After Levy, police still struggle

Police appear to be on the verge of closing the District’s most high-profile murder case in a decade, but more than 500 deaths since Chandra Levy was killed in 2001 remain unsolved, raising concerns about police resources and priorities.

Among the biggest questions is when the Metropolitan Police Department will have its own crime lab, which would allow investigators to pool DNA evidence for thousands of unsolved homicides and rapes dating back to the 1960s.

The department uses the FBI Research Laboratory in Quantico, Va., to examine DNA evidence.

“It’s unacceptable,” said D.C. police union chief Kristopher Baumann. “Until we have a crime lab, we’re completely at the mercy of the FBI. That’s not the way things should be done.”

On Sunday, the department Web site listed 549 unsolved homicides since 2001, the same year Miss Levy went missing from her Dupont Circle apartment.

The lab is scheduled to be built by 2011, and officials said that until then, too many crimes will continue to remain unsolved.

“Unless we’re working a high-profile case, like a Chandra Levy, we have to wait for the FBI to complete their analysis, and so we’re essentially put on the back burner. That’s unacceptable,” Mr. Baumann said.

The recent break in the Levy case reportedly is the result of possible DNA evidence connecting Igmar Guandique, 27, a Salvadoran immigrant, to the homicide. Miss Levy, 24, had just completed an internship with the Federal Bureau of Prisons before she vanished on May, 1, 2001.

Mr. Guandique was arrested two months later for attacking two women at Rock Creek Park, where Miss Levy’s remains were found about a year later. He is now serving a federal sentence for the attacks in Victorville Correctional Complex, in Adelanto, Calif.

City police did not return calls Sunday about whether an official arrest in the case had been made.

The case helped to ruin the political career of former Rep. Gary Condit, California Democrat, on whom police focused their attention after he admitted having an affair with Miss Levy.

Of the 549 unsolved homicides in the city, roughly 200 occurred in the Southeast neighborhood, beyond the scope of the media that focused on the part of Capitol Hill where Mr. Condit worked; Adams Morgan, where he had an apartment; and other affluent parts of the District

D.C. Council member Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat, said Sunday that he is unsure whether police attention on the Levy case diverted resources from other cases but said it shifted the focus of local authorities from where it might have been otherwise.

“This case was the focus of international attention, and in that environment the ‘local’ aspect was forced to pour what they have into it. That’s to be expected and it is unfortunate,” he said.

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