Alright, let’s take a quick look at the Condit grab bag.
A number of folks have said that the police could not have been more aggressive with Gary Condit in the early days because they simply didn’t have any tangible evidence tying him to Levy’s disappearance. All they had were suspicions tied to his relationship with her. This is true as far as it goes. But it misses the point. If police departments had their training manuals written by the ACLU this might make sense. But, needless to say, they’re not. If you were a middle-aged married man carrying on a secret relationship with a twenty-four year old and your paramour suddenly went missing, I guarantee you, your local police department would turn your life UPSIDE DOWN. There’s no question about it. Nor is there any surprise why — since more than three-quarters of the time it would turn out that you were in fact the murderer. This sort of calculus may be troublesome from a civil liberties perspective — but it’s standard police procedure. And it’s the treatment that would have been given to anyone else.
The next point is this matter of Condit dumping a watch from another girlfriend in a dumpster in Alexandria, Virginia mere hours before his house was searched by police. Apparently, what Condit tossed — a watch he was given by another girlfriend — had nothing directly to do with Levy. But it’s worth considering for a moment just how bizarre this is.
First, Abbe Lowell clearly has little if any control over his client.
Secondly, who drove Condit to Alexandria? And did they know what he was going there to do? I suppose he could have taken the Metro (the DC subway) but that’s a little hard to figure. The point is that it seems like someone near Condit was willing to help him dispose of evidence prior to the police search of his house. And it would seem worthwhile to find out who that person is — for pretty obvious reasons.
Thirdly, doesn’t this stunt make you wonder just what universe Gary Condit is living in? When I first heard this report I was sure it would be quickly batted down as false, just as an earlier report that Levy had been spotted on a 7-11 surveillance camera the day before her disappearance later turned out to be a misindentification. I mean, the guy’s apartment is staked out 24-7 by the media. He’s discussed relentlessly on cable and talk radio. His face is plastered everywhere. And it seems like a good plan to head out to the suburbs and toss a mysterious package in a trash can? It’s not even so much that this inculpates him as it throws into question — and I say this in all seriousness — his very soundness of mind. I mean, just what was he thinking?
Needless to say, once you’ve gotten caught getting rid of one piece of evidence in a dumpster … well, you know where that goes.
