A judge granted Ingmar Guandique, the man convicted of killing Chandra Levy, a new trial on Thursday.
Guandique was sentenced to 60 years in prison after being convicted in 2010 of killing and robbing Levy, a Washington intern whose disappearance in 2001 drew national headlines.
Prosecutors in the District of Columbia last month dropped their opposition to a new trial, clearing the way for D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher to order the retrial. Court documents show a hearing in the case is scheduled for next week.
Guandique’s lawyers had appealed the conviction and questioned the credibility of a prosecution witness, Armando Morales, a convicted felon and former gang member. He testified that Guandique confessed to him that he killed Levy.
Levy, a 24-year-old California native, was in Washington working as an intern for the Bureau of Prisons when she was last seen on May 1, 2001. Her skull was found over a year later, on May 22, 2002, in Washington’s Rock Creek Park.
Levy’s disappearance gained national attention after her parents discovered a connection with Gary Condit, who was then a congressman for Levy’s California district. Condit was never a suspect in the case, but he and Levy were romantically linked and Condit was questioned intensively about Levy’s whereabouts.
Police arrested Guandique in February 2009. He was then serving a 10-year sentence for attacking two other women in the park.