is the reward not offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons involved in causing the disappearance of Chandra Levy?"

FRANKEN: It gives us a chance to complete the record. The fact of the matter is, it is offered for that purpose also. It's offered if there is a return for Chandra Levy, which would be the happy ending of this story. And if the ending is more tragic, it is offered for those who can, in fact, bring this to a resolution by providing the information that does.

BLAKEY: If we have time for one more, we've heard from Dale Friesen, and Dale says, "What effect, if any, will Gary Condit's return to California have on the investigation?"

FRANKEN: Probably very little. The police have said that for the moment, at least, they're through needing to interview him. The investigation goes on here to some less intensive degree. So he is right now, as the police say, not the central figure in this investigation.

NELSON: All right, Bob, here's an interesting one. It comes from Pam in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Has anyone considered using the psychic that assisted in finding Polly Klaas to find Chandra? And wasn't there a missing intern whose body was found by dragging the Potomac? If so, wouldn't that be a logical step to take?" There's two elements to that one.

FRANKEN: Two questions. First of all, psychics have, in fact, made their offers to police known, and police have listened politely, and probably have checked out their leads to no avail thus far.

As for dragging the Potomac, police say that that's not really how you would do it. The Potomac is a very large river. You can't really drag the river. What has happened on occasion is that after a period of time, somebody who's missing has washed up the shore. And they've already done that kind of investigation. But again, you can't really drag a river.

NELSON: And Bob, bring us up to date on the state of the investigation. They've scaled it back this week, or is it at the end of this week? What's going on now vis-a-vis the police on this...

BLAKEY: Somewhat stalled, right?

NELSON: ... investigation?

FRANKEN: Well, on Tuesday they stopped their search of the woodland areas. They took the recruits from the Police Academies who had spent more than two weeks doing that in the wooded areas in and around Washington. They're back at their police academy now. And what the police chief is saying is, is that that's all you can do for the moment. It's not that they covered every inch of the thousands of acres of wooded areas, it's just that for the moment there's really nowhere to look. They can't spend what amounts to the rest of eternity looking under every leaf that's out there.

So to that extent, they've scaled it back. The police say now they're in a mode where they are acting on leads, they're acting on tips, they're following whatever it is they're following. They have some more interviews to do. But for the most part, they can only hope that something comes forward. They've exhausted all the normal investigative strategies.

NELSON: And at this point, it seems unlikely to fade from public consciousness.

FRANKEN: I -- once -- it's going to be interesting to see what happens with that. There is a little bit of a break here. But of course the family, through a variety of means, has managed to keep this in the public consciousness, and I suspect the family will continue to do so.

BLAKEY: All right, CNN's Bob Franken reporting from Washington, thanks, Bob.

NELSON: Thank you, Bob.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com