WASHINGTON – Police yesterday hunted for traces of missing intern Chandra Levy near an old stone house in Rock Creek Park – an area where Rep. Gary Condit likes to hang out.
A busload of young police recruits covered about one mile of the heavily wooded park and turned up two batches of small bones. Officials said they appear to be animal bones, although they will be checked out.
A senior police official said Levy used the Internet to get a map for the Klingle Mansion, a stone house now used as the park’s headquarters, before logging off her computer for the last time and vanishing May 1.
The search in Rock Creek Park around the mansion, which attracts lots of picnickers and mountain bikers in the summer, was to resume at 6 a.m. today.
Condit has admitted to an affair with Levy, but denies any role in her disappearance – although her parents say he hasn’t been forthcoming.
A 1996 newspaper profile said the California Democrat likes to go to Rock Creek Park.
“[Condit] keeps a bicycle stashed in his office to take off through Rock Creek Park during legislative lulls,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle profile.
Meanwhile, Salon.com writer Joan Walsh says she worked for the California Legislature when Condit was an assemblyman and claims he was known for his “wandering eye.”
“His nickname was Gary Condom and women staffers joked about organizing a ‘Condoms for Condit’ fund-raiser, to ensure he would at least have safe sex,” Walsh writes.
Amid the swirl of speculation, a 25-year FBI veteran and professional profiler said yesterday it was “ridiculous” not to name Condit as a suspect in Levy’s disappearance.
“Look, we know he is a committed risk-taker, he rides motorcycles and has contacts with the Hell’s Angels. And anything from two extramarital affairs to as many as a dozen,” said Clinton Van Zandt.
“Now that doesn’t make him a killer, of course, but his psychological profile yells out that he has to be a suspect,” added Van Zandt, who retired from the FBI six years ago.
“Maybe D.C. police don’t want to name him as a suspect because they would have to read him his rights and that gets into another legal mess.”