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Who Killed Chandra Levy?

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The Washington Post's Sylvia Moreno, Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham: It was above 80 degrees, the start of another steamy summer day in Washington. At 8:58 on the morning of July 25, 2001, three D.C. police sergeants gathered 28 cadets along Glover Road in Rock Creek Park. They were looking for any trace of a government intern named Chandra Ann Levy.

The 24-year-old woman from California, with hazel eyes and a head full of unruly brown curls, had left her Dupont Circle apartment and then simply disappeared. She had been missing for 85 days, and the search for her had captivated the city and the nation. Her laptop computer's history showed that she was interested in visiting the vast 1,750-acre park on the day she vanished.

Comments

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

Has anyone else been underwhelmed by this thus far?

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

A little. But I'm willing to let it play out before passing judgement. Hoping the story breaks some new ground soon. Wishing the chapters were fewer and longer.

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

I hate to second guess reporters I don't know, but, since we've been talking about it here and with the other story...

I don't understand why the second section of the first story is there. It's like someone just couldn't stand not shoehorning journalism into it.

Ten minutes into reading, the fourth wall is already broken and any attempt to make this be a true short story is gone.

As a reader, and writer, of these, it's a bit frustrating.

What think y'all?

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

There's a good discussion about this story over on Weingarten's chat:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/07/09/DI2008070900773.html

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

Wright... That is exactly the thing that turned me off. The first section was great. It set the scene. It was shaped liked the beginning of a story like this should be shaped.

And then we get that huge section that newspapers most always throw in whenever they've spent a lot of time on a project, telling the reader why this is important and that they should read it.

I've only been through the first three chapters, but thus far this is not a story. It is a report. And that means they pulled the bait and switch on me with that wonderful first section on the first day.

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

I agree.

I read Norman Mailer's The Fight about six months ago and it really impacted/reinforced the way I look at stories. It made me realize the ultimate feebleness of all this hard earned scene if you cannot provide internal motivation or put meaning behind the actions you've observed. I've done that, and I'm sure folks here have, too: laid out scene without really explaining or perhaps even understanding why people were doing the things we were showing them doing.

Mailer does that so well with Ali in this book and I was again reminded there is a huge difference between, as you so accurately called it, a story and a play-by-play of things that happened.

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

Barbara Olson wrote the book on Hillary Clinton, HELL TO PAY. Barbara was hot on the trail of bad boy Congressman Gary Condit (D-Calif.), who was under suspicion in the disappearance of his intern & love interest, Chandra Ann Levy. Two months after Chandra vanished, Gary Condit got caught depositing a leather Tag Heuer watch container in an Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia, Safeway store dumpster. A fifteen-foot brick wall surrounds that trash receptacle. The Safeway at 500 S. Royal St. is located about six miles one-way from Condit’s then Washington, DC, address; but only three blocks from James Carville’s residence. Barbara Olson was Los Angeles bound, aboard American Airlines Flight 77, as a guest on Bill Maher’s popular TV show, Politically Incorrect. Flight 77 was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon. Date: September 11, 2001. Chandra Levy's remains were found May 22, 2002 in Rock Creek Park. Gary Condit kept his seat on the Intelligence Committee, but lost his subsequent bid for re-election.

Dead Drop: Prearranged hidden location for depositing and picking up messages and money in a clandestine manner, without the parties involved being present at the same time. According to the married Condit, a female admirer gave him the Tag Heuer timepiece. Gary Condit crossed the Potomac River from the District of Columbia to Alexandria, Va., to dispose of the zippered case in a more than secure location, but kept the wristwatch. “The Clinton years might seem like a long national nightmare of scandal, sleaze, and ruthless acquisition of power. Hillary herself is the link from the excesses of the Watergate staff, to the Whitewater fiasco, to the abuses of executive power, to the defense of her husband’s perjury and obstruction of justice. But now it is Hillary’s turn. The Clinton era is far from over and Hillary’s ambitions far from satisfied,” wrote Barbara Olson.

This is but a snapshot of the world in which Chandra Levy found herself. Ms. Levy's criminal justice training may also have predisposed her to trust individuals with a law enforcement background. Perhaps not coincidentally, Hillary Clinton has typically had more than a few of these types on her payroll. And, the DNC could ill afford to lose Gary Condit's congressional seat. There would be no more Monica Lewinskys; no more blue dresses. Monica Lewinsky was plain fortunate. Similarities abound, but some would rather believe that space aliens abducted Chandra Levy than ever suspect the real actors, with real means, real motives, and real opportunities. Difference between Fort Marcy Park and Rock Creek Park: couple of miles as the crow flies. To borrow a phrase from Bill Clinton, “It ought to make the bells go off in your head:” http://theseedsof9-11.com

Re: Who Killed Chandra Levy?

There's that new ground we were looking for - Hillary did it!

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