www.justiceforchandra.com

[rd]

no, I mentioned awhile back (briefly in one post) that the judge overseeing the pre-trial hearings is retiring and will not be presiding over the trial.

I think there are issues like the main inmate story guy refusing to answer defense discovery questions that will impact the start of this trial greatly. I guess the last he will deal with it is the December 16 hearing. IIRC he retires end of year.

I don't care how the trial gets delayed, but if inclement weather does not allow for examining the crime scenes under conditions that Chandra was alleged to have been in then it needs to be until the jury has that opportunity, which involves non-trivial amounts of time outside and also appropriate understanding of foliage at that time of year and other conditions pertaining to "a nice day for a jog" from Dupont Circle to grove 18 on Western Ridge horse trail and on deeper into the forest on the No Horses trail.

Hopefully jurors will know they are deciding on Chandra's sanity as well, in other words, a de facto finding on Condit's initial story to the DC police, and will know and understand Chandra's behavior prior to her disappearance that rules out any such "jog in the park", starting with not being able to be in communications with Condit when she was constantly checking for messages from him prior to that.

rd

[lector]

[rd]

Thanks for that link, lector. I will get that filed away.

According to the link, Obama administration nominated Marisa Demeo, a Superior Court judge, to fill the vacancy.

You are right, it will take well into 2010 to actually get the replacement judge in place. AFAIK they will assign some currently serving judge to preside over the trial. I linked to the DC court web page one time and saw the list of current judges. I didn't save it, but will be getting to know one of them soon.

rd

[rd]

I just visited Wikipedia's article on Chandra, which I happen to do every few years. Someone has put a statement in the article which I wrote this about in talk back to Wikipedia:

This statement has been added to the article which I haven't seen before in past years: Levy had visited the park itself, located near her apartment in northwest Washington, D.C., on many occasions.

Not only is there no basis for this statement, it is critical to the upcoming Guandique trial that false and misleading information like this not be stated in an encyclopedia. Granted, there are any number of reporters who have included variations of this statement unsubstantiated. What we actually know are quotes from a fellow graduate student in DC and also her best friend working with her at the BoP, both people with names and quoted multiple times, that Chandra considered the park dangerous. She did not jog and she did not take walks. A "nearby park" is also dangerously misleading in the way that most people would envision a "nearby park".

This is not a nitpick, but instead is quite vital to be correct. This will be covered thoroughly in the Guandique trial of course. I ask that the Wikipedia article not mislead the public on such a critical point of information. (knowing of course that someone put it in there as common knowledge).

Basically there is no source that Chandra was ever in Rock Creek Park, although through a technicality the park runs for miles through DC all the way to Maryland and a park walkway along that corridor below the National Zoo is across the street from Condit's former condo, so she possibly stepped on the walkway at some point visiting Condit. But that's conjecture for whatever conjecture the statement is based on. It shouldn't be in there.

For anyone who read this far, I have basically every citation ever published about Chandra. Here are a few for this:

Modesto woman is missing in Washington, D.C.
Jim Herron Zamora, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, May 13, 2001

Friends describe her as spontaneous, clever, always quick to laugh. But Baker noted that Levy was also wary of Washington's high crime rate.

''She never went out alone," Baker said. "One reason she joined a health club is so she wouldn't have to jog in the streets there."

end quote

SEARCHING FOR CHANDRA
By Thomas Fields-Meyer
People
June 25, 2001

Since then, police have questioned scores of Chandra's acquaintances and coworkers, scoured e-mail and telephone records and even brought cadaver-sniffing dogs to several locations, including the jogging path in Rock Creek Park, where Chandra regularly walked.

end quote [note: this is an example of the unsubstantiated claim. - rd]

Cops Search Park for Intern
Newsday
July 17, 2001

Police swarmed through tall grass yesterday in
a park where Chandra Levy often jogged but found only what are thought to be animal bones after a day of searching.

end quote [another example of unsubstantiated claim - rd]

Talk Magazine article on Chandra Levy
Lisa DePaulo
London Times U.K.
August 12, 2001

Levy didn't smoke, had no pets, didn't jog (she was a fitness fanatic, but always at a gym).

end quote [Lisa DePaulo interviewed family and friends for this.]

Do D.C.'s Police or Gary Condit Deserve More Respect?; CNN CROSSFIRE
Aired May 23, 2002

[former DC Police Chief] GAINER: We actually spent some three weeks up there with recruits. But it is wrong to assume that she was a regular jogger in Rock Creek Park. That is not necessarily true. In fact, the information we have is that she did not often jog outdoors, that she used a treadmill more than Rock Creek.

end quote

Sven Jones interview
The Early Show CBS
May 23, 2002 Thursday

MITCHELL: Rock Creek Park is much like Central Park in New York, an--an--an oasis for city dwellers. Did she enjoy the park and how often did she go out there?

Mr. JONES: We didn't really talk about her visiting parks, and we didn't really talk so much about jogging, either. It was a little bit of a surprise for me, because we have not--neither one of us em--embraced jogging fully, so the park--I'm just not familiar.

end quote

Sven Jones interview
O'Reilly
May 24, 2002

O'Reilly: "It looks like Mr. Jones that Ms. Levy was jogging, but you have said before that she wasn't an avid jogger. Any reaction to that?

Sven Jones: That's correct. As we spoke earlier, I didn't see her as somebody that would jog religiously. It was something that would be sort of out of character for her.

O'Reilly: Really, so she wasn't somebody who went out on a daily basis and ran around the park where she was discovered.

