Twenty-five years. No justice. And a thread nobody has followed.

Chandra Levy disappeared on May 1, 2001. Her parents just told NewsNation they believe she may have been killed because of what she knew about UAPs through her relationship with a sitting member of the House Intelligence Committee. Fear and Wine is covering the full story.

Most people know the broad outline. Young woman. Washington D.C. intern. Affair with a Congressman. Disappeared in May 2001. Body found a year later in Rock Creek Park. A man convicted. The conviction overturned. The case cold.

What most people do not know is what her parents said this week. On the 25th anniversary of her disappearance. On NewsNation. About UAPs. About the House Intelligence Committee. About whether their daughter was killed because of what she had learned.

And what almost nobody has put together is what happened eight days after Chandra Levy disappeared. In Washington D.C. Involving the exact Congressional committee her boyfriend sat on.

We are covering this. The full episode drops soon. Here is what we know.

Who Chandra Levy was

She was 24 years old, from Modesto, California, finishing her master's degree at the University of Southern California. She had been interning at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington D.C. She was brilliant, curious, deeply interested in politics and government -- and, according to her family, fascinated by UFOs.

She had been in a relationship with Gary Condit, a married Democratic Congressman from her hometown, for approximately five months. He was 53. She was 23. She told her aunt he looked like Harrison Ford and that she believed they had a future.

In April 2001, her internship ended earlier than expected. She began making plans to go home. She emailed her landlord. She cancelled her gym membership. She told her friends she was coming back for good.

On May 1st, 2001, she used her laptop for the last time. She searched for flights home. She looked up Rock Creek Park. And at 12:59 p.m. -- her final search before she closed the laptop and walked out of her apartment -- she searched for Alsace-Lorraine, a region in northeastern France.

She had no known connection to France. No travel plans. No academic focus on European history. Nobody has ever explained that search.

She did not come back.

"Could she have known something that she wasn't supposed to know? And could she have been wiped out because she knew too much?"Susan Levy, Chandra's mother -- NewsNation, May 1, 2026

The Congressman and the committee

Gary Condit was a five-term Congressman from California's 18th district -- Chandra's district. He sat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1999 to 2001. The HPSCI oversees the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, and every other member of the intelligence community. It is one of the most sensitive committee assignments in the United States government.

He denied the affair publicly and repeatedly. He was never charged with anything and was eventually cleared by investigators. But in the months he spent evading and misleading investigators, critical time was lost. He lost his Congressional seat in the 2002 primary. He kept his security clearance through the entire scandal.

The investigation that failed her

Verified -- How the Investigation Failed Chandra Levy

Due to a miscommunication, the Metropolitan Police Department failed to follow its own search parameters in Rock Creek Park. Levy's body decomposed in the park for over a year because police did not search the area where she was eventually found.

Police were informed in September 2001 that Ingmar Guandique -- already arrested for attacking two other women in Rock Creek Park -- had confessed to attacking Levy. The MPD dismissed this and did not interview the other Rock Creek Park victims.

Instead the investigation focused heavily on Gary Condit, consuming critical weeks of investigative resources.

Levy's skeletal remains were found in May 2002 by a man walking his dog in a remote area of the park that had supposedly been searched. Her death was ruled a homicide.

In 2010, Guandique was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 60 years in prison. In 2016, his conviction was overturned after his star witness was found to have provided false testimony. Prosecutors dropped all charges and deported Guandique to El Salvador.

No other person has ever been charged. The case is officially cold.

What her parents said this week

On May 1st, 2026 -- the exact 25th anniversary of their daughter's disappearance -- Susan and Robert Levy gave an exclusive interview to NewsNation's Jesse Weber Live.

Robert Levy told NewsNation: "Chandra mentioned something that she knew about the UFOs, that Congressman Condit was on the House Intelligence Committee to learn about UFOs. She says, oh, he believes in UFOs like I do and that he deals with this stuff."

Susan Levy added: "So then it left me thinking, knowing Chandra, she's very inquisitive. Could she have known something that she wasn't supposed to know? And could she have been wiped out because she knew too much?"

Susan also said she attended Contact in the Desert, the world's largest UAP conference, and felt a strong sense there may be a connection between her daughter's death and CIA involvement. She said they had been told by multiple people not to touch certain subjects.

Harvard professor and UAP researcher Avi Loeb responded to the family's statements, telling NewsNation: "There is a lot of uncertainty in both her case and the circumstances that led to her killing. Frankly, since we don't know much about UFOs in terms of what the government has, we can't really judge whether that could be a reason for killing anyone."

The eight days nobody talks about

May 2001 -- What Happened in Eight Days

May 1, 2001

Chandra Levy disappears. Her final laptop search at 12:59 p.m. is for Alsace-Lorraine, a region of France. Nobody has explained this. She is never seen alive again.

May 9, 2001

Eight days later. Dr. Steven Greer convenes the Disclosure Project press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Over 20 military, intelligence, government, and scientific witnesses publicly demand Congressional hearings on UAPs. Their explicit target: the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee on which Gary Condit sat.

Speculation -- Labeled As Such

The proximity of Chandra Levy's disappearance to the Disclosure Project press conference has never been formally investigated. It has barely been formally acknowledged.

Chandra Levy told her mother that Condit was fascinated by UAPs and that he dealt with this subject through his committee work. She found it exciting. She was curious about what he knew. Eight days after she disappeared, the most significant UAP disclosure event in American history up to that point was aimed directly at the committee her boyfriend sat on.

We are not asserting these events are connected. We are noting that nobody has ever formally asked whether they are. And we think that question deserves to be asked out loud.

The episode is coming

We are covering this case in full. The biography, the affair, the botched investigation, the collapsed conviction, what her parents said this week, and the eight days that nobody has put together publicly. We label every fact as fact and every theory as theory. We do not ask you to believe us. We ask you to look at the information and decide what you think.

This is a public episode. It drops on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to Fear and Wine. No Patreon required. Come find us.

And if the UAP thread pulls you in -- if you want to know about the missing and dead scientists, the Huntsville cluster, the Albuquerque nuclear research pattern, and the federal investigation that is actively ongoing -- that deeper coverage is on our Patreon.

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If you have information

Chandra Levy's murder remains officially unsolved. The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Branch is still accepting tips at (202) 727-9099. Twenty-five years later, her family is still looking. Her mother said it best: these wounds don't heal.

We are healthy. We are well. We are not suicidal. We are not experiencing any psychological distress. We are podcast hosts who found something and decided to keep saying it out loud.

All facts sourced from Wikipedia, ABC News, NewsNation, Newsweek, All That's Interesting, Fox News, and the Women Tech Council. Speculation is labeled as such throughout. If you or someone you know is in crisis: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline -- call or text 988.