A chronology of the Chandra Levy story, updated as news breaks. Click here to read the whole story from the beginning.
Tuesday, July 10: At about 11:15 p.m., police begin searching the Adams Morgan apartment of Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif.
Wednesday, July 11: At about 2:45 a.m., police leave Condit’s apartment, taking what CNN called “two grocery-sized bags and several rectangular-shaped items bundled together.” A source tells the Washington Times that police took samples from “one drop of blood in plain sight in the bathroom” and from specks “that might possibly be blood” on Venetian blinds. The source told the Times that Abbe D. Lowell, Condit’s Washington attorney, refused to let police take “a pair of pants that had a red stain.” The New York Daily News later reports that police “say privately they don’t think anything happened” to Chandra Levy at Condit’s apartment.
Flight attendant Anne Marie Smith talks for six hours with D.C. police, federal prosecutors, and FBI agents. Smith’s attorney, Jim Robinson, tells the Daily News that much of the interview dealt with Condit’s “demeanor, behavior, and habits.” According to news reports, authorities are investigating Condit on possible charges of obstruction of justice and suborning perjury.
Thursday, July 12: Investigators interview Smith for five hours. The New York Daily News reports that Smith kept a journal that contains details of conversations she had with Condit about Chandra Levy. The conversations took place after Levy disappeared. Smith shared the diary with federal prosecutors.
Friday, July 13: Condit turns over a DNA sample to investigators and passes a private polygraph test given by a former FBI agent. CNN reports that Lowell, Condit’s lawyer, says Condit was asked whether he had anything to do with Chandra Levy’s disappearance, whether he harmed her or asked anyone to harm her, and whether he knows where she is.
The mystery has several loose ends waiting to be resolved:
1. Was Chandra Levy pregnant? The New York Daily News reported July 6 that investigators were considering the possibility, though they didn’t find a testing kit in her apartment. The D.C. political sheet the Hotline cites this July 9 quote from “Chandra Levy friend Sven Jones” from CBS’s Early Show: “Oddly enough, she mentioned at some point, almost in passing, that she had to make a medical appointment. I said, ‘OK, what is that?’ Awkward silence. I was a little concerned for her, in the sense that it might be a serious medical condition, or maybe this is something that had to do with her relationship.” The interviewer then asked, “Pregnant?” Jones replied, “Possibly.” And the Hotline says Levy family lawyer Billy Martin told the Early Show on July 10, “I don’t think we want to answer that, but we do know the answer.”
Now Matt Drudge reports that the July 24 issue of the National Enquirer, which hit newsstands July 13, cites a Department of Justice source who believes Levy was pregnant with Condit’s baby. The New York Post reported July 13 that Chandra’s parents told America Most Wanted “that although some reports say their daughter may have been pregnant when she vanished, they have no evidence that’s true.” And the New York Daily News says “two sources close to the Levy family” are “certain Levy was not pregnant.”
2. Are there other women? The Washington Times reports that “law enforcement sources” say investigators “on both coasts are reinterviewing six women who claimed to have had affairs” with Condit, and they’re looking for other women who were romantically involved with him.
On July 11, the Modesto Bee reported that a 31-year-old California woman provided the Bee with two phone numbers she said Condit gave her about five years ago. “He has this mysterious phone number that he gives out to all the girls,” the woman said. “When you call this number you just hear music playing and then a beep. That is when you are supposed to leave a message.” The woman’s interview with the Bee took place before similar accounts from Anne Marie Smith and Chandra Levy’s aunt, Linda Zamsky, became public. The Bee left messages at the two numbers, but they were not returned.
The Washington Post reported July 12 that FBI agents “approached and interviewed a Pentecostal minister who described an affair” between Condit and his then-18-year-old daughter. The minister, Otis Thomas, told the Modesto Bee that “he received an anonymous telephone call about three weeks ago. The caller said, ‘Shut up and listen,’ then warned Thomas against talking to anyone about Condit. The caller, he said, knew things about Thomas’ family, and Thomas called the experience ‘very intimidating.’ “
A “handwritten note on three-hole binder paper that was signed ‘Jennifer Thomas’ ” was taped to the front door of the Thomas home Thursday, July 12. According to the Washington Post, the note said: “This letter is to anyone with an interest in me or my father. We are not interested in an interview, we do not want to be on TV for any reason. I will tell you that I never knew Mrs. Levy’s daughter, I never met that congressman who’s involved in all this. I don’t even have an interest in politics as it is.”
Mike Lynch, Condit’s Modesto, Calif., chief of staff, told the Modesto Bee that Condit said he did not have a relationship with Thomas’ daughter. Condit’s former driver and bodyguard, Vince Flammini, also denied the allegations: “That’s a bull—- story,” he said. “I worked for him all through that time. I was his driver. I’ve never seen that girl in my life.” Flammini had previously supported Anne Marie Smith’s allegation of an affair with Condit, saying, “I wasn’t in the room when they were making love, but she’s telling the truth.”
3. Who are Bob Novak’s sources? The conservative pundit made this statement on the July 6 Crossfire: ” I am told that the voters in Modesto might forgive Congressman Condit if they thought perhaps he had done some violence to this girl, not that anybody is accusing him of it, they might forgive him for that, but they could never forgive him for philandering.”
4. Will Condit run for re-election? Lynch tells that Modesto Bee that he will. “We decided some time ago he would run,” Lynch said.
[August 3 update: Explainer’s Chandra Levy updates ended July 13. They were warranted when the major media weren’t covering the story adequately, and when events moved so quickly it was difficult to keep up. But given the round-the-clock attention the story has received over the past month, unless your only news source other than Slate is the “CBS Evening News,” the Chandra Levy story needs no more explaining.]
