Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Yeah, so I'm just gonna fly by the seat of my pants because I don't really have an intro today, but we will see how this goes because I was gonna make this my premiere episode to season two and I decided not to so you get to listen to it early.
Yay!
Hi everyone, I'm Deb.
And I'm Shelby.
And this is episode 51 of Dying to be Found, true crime podcast. Shelby, I don't have a ton to talk about today regarding the podcast, but I did want to see how your week's going.
I know we haven't talked in again. It just seems like forever. How are you?
I'm good. I'm good. It's a great day to sit on the couch and do nothing, but I was productive this weekend, so I'm pretty happy.
Good. I went to Atlanta for a conference, probably picked the worst time in the world to do that because if anybody's been following the news, we have a little bit of a protest going on downtown and oh goodness, that was like lockdown central down there this week.
We still had fun though.
Wow. Well, that's good.
Well, this would be a good time to tell our listeners to send in requests for season two. Tell us what you want to hear. Let us know what you think of the new Dash series coming up.
We're putting that together every Wednesday.
You can click on the Linktree account in our show notes and you'll see all of our contacts.
Now, I've got more information on our social media if you've been following us.
And I want to say this, Shelby, I got a really cool email from somebody.
I'm going to apologize in advance because I cannot find that email.
I don't know if it was a message on Instagram or if it was an email, but I actually had a True Crime author contact me.
Who wants to be highlighted on the Dash?
Wow.
So if you're listening, will you please send me another email because I have looked everywhere for that and I see that I have not responded to you.
So in the meantime, yeah, absolutely. I think it's kind of cool to get a diverse group of people together and just do a little dash of this, a little dash of that.
Yeah. If you are a True Crime podcaster or want to be featured on my True Crime podcast, then definitely send me an email.
Absolutely. That's so cool, Mom. You didn't tell me that.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just follow the socials and you'll see I actually put out a little reel and I'm getting really good at that, too.
All this videoing and things like that, I learned TikTok.
So now I'm in the know on that. And yeah, I'm getting there.
Woohoo!
I may be a little old school, but yeah, I learned TikTok. I'm proud of me.
I'm proud of you.
Thanks. Well, today, Shelbs, we're going to go back to Washington, where I was just, I don't know, a couple of months ago.
Had the best time there. If I ever had an opportunity to live there, I know it's probably rated one of the highest crime rated cities in the U.S.
So for that reason, I wouldn't want to move there, but I sure do love the history.
Do you know what I learned about Washington, D.C.? What?
So I work in finance and, you know, been working on all of these SEC, ADV form information for a lot of clients.
And I had come across one who had a few clients in Washington, D.C.
And one of the requirements for the SEC is to know how many households you have on a per state basis within the United States.
And I learned that Washington, D.C. is not a state that its own district.
You mean the District of Columbia?
It is, but you still have to separate those clients.
Oh.
So they're not considered a part of Maryland, not a part of Virginia, but it's not its own state.
But you still have to report those clients completely separate.
OK.
But I didn't know that. I thought that was really interesting.
I even had to ask my advisor. I was like, this is a silly question.
So where do you assign them to? If I mean, are you assigning them to Washington, D.C.?
To Washington, D.C.? I had them separated out.
I said, I don't I've not come across this, to be honest.
I feel like this is a silly question.
Please tell me if I did this correctly.
And he said, no, that was perfect.
Yeah, that's good. You got a new wrinkle in your brain.
Every time you learn something new, you get a new wrinkle in your brain.
Awesome. All right.
Well, we are going back to Washington, D.C.
And today I'm going to tell you the story about 24 year old Chandra and Levi.
Chandra was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 14th, 1977, to Robert and Susan Levi.
She had one brother growing up in the house with her.
And after graduation, Chandra went on to earn a bachelor's degree in journalism.
That's pretty cool. That is cool. Yeah.
She also went on to earn a master's degree in public administration
and was on her final semester when she was required to work an internship
to finish out her program.
So it's sort of like when people become teachers,
you have to do student teaching before you can actually get that degree.
