www.justiceforchandra.com Forum Index www.justiceforchandra.com
Justice for Chandra Levy and missing women
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Murder on a Horse Trail - Introduction
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 20, 21, 22, 23  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    www.justiceforchandra.com Forum Index -> Chandra Levy and missing women
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 12:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I published Murder on a Horse Trail: The Disappearance of Chandra Levy for free on my web site at http://www.justiceforchandra.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=32

True crime readers can read it here but discuss it right in Cold Cases on websleuths.com at no cost to them and no royalties to me.

I think very few people reading my post above would find it defensive. You raise a very good point that hadn't been addressed before on the Chandra sites as far as I know. That's why I say your knowledge of Chandra's case is remarkable, not necessarily special.

With the National Enquirer polluting information about the case with their special brand of ignorance, their description of the leggings found attached to the bones is in stark contrast to the very few actual mentions of the leggings as near the body as you pointed out.

So what does that mean? You imply in an earlier post that they are an article of clothing she was carrying, one can visualize tights tied around her waist perhaps. That's why the actual way they were tied, described as a rope, and the manner it was tied making the police 90% sure she was bound is important to distinguish from an article of clothing tied around her waist for example.

You suggest she was wearing stockings under what was described as sweat pants (Washington Post), running tights (Washington Times), leotards (Washington Post), stretch leggings (Washington Post) which was "a knotted piece of clothing that may have been used to tie up Chandra Ann Levy", knotted leotard (NY Post), leggings (NY Daily News), spandex legging (ABC News), and over that running shorts.

Why would she be wearing stockings or in my male ignorance what I presume to be pantyhose under spandex running tights as well as underwear?

Not only would she not be sitting passively while her tights were being taken off, she wouldn't willingly have been on the side of a mountain on a horse trail in a forest to start with. Which brings us to disposal of bodies.

Chandra's body was dragged down a steep hillside a couple of hundred yards back from and below a picnic area in Rock Creek Park on top of a ridge. I describe that crime scene in the Horse Trail chapter in my book. Muggers don't do that, but people who know the victim and want to hide their crime do.

rd
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 6:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A quote from rd's post of Marco's post from Websleuths.

"And don't professional killers dispose of bodies, rather than making sure they are on display complete with murder weapon?"

I have not been making a study of Murder on a Horse Trail lately, but I am certain that rd covers this question a little in his book, since it has been discussed here before.

rd wrote in the same message, "Muggers don't do that, but people who know the victim and want to hide their crime do."

One scenario I believe most of us looked at who have been following this case from the start, is that maybe Chandra's murder was a professional type job, if not done by a professional or professionals, at least done by someone person or more who knew about professional type murders.

The easiest scenario for Chandra's disappearance would have been for someone whom she knew and trusted to pick her up in front of her apartment. Of course she could have been picked up anywhere close by as part of a planned rendevous. There was no need for Chandra to run over to the Park to be murdered. A murder in the Park could too easily have been observed by any chance passerby. Much easier to just drive Chandra out of sight somewhere to murder her.

rd, you said that Chandra's body was drug down the hill to where she was found. That would be the most logical way that she got there. Would someone be walking with Chandra and say, "Please Chandra walk this way so that I can murder you?"

So Chandra's remains were found in the Park where a mugger might have mugged her. That at least was a partial story of how she was found there, a professional killer would not have been that crude unless the professional wanted to make the murder appear as if it was done by a mugger.

The problem for the professional, or semi-professional, killer might have been that Chandra's body was not found right away. A professional could hide a body, but he could not then say that a mugger had been the killer. Chandra's body was not found until a year after she disappeared. The appearance of the remains suddenly left the way open to accuse a mugger in the park. Up until then Chandra's disappearance might have appeared too much like a professional job. The way to counter that theory was for the professional, or professionals, to move the remains to the Park. The late finding of the remains would guarantee that much forensic evidence would be lost through exposure.

