WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Will Chandra Levy ever rest in peace?
14 years after her disappearance while jogging in Rock Creek Park, the man convicted of killing the federal intern has been granted a new trial.
Attorneys for Ingmar Guandique, who had been sentenced to 60 years in prison in 2010, had been requesting a new trial for some time, arguing that the key prosecution witness in the case – Guandique’s prison cellmate – had lied to curry favor with prosecutors by claiming that Guandique had confessed to killing Levy.
During a brief hearing Thursday, prosecutors dropped their opposition to a new trial, so D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher set aside the verdict and agreed to schedule a new trial before a new judge and jury.
Levy, a 24-year-old California native, was in Washington working as an intern for the Bureau of Prisons when she was last seen on May 1, 2001. Her skull was found over a year later, on May 22, 2002, in Washington’s Rock Creek Park.
Levy’s disappearance gained national attention after her parents discovered a connection with Gary Condit, who was then a congressman for Levy’s California district. Condit was never a suspect in the case, but he was questioned intensively for details about Levy’s whereabouts
Police arrested Guandique in February 2009. He was then serving a 10-year sentence for attacking two other women in the park.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin will preside over the new trial.
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