So she had an internship that she had found.
She was on her way to Washington from California.
And she did earn a paid internship in Washington,
where she would work through the following summer with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
After her internship was over, Chandra planned to return back to California
so that she could graduate from the University of Southern California.
Now, Chandra and her parents visited D.C. before she made this move.
That way they could scout for apartments.
And by mid-September of 2000, Chandra arrived in D.C. ready to begin work.
How exciting for her. That is exciting.
On April 23rd, 2001, Chandra had finished that internship
with the Federal Bureau of Prisons
and was pretty much wrapping things up in Washington, D.C.
When you do internships like this, Shelbs, they don't go for a long period of time.
I think five or six months is pretty standard.
That makes sense. Yeah.
On April 28th, Chandra contacted her landlord,
left a message to tell them that she would be returning to California
somewhere between May 5th and 6th in time for her graduation.
So she was trying to make her way back to California.
She would be graduating on May 11th.
So she was just trying to close things up May 5th and 6th,
get everything out of the apartment, and then, of course,
jump on a plane or a train or however she was planning on getting there.
Now, she went to cancel a gym membership
and was last seen leaving the Washington Sports Club
somewhere around 7 p.m. on May 1st.
And this would be that timeline just before she was trying to really close things up.
Chandra kept in regular contact with her parents
while she lived in D.C. and even sent them an email to update them
about her plans to return to California.
But on May 1st, 2001, Chandra simply disappeared
and her parents never heard from her again.
Wow, that's scary.
Yeah, I think it would be, especially if it sounds to me like she's a lot like you and me,
Shelby, we talk almost every day.
And so if I didn't hear from you, you know, I'd be worried.
Absolutely. I know I get those texts every now and then.
Oh, yeah, I sure will. You better be picking up that phone.
I don't need to be calling the non-emergency number at your local police station to go check on you.
Both Chandra's landlord and mother attempted to call Chandra for several days,
but never got an answer.
By May 6th, 2001, Chandra's mother did contact police
to say that she had not heard from her daughter in five days, which was very, very unusual.
That's a long time. It is.
I mean, I guess, you know, they talk and they're in constant contact.
Five days is a long time.
Yeah, that's a good question because it is a long time.
And I know that when you and I do go spurts where we don't talk,
we at least text each other or literally we'll talk for even one minute just to say,
I am so slammed this week.
Last week, I think I was there.
You have quarter end thing to do with your company that you work for.
Me, I've had these conferences set up.
Even if we don't talk, gosh, what for the usual 30 minutes to an hour?
I still know what's going on and where we're at.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right. So here's where things get a little strange.
Around 430 a.m. on May 1st, 2001,
one of Chandra's neighbors called 911 to report a woman screaming
from somewhere in the apartment complex.
Of course, police came by. They cruised the complex.
Obviously, could not find the source of this screaming.
That has got to be terrifying.
I'm sure they have cameras.
Yeah, they actually did. And they were functional, too.
So with the delay between the 911 call and Chandra's mother calling the DC police
to report her missing five days later,
that was when police obtained a search warrant to look at the apartment complex
camera footage. Shelby, this has got to be a mother's worst nightmare.
The surveillance had already looped and recorded anything
that may have been captured on May 1st at that 430 hour.
Oh, no.
Yeah, the cameras were functional, but they did that loop
and they can only record for so long before they tape over it.
So they had nothing. Wow.
Well, police went to Chandra's apartment where they saw
that she had left her driver's license and credit cards, checkbook, jewelry
and cell phone inside the apartment shelves.
Something I did not mention is that Chandra had told family members back in November.
That was shortly after she arrived in DC that she had a secret friend,
implying, of course, that she had a boyfriend.
Oh, I mean, you know, she comes to town in September.
Two months later, I mean, I would say if you're in your 20s,
it wouldn't be unheard of to get a boyfriend pretty quickly. Right?
No, not at all.
This boyfriend, Shelby, turned out to be a congressman,
and he was questioned later, but released of any wrongdoing here.
So I'm not going to really harp on him very much.
