[AP photo]
A U.S. Park Police officer arrives outside the Klingle
Mansion in Washington's Rock Creek Park on Monday
during the search.
By MARY JACOBY
© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 17, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Police combed the woods of
Washington's Rock Creek Park on Monday after revealing
that Chandra Levy had used her computer to look up
directions to a secluded meeting spot there on the day she
disappeared. The search turned up only a few small bones
likely belonging to animals, apparently another dead end in
the case.
Police had known for some time that Levy spent more than
three hours on the morning of May 1 surfing the Web on her
laptop computer, her last known activity. In releasing that
information Sunday, police appeared to be signaling that
they do not know where to turn, observers said.
Billy Martin, the attorney for Levy's parents, used the
information to turn the pressure up a notch on the already
besieged Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., who the Levys have
said was having an affair with Chandra.
Levy had told friends and family that her "secret lover"
demanded she not carry identification when meeting him,
Martin said on NBC's Meet the Press.
In May, police found the former federal intern's wallet and
identification in her locked apartment. Only her keys were
missing, prompting Martin to say she appeared "to have
been lured, called or brought out of the apartment expecting
to return."
On Monday, about 50 police cadets walked in a grid
through the hilly Rock Creek Park in the northwest section
of Washington, turning up the bones that police collected for
lab analysis.
Authorities cautioned against concluding that the bones had
anything to do with Levy's disappearance. "It's not
uncommon to find animal bones in the park," said Lt. Joseph
Cox, a U.S. Park Police spokesman.
Police said that on May 1, Levy spent more than three hours
beginning around 9:30 a.m. calling up Web pages. Among
the information Levy looked up were directions to Klingle
Mansion, a restored 1823 stone farmhouse on a hilltop that
is used as a headquarters for the U.S. Park Police. The spot
is about 2 miles from Levy's apartment and about a mile
from Condit's Adams Morgan condominium, where Levy
reportedly often spent the night.
Police said they conducted a more limited search of the area
about four weeks ago. The park has been a dumping ground
in the past for bodies.
The search Monday was part of a new, more intensive effort
by police to check and recheck abandoned buildings and
parks in Washington for Levy's body.
Police have said that Condit is not a suspect in what they
classify as a missing-person case. So while authorities may
be no closer to determining what happened to the former
U.S. Bureau of Prisons intern, one thing is certain: Condit's
life will never be the same.
Even if it turns out that the married 53-year-old
congressman had nothing to do with Levy's disappearance,
his image as a conservative Democrat and religious family
man has been shattered.
Last week, newspapers reported that Otis Thomas, a
Pentecostal minister in Modesto, told the FBI that his
daughter had had an affair with Condit when she was 18 and
that Condit warned her not to tell anyone.
A United Airlines flight attendant, Anne Marie Smith, 39,
told investigators that a Condit representative tried to get her
to sign a false affidavit saying she had not had a sexual
relationship with the congressman.
In a recent television interview, Smith's attorney, James
Robinson, said she had seen neckties tied together and
affixed to Condit's bed in Washington in a manner that
suggested they had been used as restraints during sex.
And on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported that when
Condit was elected to Congress in 1989, he hired onto his
Washington staff a 20-year-old hostess from a restaurant he
frequented in Sacramento when he was a California
assemblyman. Records show that the former hostess was
paid more than the congressman's press secretary even
though she had no experience in politics or as an office
worker. Three years after Condit brought her to
Washington, the woman left the office in tears one day and
was never seen again, a former Condit aide told the
newspaper.
Condit has not spoken publicly about Levy since she
disappeared. On April 29, Levy left a message on her aunt's
telephone answering machine saying she had "some really
big news." Also that day, Condit reportedly told police, he
spoke to Levy by phone.
Levy was last seen April 30 canceling her membership at a
Washington gym. She also reportedly paged Condit as many
as 20 times that day.