New focus in Levy probe

last updated 8 January 2015

Washington, D.C.

Detectives investigating the death of former federal intern Chandra Levy have begun focusing on a Salvadoran man convicted of assaulting two women in the park where Levy’s remains were found, The Washington Post reported this week. Police once discounted the convicted mugger, Ingmar Guandique, as a suspect because he passed a polygraph test. They took another look at him after discovering that the exam had been given using a Spanish-speaking interpreter, instead of a bilingual polygraph technician, because translating responses can skew test results. Guandique, 21, admitted jumping two women in wooded sections of Rock Creek Park to rob them in the weeks after Levy disappeared last year. A prosecutor described him as “a predator” who, armed with a knife, used remote jogging paths “as a hunting ground.”