This has all been brought up before here, and I hope that I have not unintentionally mixed things up here too much. This is all fine and good, but here is something we do not know. Why did Congressman Gary Condit's attorney Geragos, who was later Scott Peterson's attorney, say in April of 2002 that Chandra might be found in May, when she was found.

I don't believe Geragos is a Psychic. I don't believe in Psychics. Only prophets are right every time, and they have to be right every time or they are not prophets. We do not have any known prophets alive today. Geragps is not a prophet, so what made him decide that Chandra would be found in May, of 2002?

An addendum to this might be, Who was the person with the dog who found Chandra's remains?


benn
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 7:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chapter Horse Trail describes my trek from Klingle Mansion to Western Ridge and the horse trail where Chandra was found.

It is important to point out that it is not just inconvenience we are talking about here, as in it was perhaps unneccessary to go there to be murdered but an option. It is important to understand the site is a remote spot on a mountain in a forest that is a convenient and in fact logical spot to drive up and dump a body by dragging it down the side the mountain and hiding it.

Most bodies found in Rock Creek Park through the years, in fact nearly all, were dumped there. That is how a body ends up in Rock Creek Park. Only someone like Geragos trying to pin Chandra's murder on someone on the side of a quiet, eerie mountain on a hidden, dark horse trail would be brazen enough to even suggest that either Chandra or a sexual assaulter would even be out there on that perilously steep trail.

It's the perfect site to drive up and hide a body, not just dump it, but only someone who knew the park, who perhaps bicycled through it regularly, would know that.

rd
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I lived near to John McLaren Park in San Francisco and there were bodies dumped there. It did not seem like the logical place to go murder someone for some reason. It was a clean park with a lot of open view between the trees, and never many people in the park.

If you were in that park you were sort of noticeable, but at night it could be something else, just a place to drive through and dump someone out.

benn
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That is true, benn. I don't want to minimize the attacks on joggers more than a mile downhill along Beach Drive running along Rock Creek, by Guandique in the weeks after Chandra disappeared and even another one recently as posted in Latest News. We are fortunate all those joggers escaped their attackesr and got away screaming.

But that's not where you can furtively dump a body with no one seeing you. Someone with very good knowledge of the park would drive up that winding hill and hide Chandra's body down the steep incline. Someone with a car, someone at night, someone who hides a body because they will be connected to her if she is found.

Someone who knew her.

rd
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
propria



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 630
Location: northern illinois

PostPosted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

someone who could maybe even tie her up with her own tights, if she thought that would please him.


nanci
_________________
the Truth has a name, and there is power in that Name!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rd and nanci. I end up here writing more than I want to write. I thought that some of us agreed at one time that in the end, before Chandra's remains were found, that Condit wanted Chandra to be found in Rock Creek Park. If the body was moved from somewhere else, that was not the murderer's original plan, but still it could have been an original plan, but a very brazen plan if it was thought out that way from the beginning.

Condit was the center of media attention as long as Chandra's remains were not found. The finding of Chandra in Rock Creek Park took some of the pressure off of him. So we have a few different versions of what might have happened.

1. Chandra was murdered by someone in Rock Creek Park somewhere in the area of where she was found. That is the theory that begins looking for muggers.

2. Chandra was murdered somewhere else than Rock Creek Park, and her remains were placed in a location where they would not be found. That would be the Professional killer theory.

3. This is the theory that I give favor to, that Chandra was murdered in a professional style and her remains hidden away. But the media pressure on Condit was too much, and Chandra's body was moved to Rock Creek Park to take the pressure off of Condit.

4. This last theory is the brazen theory Chandra was murdered as in Theory 3, and her remains were kept somewhere out of the Park, until exposure has gotten rid of most of the Forensic evidence. Then Chandra was moved to the Park.

I guess you can take your pick of any of these four murder plans, or write another one.

benn
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 7:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Additional discussion of Murder on a Horse Trail at websleuths.com:

http://websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30130

rd
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

from my post at websleuths.com:

One thing I hoped to accomplish was to show how remote the horse trail was where Chandra was found. I wrote of my own reenactment of a hike from Klingle Mansion to picnic site 18 on Western Ridge in chapter Horse Trail.

