Warrant issued for 2001 Chandra Levy murder

Ingmar Guandique has been accused of the 2001 slaying of 24-year-old Chandra Levy. Photo / AP

WASHINGTON - An arrest warrant was issued for an imprisoned Salvadoran immigrant in the killing of US government intern Chandra Levy, nearly eight years after the case captivated the US capital and ended the career of a congressman.

The warrant accuses Ingmar Guandique of killing Levy on May 1, 2001, as she walked her dog through Washington's Rock Creek Park, said US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor.

Guandique, 27, is already serving time in a prison in California for attacking two women in the same park.

"We take solace in the fact that the search for the person responsible has ended and our daughter can finally truly rest in peace," Levy's parents, Bob and Susan Levy, said in a statement.

"Thankfully the individual responsible for this most heinous and terrible crime will finally be held accountable for his actions and hopefully unable to hurt anyone else ever again."

The warrant is the latest development in an investigation that had gone cold for years after destroying the career of former US Rep. Gary Condit of California.

Authorities questioned Condit, her congressman, in the disappearance, but he was never a suspect in her death.

Condit, a popular Democrat for dozens of years in his district, was reportedly having an affair with Levy, and the negative publicity from the case was cited as the main reason for his overwhelming primary election loss in 2002.

Investigators in 2002 questioned Guandique in Levy's slaying after he was convicted in the other attacks, but he was not charged at the time.

Levy was 24 and had just completed an internship with the US Bureau of Prisons when she disappeared in May 2001 after leaving her Washington apartment. The California woman was wearing jogging clothes when she vanished, and a man walking his dog found her skull and bones in the park a year later.

On Fed. 20, Levy's parents, said Washington police chief, Cathy Lanier, had told them an arrest was coming within days. It was not immediately clear what took authorities until Tuesday to issue the warrant.

Authorities said they hoped Guandique would be brought to Washington sometime in the next two months to face a charge of first-degree murder.

- AP