I do remember when the story broke out and there was a really huge scandal.
And I'm going to kind of leave his name out of it because the police
never really pursued him as a suspect.
And I'm pretty sure that he cleared himself rather quickly.
He voluntarily took a lie detector test and passed.
And so that's that.
I'm not going to really spend a lot of time on him.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
Well, police searched Chandra's apartment complex, nearby parks
and along the Anacostia and Potomac rivers that run right through the area
that Chandra had disappeared.
There were a few errors in police efforts that some feel could have interfered
with a timely response to Chandra's whereabouts,
because during one of the searches police conducted at Chandra's apartment,
one of the detectives accidentally erased the search history on her laptop.
Oh, what? Can you believe that?
Oh, my gosh. Yep.
Oops. I pressed the wrong button. Sorry.
Can we get that back? My bad.
Was he new? I have no idea. No idea.
I guess my question is, is why was he even looking at that computer to begin with?
Shouldn't they have bagged and tagged it and sent it off to a techie to look into that?
Why was he touching the computer?
And it's a multi-step process.
Like, you don't just accidentally press one button.
That is so true. Yeah.
How many clicks does it take to get to the history?
I can tell you I'm doing it right now.
Five. It would take five or six.
Like, you actually... Well, I guess it could be different.
I don't know how long Google Chrome's been around,
but it would take five for me to clear just the last hour
and extra two clicks to clear all time.
So we'll say like seven clicks.
Yeah. And so you have a...
It's a methodical process because you really have to look to see where you're clicking.
Like, when I clock in in the mornings on my computer, yeah, I count things.
This is weird, but I know it takes 10 clicks for me to clock in.
Oh, wow. That's a lot.
Yeah. I have to open up certain programs
and then click to go somewhere else within that program.
And then finally, by the time I clock in, it's been 10 clicks.
Wow. Well, police were able to retrieve Chandra's search history,
but it took about a month for the forensic technician to retrieve that information.
I know that's pretty cool.
And, you know, John works on computers for a living.
And everything in the hard drive stays in the hard drive.
It's kind of like what goes on the Internet stays on the Internet.
Same thing with your computer.
It lives in your computer, whether you think you deleted it or not.
So at least they were able.
I was just going to say, I know John's helped you out with some of those papers
that you accidentally sent.
Oh, it wasn't just my paper, Shelby.
It was my dissertation.
I know to save and save often and I was not using a cloud service.
But, oh, my God, I almost had a heart attack.
I don't even know how far along I was.
Enough to say that I was crying trying to get that back.
And John was able to get that back.
Thank God, John, you are a savior. I love you.
Well, the information that authorities were able to recover off of Chandra's laptop
showed that she had conducted a search on a historical building
located in Rock Creek Park and may have wanted to go there for a visit
or possibly a jog because she was very active.
And that might have been why she kept her wallet and her ID, car keys
and everything else behind in her apartment.
I know, Shelby, when I leave the house and I go for walks,
I leave all that behind.
And I know I shouldn't.
I need to at least carry an ID with me.
Oh, that's a good idea.
If I'm walking along with headphones on.
Yeah, if somebody wants to bonk me on the back of the head,
I should at least have my ID on, right?
That makes sense. I never would have thought of that.
Mm hmm.
Besides the police erasing the search history,
they were also required to search within 100 yards of all roads and trails
of the areas that appeared in Chandra's search history.
So basically, if she was going to go look at that historical house
on the park property, they would have to at least search
within 100 yards of that house.
Rock Creek Park was one of the searches that they were able to retrieve
from Chandra's laptop, which was a local park known for lots of joggers and hikers.
So lots of outdoors people.
However, there was a miscommunication between the police and search teams.
So only the roads were searched, but the trails were not.
Wow. Again, how in the world would that happen?
I don't know. You would think common sense would be to look on the trails, people.
Exactly. You would think.
Bloodhounds were brought in and also used on this search,
but they were never able to pick up a proper scent.
Oh, while you were saying that, I was looking at my search history
just to see what if I went missing, what would be found.
And some of these are pretty funny.
