Police Plan to Talk to Condit in Levy Case
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News learned Wednesday that Washington, D.C., police are planning to interview Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., in the Chandra Levy missing-persons case.
The 24-year-old intern's disappearance six weeks ago has sparked intense speculation about her whereabouts and the nature of her relationship with Condit, who is married.
An anticipated press conference by Levy's parents, who arrived in Washington Tuesday, and their newly appointed lawyer did not happen Wednesday afternoon as was originally thought.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Levy's parents had traveled to Washington late Tuesday to meet with Billy Martin, a high-profile attorney whom Fox News has learned the Levys have hired.
Martin's clients have included the mother of Monica Lewinsky and heavyweight boxer Riddick Bowe. He currently is representing Cincinnati as the Justice Department investigates the city's police force.
Martin spent part of the day Wednesday in Cincinnati. He returned to Washington in the afternoon and said he planned to meet with the Levys. A news conference may occur Thursday, he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Meanwhile, some D.C. residents want more attention focused on the possibility that Levy may have been the victim of a street crime totally unrelated to her relationship with the congressman.
Sources have told Fox News that Levy was having an affair with Condit, who has insisted the two were only "close friends" while she served as an intern for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
D.C. police insist they have no evidence that Levy, officially still a missing person, has fallen prey to a serial killer or any other criminal. But they have not discounted the possibility that Levy's disappearance may be linked to the still-unexplained deaths of other young Washington women in recent years, or on the general crime problem in her Dupont Circle neighborhood.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The media is talking about serial killers when there is no evidence to indicate there is a serial killer," said Sgt. Joseph Gentile, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department. "We're not in the business of speculating. We have no evidence that Miss Levy is dead," he added.
Some have compared the Levy case to that of 28-year-old Joyce Chiang, who went missing in April of 1999. The government attorney's body was found floating in the Potomac River in Virginia three months later, and police were never able to close the case.
Chiang was last seen headed toward the Dupont Circle Starbucks, not far from Levy's apartment. Police said her body was too decomposed to determine the cause of death, so she may or may not have been murdered.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Almost a year earlier, in August 1998, the body of Christine Mirzayan was found beaten to death in the Georgetown section of D.C. That case too was never solved. Mirzayan, a respected biologist, was walking home alone from a barbecue to her dormitory at Georgetown University. Her body was found on Canal Street.
There's also the issue of general street crime in the Dupont area. Just this week, a young couple last seen emerging from a neighborhood nightclub were found shot dead in nearby Maryland.
Michael Eugene Patten, 29, and Lee Anne Browne, 24, appear to have been carjacked and robbed, as Patten's 1990 Acura, cash and credit cards are missing, according to police. The couple were last seen early Sunday leaving the popular LuLu's club, which is around the corner from Levy's apartment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Some local residents feel police haven't done a good job of informing the public about crime in the area.
"I live blocks away from what happened. This really hits close to home," said criminal defense attorney Kim Hallmark, who said there has been a series of area robberies that have not been well-reported by the media or police. "If it's not a suppression of information, it may be a lack of responsibility to the community."
D.C. police said Tuesday there were no other "high-profile" cases of female missing persons in the Dupont Circle area, though Condit's chief of staff has been telling reporters they believe there are "five or six" such cases.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Levy was last seen the evening of April 30 at her gym. She had been preparing to return home to California, and police have since found her packed bags — including her purse and credit cards — locked inside her apartment.
Fox News' Kelly O. Beaucar, Rita Cosby and The Associated Press contributed to this report