Chandra Levy suspect to face D.C. court

The man suspected of killing federal intern Chandra Levy has been transferred to the District and will appear in court Thursday, officials said.

Federal marshals transported Ingmar Guandique, 27, to the District on Monday night from a federal prison in Oklahoma City. He is expected to appear Thursday afternoon in D.C. Superior Court, said Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.

Guandique, an illegal immigrant and Salvadoran native, was taken to the D.C. police department’s homicide branch to be charged with first-degree murder and booked, the Associated Press reported. He was escorted into the building by three detectives.

Handcuffed and wearing an orange jumpsuit, Guandique walked with his head down. A reporter asked whether Guandique had anything to say, but the prisoner did not respond.

After a nearly eight-year investigation into the city’s most notorious cold case, D.C. officials issued an arrest warrant for Guandique last month for the May 2001 sexual assault and killing of Miss Levy, a Modesto, Calif., resident who was slain along a hiking trail in Rock Creek Park.

Her remains were not discovered until May 2002 in the park, where officials think Miss Levy, 24, had gone the day she disappeared.

Authorities have disclosed statements from victims of Guandique and from unidentified witnesses who said he confessed about how he had attacked and killed Miss Levy in the park.

An affidavit in the case states that authorities found a photograph of Miss Levy - apparently taken from a magazine - during a September 2008 search of Guandique’s cell and recounts in graphic detail reported discussions between Guandique and others about attacking, binding and raping women and specifically assaulting Miss Levy.

Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said the warrant for Guandique’s arrest was based on the “cumulative weight” of the evidence gathered in the case.

Guandique has been serving a 10-year sentence for attacking two other women in the same park around the time of Miss Levy’s disappearance and near where her remains were found.

Miss Levy’s disappearance became a national story when it was revealed she was having an affair with her hometown congressman, then-Rep. Gary A. Condit, a Democrat.

Mr. Condit was questioned in the case. He was defeated in his bid for re-election.