Are they memes?
No.
Just give us one.
Why does my dog keep stealing my shoes?
Yeah, I remember you telling me that your dog likes your shoes.
Only one of them, though, right? Just one shoe?
Well, she's opted for either now.
It was the left. Now she doesn't care.
That's funny. All right.
One year later, Shelby, on May 22nd, 2002, Chandra and Levi
was discovered by either a hiker or a jogger in that Rock Creek Park.
I've seen it both ways.
There were stories saying that somebody was jogging, somebody was hiking,
and the jogger was on one of those trails inside the park
when he happened upon a human skull.
Wow.
After investigators arrived, they began to search the trail
and discovered a Walkman.
You know what a Walkman was. I believe you had one, didn't you?
I did.
Oh, no, I did. I think I did.
No, you had a... What was that? A little iPod?
Is that what it was called?
Yeah, that's what it was called, the iPod.
OK, so a Walkman is probably the size of a compact disc
because you actually open it up and put a compact disc inside of it.
Yeah.
Does that sound familiar?
Yeah, that's how we used to have to play CDs in the car.
You remember where it had the cassette that you stuck into the cassette player,
but you put the CD in the Walkman? Yeah.
Yeah, we had one of those. I know what it is.
OK, so they found one of those.
They also found a pair of sneakers and a University of Southern California
shirt nearby the skeletal remains.
And remember, I told you that's where Chandra was going to graduate from.
Police later identified these remains as Chandra Levi through dental records.
And I'm going to add that investigators searched at least half the park
the year before, but the area that she was found, Shelby,
that was not where they had covered at all.
I don't understand why they wouldn't have covered the entire park,
I guess because they were only required to go 100 yards from her search history.
Oh, I'm glad she was found. Yeah.
Chandra's death could not be determined since so much time had passed, obviously,
because she was found the hiker or jogger just found the human skull.
But evidence did suggest damage to the hyoid bone.
I'm not sure what that is.
It's located in the throat area that suggests that Chandra
could have died by strangulation. Yeah.
Medical examiners were able to collect DNA from Chandra's remains,
but they were not successful in getting a match,
including that of the congressman that Chandra was reportedly
dating during her stay in Washington, D.C.
So no DNA to try to come up with a suspect.
According to the Washington Post,
new information leaked out from a jailhouse informant that an undocumented
immigrant from El Salvador was a documented MS-13 gang member
and that he was responsible for Chandra's murder.
This suspect was eventually identified as Ingmar Grandique.
He had a history of violent attacks inside that park,
Shelby, where Chandra disappeared and was currently serving 10 years in prison
after being found guilty of assaulting two women in Rock Creek Park
where Chandra's body had been found.
Wow. Sounds like a pretty good suspect.
It does until you hear what I have to say next.
Just like the congressman that Chandra was linked to,
Grandique took a polygraph and his results came back as not deceptive.
Oh, man. So interesting.
That's not what I expected. Yeah, I didn't expect that at all. Right.
Chandra's case went cold for another seven years
when a new team of investigators examined the case
and revisited Grandique's violent history of attacking women in D.C. parks.
In March 2009, Grandique was arrested for attempted robbery,
kidnapping and murder of Chandra Levi, even with a lack of physical evidence.
Now, Grandique was serving out his 10 year sentence,
authorities searched his cell and found a picture of Chandra.
Obviously, Shelbs, this is not enough to convict anybody.
He just had a picture.
I can imagine if he's being accused of her death,
then he might just have like morbid curiosity on what's going on with the case.
Wouldn't you think? Yeah, that's just really creepy.
Well, Grandique had allegedly given a jailhouse confession
and told a fellow inmate that he was the one who killed Chandra.
Police never collected forensic evidence in Chandra's case,
and they did not have any eyewitnesses, nor did they ever find a murder weapon.
So they just had that one star witness, the jailhouse informant, way back in 2001.
So what are your thoughts, Shelbs?
Do you think at this point he's guilty, innocent?
He did come across as not deceptive on his polygraph. Right.
Or do you think there's enough information?
