Guandique Convicted of Murder in Chandra Levy Slaying

WASHINGTON (Nov. 22) -- A jury convicted a Salvadoran illegal immigrant of two counts of first-degree murder today in the killing of intern Chandra Levy, a case that was based on circumstantial evidence and lacked any DNA or forensic evidence.

The Superior Court jury reached the verdict for Ingmar Guandique, 29, on the fourth day of deliberations, capping a nine-year march to justice for the death of the Washington intern, who was romantically linked to then U.S. Rep. Gary Condit.

Levy's mother, Susan, who attended the trial, smiled when the verdict was announced; Guandique had no reaction, WUSA-TV reported.

Afterward, Susan Levy spoke outside the courthouse before a throng of reporters and thanked the prosecution, defense and judge but said she found no closure or peace in the verdict.

She called the murder of her daughter "a lifetime sentence. I live with it every day."

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. expressed sympathy for the Levy family's loss.

"While today's verdict will not give them back their daughter, we are hopeful it gives them some level of comfort and aides them in moving forward," he said.

Prosecutors told jurors that Guandique had attacked two other joggers in Rock Creek Park in northwest Washington, where Levy's skeletal remains were found. They also presented a cellmate who testified that Guandique told him he robbed Levy but never meant to kill her as he dragged her into the woods.

The defense tried to undermine that, presenting another inmate who shared a cell with Guandique who said he never heard Guandique say such a thing.

After the verdict, jurors said there wasn't any one piece of evidence that clinched the conviction.

"It was a decision based on everything we had," said juror Susan Kelly. She added that the two women joggers who were attacked in the park offered powerful testimony during trial, saying it would have been hard for anyone in the courtroom not to be moved.

Levy, 24, an intern for the Bureau of Prisons, disappeared on May 1, 2001, shortly before she was to return to California to attend a graduation ceremony. The case made international headlines after she was romantically linked to Condit, the married congressman who represented her hometown district in Modesto, Calif.

Her remains were found a year later, but by then the elements had removed any potential for DNA evidence.

The defense said that the case lacked hard evidence and that the prosecution had been looking for someone to pin the murder on. Some legal observers found the evidence in the case thin.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Haines, armed with no physical evidence to speak of, told jurors to use common sense and convict Guandique. Haines pointed to his criminal history: Guandique pleaded guilty in 2002 to attacking the two joggers and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

And Haines mentioned the testimony of Guandique's cellmate, who said Guandique confessed to killing Levy.

"She's been waiting nine years for justice," Haines told the jurors, speaking of Levy. "Just because it's been nine years coming doesn't mean it should be denied." She called the slaying "ghastly."

But defense attorney Santha Sonenberg counterpunched, saying the same tunnel vision that made investigators focus at first on Condit led them to fixate on Guandique.

Sonenberg suggested that Levy may have been killed elsewhere and then dumped in the park, which if true would have undercut the prosecution's premise that Guandique preyed on women in Rock Creek Park.

"Someone else should be on trial in this case," the defense attorney told jurors.

Brad Garrett, an FBI agent who worked on the Levy case from 2001 until August 2006 until he retired from the FBI, told AOL News he was a little surprised by the verdict, but pleased.

"I think the government did a terrific job, it didn't have a lot to work with," he said. "They did the maximum they could do with what evidence they had and obviously the jury believed them. It takes a lot of courage to take on a case like this without any witnesses, without any DNA."

"The case has always concerned me even when I was actively working it. I believed he was the logical guy to have done this, but the" the evidence was very thin at the time. "It got a little better when I left."