Arrest in Chandra Levy Case, Slain Intern’s Mother Quotes Bialik
Federal prosecutors Tuesday charged a Salvadoran laborer with the first-degree murder of Washington intern Chandra Levy. The 27-year-old Levy, whose romantic relationship with former Rep. Gary Condit effectively ended the congressman’s career, disappeared while jogging in 2001; her remains were found a year later in the city’s Rock Creek Park.
A U.S. Attorney, Jeffrey Taylor, said that Levy, a Modesto, Calif. native, was a “random victim” of Ingmar Guandique, who is now serving a 10-year sentence for two other Rock Creek Park assaults.
Levy’s great-great-great uncle was the legendary Hebrew-language poet Chaim Nachman Bialik. In a 2001 interview with the Forward, Levy’s mother, Susan, quoted some chilling lines penned by Bialik: “Revenge! Revenge! Cursed be he who cries revenge. Fit vengeance for the death of a child the devil has not yet conceived.”
The 2001 Forward’s story on Levy can be read in its entirety below:
Poet’s Cry Sears As Bereft Mom Keeps Up Hunt For Lost Intern
Originally Published: May 25, 2001
Republished With Permission at forward.comBy SEAMUS McGRAW
FORWARD CORRESPONDENTSusan Levy keeps a volume of poetry in her Modesto, Calif. home. It’s anold, tattered book filled with melancholy odes crafted nearly a century ago inRussia by her great-great-uncle, the legendary Hebrew poet Chaim NachmanBialik, and handed down in her family through the generations.
“Revenge! Revenge!” the poet once wrote. “Cursed be he who cries revenge.Fit vengeance for the death of a child the devil has not yet conceived.”
Mrs. Levy takes little solace from the words of her kinsman. Not now, anyway. Not when the fate of her 23-year-old daughter, Chandra Ann Levy, abright and driven young Washington intern who vanished late this past month after leaving a downtown health club there, remains a mystery.
“My happiest gift would be that she comes home safe,” Mrs. Levy said.
So far, D.C. Metro Police admit they have few clues to the young woman’sdisappearance, which has gripped the media with a swirl of allegations abouther friendship with a congressman.
Officially, she’s still considered a missing person, said Sgt. JosephGentile, a police spokesman. “There’s no concrete evidence that there’s beenany kind of foul play,” he said. Still, police, who are pursuing the case with the FBI and investigators for the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department in California, have combed her apartment looking for clues and scoured the banksof the nearby Potomac River with body-sniffing dogs.
That has done little to ease her mother’s anxiety. “This isn’t the kindof thing she would do,” Mrs. Levy said Tuesday in a telephone interview fromher home.
Nor has the lack of solid evidence that a crime has been committed doneanything to quell the media furor over the case, much of which has focused onallegations of a link between Ms. Levy and Rep. Gary Condit. Mr. Condit, amarried, Harley-Davidson riding California Democrat who has described the youngwoman as a friend, has put up a 10,000 reward for information leading to hersafe return. An additional 10,000 has been put up by California’s twosenators, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. Another 15,000 has been offeredby Ms. Levy’s frantic parents.
So far, neither the reward nor Mrs. Levy’s pleas for her daughter’s safereturn on nationally broadcast television programs, including “Larry King Live”and NBC’s “Dateline,” have turned up any solid leads.
According to police reports, Ms. Levy, a University of SouthernCalifornia graduate student who had spent last semester working as a paidintern fielding media calls at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, was last seenApril 30 leaving the health club where she is a member. The young woman, whohad at various times entertained thoughts of becoming a sports writer, an FBIagent, “or maybe joining the CIA,” according to her mother, was scheduled toreturn to California within a few days to attend her graduation ceremony.
“We spoke on the phone on April 27,” Mrs. Levy said, adding that herdaughter — though uncertain about her future, and unsure whether she wouldreturn to Washington or seek work back home in California — seemed to be ingenerally good spirits. At 10:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on May 1, Mrs. Levyreceived an e-mail from her daughter. It referred to flight schedules toCalifornia, and in it, Ms. Levy mused that she might consider taking a traincross-country instead, Mrs. Levy said.
That was the last time she heard from her daughter.
On May 5, Mrs. Levy and her husband, Dr. Robert Levy, contactedWashington police, who searched their daughter’s DuPont Circle apartment, abouta mile from the White House. Police found the young woman’s bags packed. Therewas no sign of a struggle, authorities said. She had just vanished.
But that, said Mrs. Levy, is unthinkable. Growing up, Ms. Levy wasanything but the kind of flighty kid who would just disappear. As a teenager,she was smitten with the idea of entering law enforcement, and had served as aPolice Explorer. Among her tasks as a 16-year-old was to knock on neighbors’doors to advise them to get their dogs licensed, Mrs. Levy said. “She knockedon a lot of our Jewish friends’ doors,” she added.
A stellar and “focused” student, the 5-foot-3-inch Ms. Levy received herundergraduate degree in journalism in just three years — a nod, her mothersaid, to the literary bloodline that goes back to Great-Great-Uncle Chaim. Fora time, Ms. Levy worked two jobs, one with the Modesto Police, the other withthe Modesto Bee, her local newspaper.
Her only concession to adolescent rebellion, Mrs. Levy recalled, camewhen, as senior in high school, the raven-haired teenager went out and got asingle rose tattooed behind her right ankle. “You can imagine how I felt aboutthat,” Mrs. Levy said.
A short time after graduating from San Francisco State University, Ms.Levy enrolled in a master’s program in political science at the University ofSouthern California and served a series of internships, first in Los Angelescity government, then in the office of California Gov. Gray Davis, and finally,this past semester, with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
She was drawn to the idea of public service, her mother said. “It’sreally a Jewish thing, tikkun olam,” she said.
In April, not long before she vanished, her internship ended. Ms. Levywas left to mull over her options, her mother said. She considered going to lawschool, or seeking out work with the FBI or other federal law enforcementagencies.
She had a world full of options, her mother said. There is simply noreason for her to vanish on her own accord. But the very fact that there would be so little reason for her todisappear voluntarily has spawned a virtual cottage industry ofrumormongering.
Last week, Ms. Levy’s former newspaper, the Modesto Bee, published aseries of e-mails that Ms. Levy had sent to a friend. The e-mails seem to hintat a mysterious man with whom the young woman may be romantically involved.
“Everything else here in D.C. is going good, my man will be coming backhere when Congress starts up again; I’m looking forward to seeing him,” Ms.Levy wrote late this past year in one of the published e-mails.
In another e-mail, Ms. Levy said her boyfriend had paid for her travel between Washington and California. “I was sick when I was in Sacramento and Ionly got to go home for one night before I flew back to D.C. The nice thing isthat the man I’m seeing took care of my plane ticket!”
Those missives have sparked a torrent of speculation on the televisiontabloids and in newspapers across the nation about the identity of the mysteryman. And that angers Mrs. Levy. “I’m not going to talk about those rumors,” shesaid. “That’s not going to do anything to get my daughter back.”
Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Levy have spent their time trying to keep the mediafocused on the search for their daughter. They wait, they hope and they pray,most of all that they never have to feel the full fury of the old verse inBialik’s book of poems: “Fit vengeance for the death of a child the devil hasnot yet conceived.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