I don't think there's enough information.
I think it would be really difficult.
I would assume, I mean, he could just be saying that to give him that reputation in prison,
if that makes sense, you know, him saying, oh, I killed somebody to kind of scare.
I wouldn't really say scare other inmates, but to just give him that reputation.
No, that's actually a good word.
Yeah, to keep people from bothering him. Right. Exactly.
So I don't know. I mean, he sounds like a very good suspect.
But then again, you say he's not not deceptive, but it's just it's kind of sick.
If he did do it, then it's pretty sick for him to have a picture of her in his cell.
Yeah, for sure. Well, Gwandik was quickly placed on trial,
which was based solely on that circumstantial evidence linked to two women
who had disappeared at Rock Creek Park around the same time that Chandra had disappeared.
Gwandik's defense team argued that their client was simply a scapegoat for any of the botched investigation.
But ultimately, Gwandik was found guilty by a jury of his peers
and was sentenced to 60 years in prison for Chandra's death. Good news, right?
They finally caught somebody he was found guilty. Yeah. Good news. Yeah.
Well, in May of 2015, the U.S.
Court of Appeals overturned Gwandik's sentence,
and he was presented with an opportunity of receiving a new trial.
However, it was during this time that prosecutors moved to dismiss all charges,
claiming that they could not provide enough evidence to avoid Gwandik getting off without reasonable doubt.
So years have gone by. They looked at the evidence once again and they said, yeah, you know what?
I don't think we can win this case a second time. So we're just going to drop charges.
OK, so as goes our justice system, Gwandik's attorneys filed this motion to dismiss all charges
based on evidence that suggested the jailhouse informant made everything up.
I don't know why he would do that. What? Yeah. Well, guess what?
Believe it or not, he was later captured on a seven hour taped recording by a local actress
who began taping him after she had some suspicions of her own from the conversations that they had
and the activities that he was involved in. So she just inadvertently taped him,
you know, having a conversation on the couch one day.
Here, let me just turn this little tape recorder on and let's get some information.
The actress first met the jailhouse informant at a motel that they were both living in,
sort of one of those extended stay places, and they became friends.
The informant confessed to this actress on tape that he was a convicted felon and former gang
member and was recently released from prison. So, Shelbs, I'm not sure why a friend would
deliberately tape someone, especially for seven hours. I mean, was that seven hours straight?
Yeah, that's a really long time. It is. Was it seven hours total? I'm not sure.
So I guess my question is, is what was she suspicious of? That's a good question.
On these tape recordings, Shelby, the informant admitted that he had lied to authorities about
Gwandik's involvement in Chandra Levi's murder. The informant went on to talk about going after
other gang members. Now, remember Gwandik was a documented gang member here. Now, remember when
I introduced Gwandik as the number one suspect, I had mentioned that he was a documented gang
member here. So the informant had said he was going after gang members. So I guess I can see why he
may have stretched the truth a little bit. Basically, the informant's testimony at Gwandik's
first trial was disproved, although his testimony back in 2010 did help send an innocent man or
at least this time anyway, Shelby. He may not have been innocent on other charges, but he was
probably innocent when it came to Chandra Levi. So the informant did send an innocent man in this
case to prison for a murder that he may not have even committed. What do you think of that?
That's crazy. But I mean, he already assaulted two other women, so he still
deserved to be there for a little while. Additional factors in Gwandik's innocence also came into play
in regards to Chandra's murder. Now, I'm not suggesting that he is a man of character.
Obviously, he's not. Otherwise, he wouldn't be sitting behind bars for attacking women in the
parks like you had just mentioned. But his defense team also discovered that the prosecutors who
originally tried Gwandik for Chandra's murder unlawfully withheld information during his trial
that could have potentially helped his defense. Okay, so we're now just reaching a whole new level.
The prosecutors are being unethical here and withholding information. Wow. Yep. I wonder why
that was. They wanted to win the case. They just wanted their numbers to be one for the prosecutors,
nothing for the criminals. DNA evidence was discovered inside Chandra's apartment,
but it could not be positively linked to Gwandik nor the congressman. Ultimately, Shelbs,
Gwandik's defense attorneys were successful in having his conviction overturned and that's when
the retrial was ordered. Wow, that's very interesting. Yep. They were about to retry him.
I had mentioned that Gwandik had initially entered the United States illegally, so he was an
undocumented immigrant. Well, in 2016, he was deported back to El Salvador for crossing the
border unlawfully and for continuously committing violent crimes while he was in the United States.
So they sent him back. Well, that's good. I mean, I'm thinking if he got into the country once,
he'll get in again. That's very true. Chandra's mother, Susan, spoke out on July 28th, 2016,
stating how shocked she was with the criminal charges against Gwandik and how they had been
completely dropped. Yeah, that makes sense. As a mother, you know, you sit here and think that you
got the guy who took my daughter away and then that's not how it turned out. Absolutely. Susan
mentioned how she and her husband were being forced to experience trauma and grief all over
again from their daughter's murder. Sure, everything's being dug up, dredged up once again.
And I mean, all she wants, Shelby, is justice for Chandra. I completely get that. I do too. So I
just wanted to wind things down to say that according to CBS News, Chandra and Levi had
called her aunt who had lived in Maryland at the time and left a voicemail to let her know that she
was about to return to California, but wanted to see her because she wanted to share some really
big news before she left. Chandra never got that information to her aunt. So to this day, it's a
mystery on what she wanted to tell her. Oh, that's hard. Let me just give you some statistics here.
According to A&E, there are 285,000 cold cases still active in the United States. Only one in
five of these cases identifies a suspect associated with the case. Only one in 20 of these suspects
ever gets arrested and just one in 100 receives a conviction. That is crazy. Yep. So I just couldn't
imagine like that's somebody's job is to sit there and do cold cases, isn't it? Yeah, I would think
that it's a smaller department though. They wouldn't have the same manpower, especially if it's a cold
case because new cases come along every day. Yeah. Well, that's the story of Chandra in Levi.
We would love to receive feedback from our listeners on this storyline and be sure to
DM us on Instagram and let us know what you think about this case. What do you think Shelbs?
Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing it with me. I'm glad she was found, but I do hope that
they can come back to some closure again and know who did it. Yeah, absolutely. Do you have a
teachable moment today? I do have a teachable moment. There's not enough information here to
know what path Chandra was on the day she disappeared. She left all of her belongings at home.
Her apartment was completely undisturbed. She did not tell anyone where she was going. I know most
of us are attached to our cell phones these days, but this might be one opportunity we need to keep
our cell phones on us. Shelby, cell phones make me crazy sometimes, but truly you need to keep your
cell phone on you. I've personally walked along public walking trails at dusk. I've been hiking
in isolated areas all by myself. Whether you are single or not, I think it's really important to
tell someone where you're headed, especially if you go out for a jog or power walk. So whoever it
is that you contact can get a good idea of where you are and how long you're going to be gone.
Several years ago, Shelby, I used to walk seven miles or 11 kilometers in one day. I was like,
woo, more power to me. I had a really good groove going at the time. I got my regime down to an
exact science of walking specifically for an hour and 20 minutes. And there was one day that I got
caught in this rainstorm. I mean, I knew the clouds were getting darker and I could hear the
thunder. I was like, okay, just one more road, one more mile. I can do this. I'm almost home. I'll
walk home in the, in the rain. Well, it wasn't just rain, Shelby, it turned into torrential rain.
And thank God your grandmother knew where I was at. So she came looking for me. Wow.
Wow. I was a drowned rat by the time she found me, but she knew, she knew my walking routine.
And I was thankful that she did. I saw her coming. I was like, oh yes, she found me. So my teachable
moment is keep the communication lines open because you never know when you need to be rescued. And
that's my teachable moment. That's a good one. Thank you. You are welcome. Anything else to add
Shelbs? Nope. That's it. Okay. Well, thanks to our listeners for listening to our episode and we will
talk to you next week. Bye. Thanks for listening to Dying to be Found. Before we go, we would love for
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