Future unlimited for young woman with big ambition

Before Chandra Ann Levy grew up and left Modesto, she was a little girl who loved to gaze at the stars with her father.

Before she disappeared in May 2001, she became a vegan -- swearing off meat, eggs and fish.

Before she became the subject of national headlines and intrigue, she was a young woman with ambition and a bright future.

Levy was a 24-year-old with striking, jet-black hair. She admired authority and intellect. She worked for Gov. Davis and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

Her drive led her to Washington, D.C., where she worked as an intern at the Bureau of Prisons and hoped to get a job with the FBI. Her remains were found Wednesday morning in a Washington park where she liked to exercise.

Levy was secretive as well as ambitious. Her parents and friends provided a window into her life and personality during a series of interviews in the year since her disappearance.

They spoke of Chandra the person, not the missing person.

She was born April 14, 1977, in Cleveland. The family moved to Modesto when she was 3.

She attended public schools, graduating from Davis High in 1995, and took lessons at Juline School of Dance.

Her father, Robert, is a cancer treatment specialist in Modesto. Her mother, Susan, is a sculptor and amateur photographer whose portfolio includes dramatic stills of people from the many countries she has visited.

Well traveled as a youngster

Levy accompanied her mother on many of those trips and had traveled extensively by the time she finished college. Family vacations took them to France, England, Greece, Turkey, Tanzania, Kenya, South America, Costa Rica, the Middle East and Canada.

She loved to shop -- always bargain hunting, her mother said -- and to skate.

She loved a challenge -- even if she hated to admit it, said her mother, who once took her to a rope-climbing camp.

"I marched her in there and signed her up," Susan Levy said. "She walked in -- not by choice -- and there were a bunch of boys from about 14 to 19 years old. They said, 'What are YOU doing here?'"

Chandra got rope burns and sunburns, but she completed the camp, while a half-dozen or so boys quit, Susan Levy said.

"In the end, though Chandra wouldn't come right out and tell it, she was thrilled she had completed it," her mother said. "She wore that T-shirt for a long, long time."

As a teen, Levy showed interest in a career in newspaper work.

Levy wrote for the Davis High newspaper and carried the writing bug with her to San Francisco State University, where she majored in journalism and minored in criminal justice.

She later worked briefly for The Modesto Bee as a sports clerk, and it was a path that her father later wished she had followed.

"In retrospect," he said, "staying in journalism would have been a much better choice."

Instead, Levy followed her other prime interest: criminal justice. She had been an Explorer in high school, sometimes wearing her uniform to school. She worked for the Modesto Police Department, both as an Explorer and as a paid police assistant.

After receiving her undergraduate degree from San Francisco State, Levy entered the master's program at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning and Development.

Friends and schoolmates described her as a bright and motivated young woman. Her black, curly hair and smile naturally drew attention.

"You walk into a room, and she's the first one you notice," college classmate Matt Szabo said.

She preferred dating older men, including an officer while she worked for the Police Department.