I have also posted maps and pictures to bring some life to envisioning Chandra in the middle of a silent forest. The same reason she didn't hike there is the reason she didn't meet someone there. She had no way to get there.

The site is ideal for someone very familiar with the park to drive up at night and drag her body down the side of the steep hill below the picnic site and hide it. There is even a place to back up off the road to unload at the picnic site, but it's supposed to be for unloading horses, not bodies.

If anyone has any ideas for making better use of maps and pictures to better illustrate that then post it and I'll do it if I can. I'm too far away from DC to make any more trips back there now, but maybe I've provided enough info for another sleuther to give their insights.

rd
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is an excellent Wikipedia article on Chandra at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Levy . Very well done. External references include chapter On Her Computer.

Of special interest is an explanation of the commonality between Chandra Levy's and Joyce Chiang's disappearances in Washington. Anyone who looks up Chandra Levy on Wiki for a brief synopsis will get a good one.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
gozgals



Joined: 28 Jul 2005
Posts: 2892
Location: A Place Called Vertigo

PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:03 pm    Post subject: Additional Comments On Wikipedia Reply with quote

I just read this rd- I agree, It was done rather well, excellent in fact, but you are the master authority on this. (I am now ready to complete my PRINTED BOOK--- with much thanks)

Not that we haven't seen this before but I love this:

Quote:


Even though police repeatedly stated that Condit was not a suspect, many in the popular media—along with Levy's family and much of the American public—suspected that Condit was still hiding important information about the intern's disappearance. This suspicion was deepened when Condit tried to avoid answering direct questions during a televised interview with news anchor Connie Chung on August 23, 2001. Condit later appeared before a District of Columbia grand jury investigating the disappearance.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Levy

I am sure everyone will read it and agree. I hope that all that visit read YOUR BOOK, and also this summary.

have a good weekend all

GG)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I got a nice review on Amazon today, from a true crime buff in Westfield, NY, J. Zeyak. They write:

it was a very well written and interesting book-the only problem I had with it was it was a little repetitive in places. I would highly recommend it

I think the being a little repetitive take on it is a fair statement. I tended to write each chapter without referring to other chapters and indeed repeating info to setup the focus of the chapter as needed, probably erring on the side of completeness at times.

But very kind words from a reader, and I'm glad people are still reading about Chandra's unsolved murder and finding it interesting to consider.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 3225

PostPosted: Wed Mar 01, 2006 1:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes - very encouraging!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
propria



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 630
Location: northern illinois

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

... probably erring on the side of completeness at times.


wtg and ^5 to you, rd ... you've certainly earned the kudos, and i'm delighted to see them delivered, especially in a high profile venue like amazon. btw, if you're going to run the risk of error, you've certainly chosen the right direction to run in ... among other things, it's that steady hammering away of the facts, standing on their own merit, that makes your book what is likely the most comprehensive collection of known facts on this matter that exists in one volume. i suppose the various law enforcement agencies might have more facts than you've published, but then they obviously don't plan to share any superior standing their facts might have over yours, do they?


nanci
_________________
the Truth has a name, and there is power in that Name!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Thu Mar 02, 2006 12:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

propria wrote:
... probably erring on the side of completeness at times.


wtg and ^5 to you, rd ... you've certainly earned the kudos, and i'm delighted to see them delivered, especially in a high profile venue like amazon. btw, if you're going to run the risk of error, you've certainly chosen the right direction to run in ... among other things, it's that steady hammering away of the facts, standing on their own merit, that makes your book what is likely the most comprehensive collection of known facts on this matter that exists in one volume. i suppose the various law enforcement agencies might have more facts than you've published, but then they obviously don't plan to share any superior standing their facts might have over yours, do they?


nanci



Thanks nanci. If they know anything else they hid it so well they act like they don't know anything.

And act like they don't want to know anything.

rd
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    www.justiceforchandra.com Forum Index -> Chandra Levy and missing women All times are GMT - 4 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 20, 21, 22, 23  Next
Page 21 of 23

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group