Jones: She may have done it on occasion, but certainly didn't embrace jogging as something that was personally enriching.

end quote

[Sven Jones and Jennifer Baker were the only two friends Chandra had in DC and both state unequivacably she didn't jog or exercise outdoors. There is no named person who has ever been quoted saying otherwise. - rd]


Levy Possibly Bound by Leggings
By Sari Horwitz and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 25, 2002

Billy Martin, the Washington attorney for the Levy family, discounted the theory that Levy was abducted while jogging in the park.

Her friends said she thought it was dangerous and she was very careful what she did," he said. "Rock Creek Park was a place that she knew was dangerous, and she discussed it with friends and family. All her friends knew she would not jog in the park."

end quote

Condit Lawyer: Lie Test OK
By HELEN KENNEDY
Daily News Washington Bureau
May 30, 2001

And there are questions about whether Levy was out jogging at all. The site is 5 miles from her apartment; she usually avoided running in the park.

end quote [Helen Kennedy doesn't cite a source fo this. Basically the only people who knew Chandra in DC and were sources were Jennifer Baker and Sven Jones.]

More Evidence Points to Murder in Levy Case
WUSA-TV 9
2002

The park is crisscrossed with running trails and was one of Levy's favorite jogging runs.

Friends said Levy frequented the 1,754-acre park, located in Northwest Washington.

(The Associated Press and CBS News contributed to this report.)

end quote

As I've written many times, friends with names said she never jogged and would never go to Rock Creek Park alone. The only ones who are reported to say otherwise are unnamed friends, basically reporters repeating assumptions and speculation. Please let's get that corrected in Wikipedia. Thanks for your time. - rd

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

[jane]

Hi rd,

Wiki is editable - which is what someone else did, but you can re-edit it yourself.
_________________
"There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known."
Christ

[sigsky]

I wonder why this jogging nonsense persists. It should be very easy to establish Chandra's workout habits via her friends, Aunt, parents, and brother. Hopefully that will be part of Guandique's defense. Also if Chandra was so familiar with Rock Creek Park, why would she be searching for the Klingle Mansion on the Internet?

[Rainbow]

Bulls-eye, Sigsky!

[lector]

It persists, I think, because most people don't really care enough about the case to think very hard about it, absent any good exposition of the facts in a major media outlet. It's an old case, the police bungled it for a lot of years but finally got their man, end of story.

Even folks who know a bit more about it draw the false conclusion that, because (a) Guandique attacked two joggers (I almost said "two other joggers" - see how easy it is to fall into that line of thinking?) in Rock Creek Park, (b) Chandra was found in the same park apparently having worn athletic-style attire when she died, & (c) Guandique has now been charged with the crime, therefore Chandra must have been jogging in the park. Totally illogical, but that's what some people think.

Of course these notions draw on the earlier history of the jogging story that was kicking around in the media for years before Guandique entered the picture.

I think it also persists because most people don't understand the geography of Rock Creek Park. That makes the jogging story seem plausible. Ralph has done an excellent job of detailing the misconceptions vs. the reality. Even I, an avid map reader & explorer of odd areas of DC when I'm there, had it wrong for 2 years. How is your average person going to get it right?

Going roughly north, Connecticut Ave. NW crosses a lower section of Rock Creek Park, which at that point is a gorge, on the Taft Bridge & then intersects Calvert St at a busy commercial area on the far side of the gorge. Just west of the intersection, a path runs down into the park, interesecting other paths that run along Rock Creek. If you walk around that area in the late afternoon, you'll see plenty of joggers, walkers & cyclists going up & down that path. I walked by that spot several times on various trips to DC. From what I knew at the time, I would look southwest beyond that path where the park twisted on towards the Potomac & think, how bizarre that Chandra jogged down that same path, only to be killed there, in a little green oasis in the midst of the city.

It wasn't until I read Ralph's book a couple of months ago, & then looked hard at a map of DC, that I understood how completely wrong I'd gotten it. The area I'm describing is not all that far from Dupont Circle - I've both walked to it & taken the Metro there - from what I knew at the time, it made perfect sense as a destination for a young & healthy jogger.

I wonder how many other people still have misconceptions similar to the one I had.

[Rainbow]

Yes, lector. I think that you did a good job of explaining what is happening with the general public. Besides the park geography, we need to remember the time of year it was. There was a lot of humidity and a heat-wave in D.C. during that period. I was in DC around that time and believe me, none of the joggers I saw were wearing leggings and sweatshirts. None! I wonder what the joggers who were attacked were wearing. They had to have been wearing shorts!
And Chandra was probably wearing something totally different when she was murdered, anyway. May be a beautiful, sleeveless (possibly strapless) couture dress and very, very high heels, e.g. shoes she couldn't walk (or jog) in, where she would have needed a ride.

[rd]

lector, the answer to your question is nearly everyone that doesn't look into it like you did to understand it. Certainly reporters are of no help and some deliberately so.

I hope the defense presents that information as well as you did, and if allowed to look into it the jury and hopefully the public following the trial wll understand as well.

jane, thanks. I see the sentence is gone now from Chandra's article.

rd

[lector]

[rd]

yes, I have the same doubts. As far as I know the prosecution will fight tooth and nail to keep the jury as ill-informed as possible. Lawyers consider this part of their job. I consider it the basis for so much injustice and wrongful convictions we have in this country, as DNA finds years later prove over and over.

And it's rarely some well to do white guy like a congressman who is wrongfully convicted.

rd

[Rainbow]

Hi lector and rd!
Jose Baez and Mrs. Kinney-Baden, attorneys for Casey Anthony, are trying to introduce another theory into that case. I wonder if they will be successful. If they are, Guandique's attorneys might have a better chance in doing something similar, although it would be completely dissimilar in that Casey is clearly guilty and Guandique is clearly innocent.

[rd]

I hope the jury understands the theory better than I do.

rd

[lector]

From the Orlando Sentinel: