Thread: BREAKING: Chandra Levy Killed by ILLEGAL ALIEN!

By Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, July 18, 2008

While D.C. police focused most of their investigative efforts on Rep. Gary Condit and his relationship to missing intern Chandra Levy, they were slow to recognize another lead. It involved a man who was attacking women in the woods of Rock Creek Park.

The day Chandra disappeared, May 1, 2001, Ingmar A. Guandique, a 19-year-old illegal Salvadoran immigrant, did not show up for his construction job. Around that time, he went to stay with his former landlady, Sheila Phillips Cruz, the manager of an apartment building on Somerset Place NW. Cruz noticed that Guandique looked like he had been in a bad fight, his face battered and bruised. He had a fat lip, a bloody blemish in his eye and scratches around his throat.


Enlarge PhotoIngmar Guandique's home in Mayucaquin, El Salvador (Sylvia Moreno - Post)Guandique (pronounced GWAN-dee-keh) had come from a hard-scrabble hamlet near the city of San Miguel in El Salvador. His father was kidnapped by guerrillas during the Salvadoran civil war, before Guandique's birth in 1981, and later executed. The son grew up in an adobe house with a dirt floor, no running water and an open pit for cooking meals. The home was decorated with family photos and pictures of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary taped to pink and white sheets of plastic that served as wallpaper.

Guandique wanted a better life in America. A friend of the family lent him $5,000 to pay a "coyote" to smuggle him across the Texas border with more than 50 others. The seventh-grade dropout left home in January 2000, eventually swimming across the Rio Grande, crossing the border near Piedras Negras and arriving in Houston in March 2000. From there, he made his way to Washington to join his half-brother, Huber, and other family friends.

Within a month, Guandique began picking up day jobs on construction sites and sending small amounts of money back home. He also had financial obligations to the family that paid his way. And he had another obligation: his ex-girlfriend, who was pregnant when Guandique left and later gave birth to a boy.

In fall 2000, Guandique met a new girl, Iris Portillo. She was a tiny woman; even though she was a year older than Guandique, she looked 13. In early 2001, Guandique began to live with Portillo and her mother in their apartment on Somerset Place. The young couple took walks near the National Zoo and picnicked in Rock Creek Park. He was enamored with her. He bought her jewelry, including a ring at a Georgia Avenue pawn shop.

Guandique was having a hard time adjusting to living on the bottom rung of the American economy. He barely spoke English. He was not used to the routine: waking up at dawn, getting to the work site on time, spending the day toiling at a menial job. He struggled to pay the bills, send money home and buy the nice things Portillo wanted.

In early spring 2001, Guandique started to spend more time drinking and hanging around Rock Creek Park. He began to carry a six-inch knife wrapped in a red cloth. After finding letters from one of Portillo's old boyfriends from El Salvador, he struck her. He once bit her hard above her breast, leaving a scar, and he warned her not to stray. He would later say that Iris broke his heart.


Enlarge PhotoIngmar Guandique and his then-girlfriend, Iris Portillo, in Adams Morgan (File Photo)Another time he kicked in the bedroom door of their apartment, splintering the wood. He slammed his head against the bathroom wall, making a hole in the plaster. He punched Portillo in the face. He held his hands to her throat, saying that if he couldn't have her, no one could. Finally, Portillo's mother had seen enough. She told Guandique to leave her apartment and stay away from her daughter.

****

At 1:15 on the afternoon of May 7, Guandique broke into the apartment of Tomasa Orellana, a neighbor on Somerset Place. He was wearing red work gloves, black pants and a baseball cap, and was carrying three screwdrivers - a poor man's burglary kit. He snatched a gold wedding band. But Orellana came home sooner than expected and saw Guandique, whom she recognized from the neighborhood, crouching in a corner of her bedroom. She screamed and Guandique took off.

Orellana called the police, who began to look for the suspect. He was 5-foot-8, 140 pounds, with black hair, deep brown eyes, a broad forehead and a flat nose that looked as though it had been broken before. When officers spotted him a few blocks away, they found the screwdrivers and the wedding band in his pockets. Orellana identified Guandique as the man in her bedroom. He was booked on burglary charges and released the same day on a promise to return to court May 29.

****



A week after Guandique's burglary arrest, on May 14, Halle Shilling, 30, a tall, blond, athletic aspiring writer, was taking her regular run through Rock Creek Park. Around 6:30 p.m., she started to jog from the Peirce Mill, a former flour operation, while listening to music on her yellow Sony Walkman. As she headed north toward the Western Ridge Trail, she saw a young Hispanic man sitting on the curb of a parking lot near Broad Branch Road. Unknown to Shilling, he got up and ran behind her on a trail that ran along Beach Drive. He let her run another mile or so, deeper into the park.

Key Dates
May 1, 2001: Chandra Levy disappears. That day, Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant, doesn't show up for work.
May 7: Guandique is arrested for breaking into a neighbor's apartment.
May 14: Halle Shilling, a 30-year-old writer, is attacked while jogging in Rock Creek Park. She fights the man off.
July 1: Christy Wiegand, a 25-year-old lawyer, is attacked while jogging in the park. She, too, fights the man off. Guandique is arrested 45 minutes later.
July 2: Guandique admits to "bumping into" Shilling and Wiegand. Shown a photograph of Chandra, he says he saw her in the park but did not attack her, according to a U.S. Park Police detective.

Ingmar Guandique's home in Mayucaquin, El Salvador, in 2002. His grandfather, Domingo Guandique, stands in the doorway. (Sylvia Moreno - The Washington Post)

Who Killed Chandra Levy?

The murder of Chandra Levy remains Washington's most famous unsolved crime. Many people, including police and prosecutors, suspected that a congressman was responsible. But a year-long Washington Post investigation reveals new information showing that critical leads were ignored and the killer may never be brought to justice. More about this series

WHO KILLED CHANDRA LEVY?

I saw two stories on America's Most wanted about women that just disapeared from their apartments.

Jennifer "Jen" Kesse of Florida. Illegal aliens were renovating apartments/condos in her complex and management allowed them to live in the vacant dwellings. Of course they don't know who they hired and let live next door to their tenants.

Dixie

What makes me so angry is that this criminal wasn't deported the first time he assaulted a woman.

FOX News Blogs » FOX Forum » Forum Contributor

February 21st, 2009 4:50 PM Eastern

Gary Condit Deserves an Apology

By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro
Investigative Reporter/Attorney

This morning, Washington Metropolitan Police contacted the parents of Chandra Levy to let them know that an arrest was imminent in her murder case.

Their suspect is not former Congressman Gary Condit.

Condit, as you may recall was the U.S. Representative from Modesto, California who was relentlessly accused of orchestrating Levy’s disappearance in an illegal kidnapping and murder plot. For several years, so-called “media expertsâ€

GARY CONDIT

Former Member
OVERALL GRADES C+

Career

Session Year Grade
108 '03-'04 No Votes
107 '01-'02 D-
106 '99-'00 D-
105 '97-'98 C-
104 '95-'96 B
103 '93-'94 No Votes
102 '91-'92 No Votes
101 '89-'90 F-


View History
Grades Updated: February 20, 2009

IMMIGRATION REPORT CARD GARY CONDIT

www.justiceforchandra.com
Justice for Chandra Levy and missing women


Chapter 24. Guandique



Guandique


On May 7, 2001, six days after Chandra disappeared, Ingmar Guandique, 19, was arrested for breaking into a neighboring apartment. His apartment building was on Somerset Place NW, about two miles up Blagden and 16th St. from the intersection of Broad Branch, Beach, and Ridge Roads where one can trek up Western Ridge horse trail to grove 18.

Michael Doyle of the Modesto Bee describes what happened:

A woman in the red-brick apartment building next to
his, close to Rock Creek Park, had come upon him
hiding in the corner of her bedroom.

"She started to scream," the police report stated,
"which caused (him) to flee out the front door."

Police who subsequently searched Guandique found him
with one large screwdriver, two small screwdrivers
and a gold ring that belonged to his neighbor. They
found that the woman's deadbolt had been
"destroyed," and they charged Gaundique with
attempted burglary and released him. [1]


Guandique was a Salvadoran, and friends and family say that he came to America illegally a year and half earlier. Illegal or not, he was arrested, charged with attempted burglary, and released from custody. Is there any reason to think he would behave differently and could now be trusted among us? No, there is not. It is only asking for trouble, and trouble we got.

A week later, May 14, with only the first glimmer of a report of Chandra's disappearance having made it to print, an obviously unchastened Guandique was hanging out near the Broad Branch and Beach intersection. Matthew Cella and Jim Keary of the Washington Times report:

[About] 6:30 p.m. Halle R. Shilling, 30, was jogging
at the Pierce Mill Road parking lot. She was running
north on Beach Drive when she saw Guandeque sitting
on the curb on the west side of the Broad Branch
parking lot.

He began running after her, then caught her. He
pulled a knife on her after grabbing her around the
neck. She screamed, pushed his face with her hand
and fled. [2]

Niles Lathem of the New York Post added this:

She said Guandeque bit her when she tried to push
him away and he fled. [3]

The Washington Post and Modesto Bee quoted a victim impact statement she wrote a year later:

"I began screaming as loud as I could," wrote the
first victim, 30, who had taken a self-defense
course. "We continued to wrestle. He shushed me. I
continued to scream, knowing that the cars driving
by on Beach Drive . . . well hidden from view by the
trees, were drowning out my voice. . .‚. I do not
doubt for a minute that he purposefully stalked me
as a hunter tracks his prey." [4]

"I know, in my gut, that given a chance he would not
hesitate to repeat his crime on some other woman,
and it scares me to think what would happen if she
was not prepared with some sort of self-defense."

At 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, Shilling was larger
than Guandique. She fought back and,
"inexplicably," she said, he ran away. [5]


And he did strike again. Matthew Cella and Jim Keary of the Washington Times describe it:

Christy C. Wiegand was similarly assaulted by
Guandeque on July 1 about 7:30 p.m., court records
showed. She was jogging on Beach Drive when she saw
Guandeque standing beside the trail. He began to run
after her and grabbed her from behind. He then
pulled her off the trail.

He took out a knife as he held Miss Wiegand, a 26-
year-old lawyer originally from Pittsburgh, by the
chin and covered her mouth because she was
screaming. She freed herself when she felt him lose
his grip. [6]

Helen Kennedy of the New York Daily News adds:

In the second attack, he came up behind the victim
as she reached the crest of a hill. He grabbed her
and they fought, rolling down the hill into a
ravine, where he held a knife to her throat before
she ran away.

"I was terrorized by the knowledge that my life
might end in a ravine in Rock Creek Park," the woman
testified. [7]

Sari Horwitz and Allan Lengel of the Washington Post quoted her court statement:

According to court records, including written
statements from Guandique's victims, the park
assaults were remarkably similar. He went to Rock
Creek Park, fell in behind the women as they were
jogging in isolated sections of the park, jumped
them and pulled them to the ground. In both attacks,
he brandished a knife.

In the second attack, Guandique pulled the woman off
the trail.

"When my attacker dragged me into the ravine,
holding a knife against my throat and covering my
mouth, I thought and still think today that he was
going to rape me or try to kill me," the woman, 26,
wrote. "I feared for my life...

Her assailant "was extremely strong, and with his
hand cutting off my air and the knife at my throat I
didn't feel I could struggle for very long. He was a
bold and practiced attacker . . . [who] waited until
he thought I was fatigued from jogging up a hill and
purposely selected a secluded spot right next to a
deep ravine."

As in the first attack, the woman was able to break
away and flee. Cut and bruised, she flagged down a
motorist and reported the incident to the U.S. Park
Police, who arrested Guandique about 45 minutes
later at Joyce Road and 16th Street NW. She
identified him. Under questioning, he told police
about the earlier incident. [8]

Michael Doyle of the Modesto Bee adds more of her statement:

"What struck me most was that within 10 seconds, I
was off the jogging path in the woods, struggling to
scream and out of sight of any passers-by," recalled
the woman, who at the time was a 26-year-old recent
law school graduate. "Until that day, I never
realized how quickly someone with the advantage of
surprise and a weapon can put a person in a position
of total isolation and helplessness." [9]


This coming from a woman who was a former varsity rower and stood 5 foot 11, weighing 175 pounds. The two women escaped Guandique's attacks, but they were both tall and strong. Chandra was in superb condition and had taken self defense training, but was much more petite than these women at 5 foot 3 and 110 pounds, just one of many good reasons not to be out in the middle of a forest to start with. These women Guandique attacked were running within sight of the heavily travelled Beach Drive.

The second attack was two weeks before the FBI would finally get back to the D.C. police with the information that Chandra had looked up a map of Rock Creek Park on her computer and the subsequent search of the park by police. According to the Washington Post:

D.C. police first spoke to Guandique about the Levy
case in the summer of 2001 after U.S. Park Police
alerted them to his arrest in the jogger assaults,
according to court records. But law enforcement
sources said they found nothing to indicate he was
involved in her disappearance, especially since, at
the time, they weren't aware that her body was in
the park. [10]

JUSTICE FOR CHANDRA

Not surprisingly, the Associated Press also omits the word "illegal"

----

2/21/2009
Arrest warrant prepared in Chandra Levy caseBy GILLIAN GAYNAIR, Associated Press Writer Gillian Gaynair, Associated Press Writer
20 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Investigators in the 2001 slaying of Chandra Levy have prepared an arrest warrant for a Salvadoran immigrant convicted of similar attacks in the park where the former intern disappeared, a person close to the investigation said Saturday.

Maybe he applied for asylum and his status is not illegal. Google El Salvador asylum and see lots of returns. Here is just one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01029.html

Maybe his defense will be all trauma he suffered as a child in El Salvador?