Terror in the form of an illegal immigrant gang member lurked in the woods of the District’s largest park, and he attacked 24-year-old intern Chandra Levy as she jogged alone in the spring of 2001, prosecutors said during the opening day of the Levy murder trial.
Levy wasn’t the only one, they said.
“I was as afraid as I have ever felt and alone as I have ever felt,” Halle Schilling told jurors. She was recalling May 14, 2001, the day she was attacked by Ingmar Guandique on a secluded trail in Rock Creek Park. Levy had disappeared 13 days earlier.
Prosecutors say circumstantial evidence in the form of jailhouse snitches who claim Guandique told them he killed Levy and testimony from others attacked by the 29-year-old Salvadoran around the time Levy disappeared will be enough to convict him.
In Monday’s opening argument, prosecutors admitted DNA evidence collected from Levy’s leggings is not from Levy, defendant Guandique or Gary Condit. The former California Democratic Congressman was in the midst of an affair with Levy when she disappeared. Prosecutors said the DNA mixed into the evidence when police handled it. The defense said it plans to use the DNA mishap as an example of wider mistakes made by District police during the nine-year investigation.
“The police failed and fumbled this investigation,” Guandique attorney Maria Hawilo said during opening arguments. “They can’t undo their mistakes. … They have turned him into an easy scapegoat.”
The government’s circumstantial case launched Monday afternoon with Schilling’s recounting the attack for which Guandique already has been convicted.
Like Levy, Schilling had gone for an evening run. As she jogged across the parking lot near Peirce Mill, Schilling said she spotted Guandique and he followed her with his eyes as she trotted toward a wooded trail.
“He was creepy, watching me,” Schilling testified.
Ten minutes later Schilling discovered she was being followed by another jogger. Another 10 minutes and she slowed to let him go by. That’s when she was attacked.
Guandique, who was outsized by the 5-foot, 10-inch Schilling, jumped on the then 30-year-old’s back. The two wrestled as Schilling “screamed ‘No!’ over and over and over again.”
She said Guandique kept saying only “shhh, shhh.”
Schilling fell and landed on her back. Guandique pressed his attack, and she stuck her fingers in his mouth, pushing down hard. He bit her hand, drew blood and then ran off.
U.S. Attorney Amanda Haines said Levy endured the same fearful moments.
Levy “was running into a nightmare from which she would never recover,” Haines said. “There is someone there in the shadows. Someone who is following her deeper into the woods.”
Examiner staff writer Scott McCabe contributed to this report.
