Chandra Levy Witness: Will Convicted Murderer Ingmar Guandique Get A New Trial?

There are new developments in the murder case of Washington, D.C. staffer Chandra Levy. Questions arose recently regarding the prosecution's main witness in the case against convicted murderer Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant.

Ingmar Guandique previously had spent time in jail for other offenses and was allegedly known to attack other women in Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Park, an expansive strip of green generally running the length of Connecticut Avenue throughout Northwest D.C. Chandra Levy's remains were found in a sparsely traveled section of the park by a citizen walking their dog. Then-District of Columbia Police Chief Charles Ramsey, now Chief of Police in Philadelphia, announced in 2002 that dental records of the California native Levy matched the skeletal remains found in Rock Creek Park.

The government's main informant, a former cellmate of Guandique's, Armando Morales said Guandique confessed to him that he killed Chandra Levy. Morales, an incarcerated Fresno, Calif. gang member, said Guandique was afraid that fellow inmates would label him as a sex offender in the death of Levy. Often, sex offenders and those with convictions of violence against children suffer serious injury and often death by other inmates angry about their type of crime, considered by some to be jailhouse justice.

In order to keep himself from becoming a victim himself, Guandique allegedly told Morales and others that he did indeed murder Levy but did not rape the intern. Now, Ingmar Guandique's defense attorneys are seeking a 911 tape previously made unavailable to the court as it was seen inconsequential at the original 2001 trial.

Guandique's attorney's allege that Morales admitted what he did to authorities somewhat due to "a report on [Chandra Levy on] CNN" instead of what he previously testified. The defense is seeking a new trial for Chandra Levy's previously convicted killer on the grounds that the 911 tape from a neighbor of Levy's reporting a scream would indemnify Guandique from serving out the rest of his term.

At the time of Chandra Levy's murder, she had confided in family members that she was having an affair with her home Congressman, former Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif. Condit was then seen by the public as the top suspect in her disappearance. Condit admitted to the affair in July 2001, but the case was later largely overshadowed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Condit quietly left office at the end of his term.