Levy Case Gets Spotlight While Thousands Of Others Are Ignored
Published on lexisONE on Aug. 17, 2001
Chandra Levy is just one of more than 98,000 people -- 41,016 of them adults -- currently listed as missing in the United States, according to the FBI. But she is the most widely known. Probably THE most widely known missing person since Patty Hearst.
Hearst's notoriety was due to the fact she belonged to one of America's elite families and had been kidnapped. But Chandra Levy is an ordinary young woman.
Of course, the public and most of the mainstream media are enthralled by the soap opera nature of the case, the reports of a clandestine affair between the 24-year-old Levy who disappeared May 1 from her Washington, D.C., neighborhood, and Gary Condit, a Democratic congressman from California some 30 years her senior.
But the Levy family was savvy and wealthy enough to hire well-known Washington attorney Billy Martin, as well as a public relations firm. The publicity machine Martin has orchestrated has helped keep the case on the nightly newscasts, and Chandra Levy's name on the tip of the public tongue, according to Kym Pasqualini, president of the Arizona-based Missing Children's Organization and Center for Missing Adults.
"What has happened here is, the dynamics in this case have been used to keep the pressure up. Not only on the Washington, D.C., police, but also to keep it in the public eye. Smart move. There are families out there that haven't had one story in their local newspaper and this family has had, what? 800?" Pasqualini told lexisONE.
The family has spaced out the release of photos and a videotape of Chandra. Each new visual element available, in turn, created a reason for the story to be on television.
The Levy case demonstrates how a smart lawyer can help keep a missing persons investigation on the front burner with both the police and the media.
Billy Martin has skillfully presented issues to the media. And maintaining media interest is crucial. Although Condit has remained silent and officially is not a suspect, Martin has kept a spotlight on him and the veracity of the statements the congressman reportedly gave police.
"He (the lawyer) can work with police and prosecutors and offer suggestions," said Mike Rizer, a private investigator in Reno, Nev., who has handled many disappearance cases. But Rizer pointed out that a lawyer must recognize that to the police, he's an outsider and a civilian. He can serve as a liaison between the authorities and the family. But, "If a lawyer tries to take over ... they can just say, 'it's our case, get lost.'"
"I don't know if this is ever going to be a cottage industry," added Michael Murphy, a former prosecutor in Morris County, N.J., who is now in private practice in Newark, N.J., in discussing missing persons cases with lexisONE. "But there is a role for attorneys, particularly ones, maybe with law enforcement experience, who have a good relationship with police." Murphy was involved in investigating a high profile disappearance in April 1992: the kidnapping and eventual murder of Exxon International executive Sidney Reso.
The efforts of Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell, who represents Condit, in trying to shield his client from the public, the press and the police has further fueled public interest, according to Pasqualini.
Although his efforts may have those unintended consequences, Lowell has a specific agenda in mind in the Condit case.
"My goals are to give him very good legal advice, if I can, to give him the privacy and freedom to deal with his family, and to help him to be in a position to make his career choices," Lowell said. "And I take all three of those seriously, but some are more important than others."
MOVE QUICKLY
In the majority of cases, lawyers only get involved in a missing person's case when the case is long cold. Often that means after seven years, when the family decides that the time has come to declare a person dead, a necessary move if the family wants to collect insurance money or settle the missing person's debts, according to Rizer.
However, Earl Nance, an attorney who has been in the center of missing persons investigations, believes one of the most important things the family can do is hire the right lawyer right away.
Nance is a sole practitioner from Richmond, Va., who now is a vice president for GE financial. He tried to help old friends, Ron and Iva Bradley, when their 24-year-old daughter Amy Lynn disappeared from a cruise ship on March 24, 1998 as the ship made port in Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles. She still is missing but, ironically, the Levy case has put the Amy Lynn Bradley case back on the front pages, including the cover of People magazine.
"What is coming out in the Levy disappearance, and I have experience with in this (the Bradley) case, is the family's frustration at the authorities' lack of decisive action," Nance said.
To some degree, police investigators everywhere faced with thousands upon thousands of missing persons reports that are unfounded can be jaded. According to Nance, "Their sense of urgency doesn't grow for several days." And, as we have seen, the most crucial time in these disappearances is in the first 72 hours."
In Amy Lynn's case, Nance and her parents were not able to do what the Levys and Billy Martin have done so well: Keep the case in the spotlight.
"We are a consumer society, and we just go on to the next story. In our case, we just fell off the front pages," Nance said.
Iva Bradley thinks she knows why: the Levys' best weapon in keeping Chandra's case in the public eye is the man they frequently assail for his lack of help and candor, Gary Condit.
"We got attention because we pushed for attention," Iva Bradley recalled. But it was short lived and never came close to the frenzy the Levy case has generated. Perhaps, she noted, that's "because we didn't have a congressman involved."
But even if a lawyer doesn't succeed in helping a frantic family find a missing relative or at least in keeping the case hot, there still is another need the attorney can fill.
Families often need someone to explain the system the way police and prosecutors operate. And good lawyers with solid people skills can be real assets, according to PI Rizer.
"More than anything, they can offer comfort."
Copyright 2001 lexisONE