The Washington, D.C., Police Department bungled the investigation of perhaps its most prominent recent unsolved murder, the 2001 killing of former U.S. Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy, reports the Washington Post. Three reporters re-examined the case in depth.
They concluded that the police investigation was overwhelmed with the white-hot media coverage fueled by the possible involvement of Rep. Gary Condit, then a congressman from California. Condit granted the Post his first newspaper interviews about the case. The Post says that a case “with false hopes, false leads and false suspects” would “tarnish a police department and wreck a reputation. It would move with tremendous energy and purpose in one direction and end up in another. It would be marked by an enormous effort by police – and a chain of mistakes that got longer and longer.”
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/specials/chandra/ch1_1.html