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By Michael Isikoff
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Chandra Levy was going home. Late last month the bubbly, curly-haired 24-year-old from Modesto, Calif., finished her final day as a Washington intern for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. She packed her bags, canceled her health-club membership and e-mailed her mother to say that she'd gotten plane tickets and would arrive home that weekend. Then she simply disappeared. When police searched her apartment, they found her clothes neatly folded in her suitcase, and her mobile phone, laptop computer and credit cards.
Now all of Washington, it seems, is consumed with her fate. In the three weeks since Levy went missing, the case has become a media magnet. The Washington police department has assigned 20 detectives to the case, and the FBI recently stepped in to help.
Every year in the United States nearly 100,000 people are declared missing. Rarely do we hear or read a word about any of them. So why has Chandra Levy's disappearance gotten so much attention? For one thing, Levy's parents have received help from the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation. Started by relatives of three hikers murdered in Yosemite National Park in 1999 near Levy's hometown of Modesto, the group has managed media access to Levy's distraught parents. Yet it isn't simply concern over Chandra Levy's well-being that has kept the case alive in the press. In scandal-obsessed Washington, where the words "young female intern" still echo, the story is being fueled by speculation about Levy's relationship with a congressman.
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Police and reporters began searching for clues soon after Levy was declared missing. The Modesto Bee reported that she sent guarded e-mails to a friend late last year in which she mentioned someone she was dating. "My man will be coming back here when Congress starts up again," she wrote. "I'm looking forward to seeing him." In another e-mail, she said the man "took care of my plane ticket" for a trip home. Others recall Levy telling them she was seeing "someone in politics"--without saying who it was.
The cryptic references led police--and reporters--to the offices of Rep. Gary Condit, the California Democrat who represents Levy's hometown. One of Levy's closest friends in Washington, Jennifer Baker, was an intern in Condit's office, and Levy often went to visit her. There she met Condit, and the two became friends. "Everybody here knew her," says Condit's press secretary, Randy Groves. In Levy's apartment, police found a framed photograph of Condit posing with Levy and Baker in his office--a photo his spokesman termed "a routine constituent" souvenir. After her disappearance, Condit quickly showed concern. In a statement, he called Levy "a great person and a good friend," and contributed $10,000 to the reward offered by Levy's parents--a move he has made on behalf of other missing persons in his district in the past.
Condit, who is married, denied speculation that he was seeing Levy romantically. Investigators uncovered nothing to contradict his word last week. The D.C. police department sheepishly retracted a comment by the assistant chief that Levy had visited Condit's apartment several times, saying that there was "no concrete evidence" that she had ever been there.
Condit, who was interviewed by police earlier this month, has been quiet of late. Asked if Levy had ever been to his apartment, Condit's spokesman would say only that he "doesn't feel it's appropriate to make any comments about a matter that is under investigation." So far, there seem to be few facts that might explain what happened to Chandra Levy. But on both coasts, there is certainly no shortage of questions.
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