WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Detectives in the Chandra Levy murder case are focusing on a man convicted of assaulting two women jogging in Rock Creek Park last year -- a suspect initially discounted after passing a polygraph test that may have been flawed, The Washington Post reported in Sunday editions.
Ingmar A. Guandique, 21, has been in prison for the assaults on the joggers since July 2001, two months after Levy disappeared.
After her remains were found in the park May 22, some investigators reexamining his case were struck by the similarities in the three crime scenes, law enforcement sources said.
Investigators found a Spanish-speaking interpreter instead of a bilingual polygraph technician was used in administering Guandique's polygraph, sources said, possibly skewing the results from misconstrued answers.
The clothes Guandique was wearing when he was arrested July 1, 2001, have been sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington for DNA tests, law enforcement sources told the newspaper.
He wore the same dark, knee-length baggy shorts with a white stripe on each side during both attacks of which he was convicted, according to police reports.
Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant, has become the focus of the Levy probe because the attacks on the joggers occurred not far from where her body was found and because of the violent nature of the assaults, according to law enforcement sources.
In a pre-sentencing memorandum, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristina L. Ament called Guandique "a predator" who, armed with a knife, used the isolated portions of the park "as a hunting ground, waiting beside popular running trails, selecting victims and stalking them."
Levy's skeletal remains were discovered May 22, a little more than a year after she vanished, in an isolated pocket of the park about a half-mile from where Guandique attacked one jogger and less than two miles from where he attacked another.
The newspaper said despite the new focus on Guandique, there is no evidence linking him or anyone else to the 17-month-old case.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey cautioned that investigators don't know whether Guandique was involved, but said, "He's someone we're interested in."
In May, authorities played down Guandique as a suspect because Levy had been killed before his attacks on the joggers -- who fought back and escaped without serious injury. They theorized that someone who already had killed would have been more violent with the later victims.
But investigators now believe that opportunity, not how the women looked, was a key factor in the attacks, law enforcement sources told the newspaper.
They still are not sure why Levy was in the park, because family and friends say she was not a jogger and didn't like to go there alone.
The renewed interest in Guandique has shifted some attention away from Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Calif.), who was romantically involved with the 24-year-old former federal intern at the time she disappeared. Investigators have not interviewed him since Levy's remains were found, though Ramsey said, "We have not excluded anyone."
