A Missed Connection

Seven weeks later, on July 1, 2001, at 7:30 p.m., Christy Wiegand and her fiance were jogging in the northern section of Rock Creek Park. It had been raining on and off. Wiegand, 25, a former varsity rower at Princeton and a recent Cornell University Law School graduate, was an anti-trust lawyer for Arnold & Porter. Her wedding date was seven weeks away. She was tall and blond, her 5-foot-11 frame moving steadily along the trail. Her fiance ran ahead and was soon out of sight.

Wiegand, who was wearing her Walkman, suddenly sensed that someone was quickly coming up from behind. Before she realized what was happening, a man wrapped his arms tightly around her and pulled her off the trail near Wise Road and Beach Drive. The two tumbled into a ravine, and Wiegand saw a knife.

The attacker held the blade to her chin. She screamed, and he covered her mouth, ordering her to shut up. She couldn't believe how fast it had happened. Ten seconds earlier, she was jogging peacefully along the path. Now, she was fighting for her life, terrified that she was about to be raped and killed.

She stopped struggling for a few seconds, and the attacker let down his guard, relaxing his hold. Wiegand started fighting again and began to scream. The attacker fled, disappearing into the woods. Wiegand scrambled to Beach Drive, cut, bruised and badly shaken. She flagged down a passing motorist, who took her to a U.S. Park Police station. She said her attacker was a young Hispanic male wearing a white tank top; knee-length black, baggy shorts; and sneakers.

Park Police officers fanned out and scrambled Eagle One, a blue-and-white Bell helicopter based across town in Anacostia Park. At 8:15 that night, 45 minutes after the attack, two officers picked up a man near a golf course in Rock Creek Park, not far from 16th Street. His clothes were wet. He was covered with leaves. Police drove Wiegand to the scene, where she identified him as her attacker.

He was Ingmar Guandique.

He was handcuffed and jailed inside a small stone substation in the center of the park that police called the Rock Creek Hotel. Around 1 a.m. July 2, three Park Police officers, including a translator, entered his cell.

The officers tried to win Guandique's confidence. They kept the cell door open, gave him water and food and let him use the restroom. He agreed to talk without a lawyer. He said he worked as a carpenter but didn't have a job at the moment.

Leading the interrogation was Joe Green, a seasoned detective with nearly 30 years on the job. A big, balding man with a gentle demeanor, the D.C. native prided himself on knowing the city and getting people to talk.

Through the translator, Green asked Guandique if he assaulted someone in the park about six hours earlier. Guandique said no.

Green tried another tactic. He asked Guandique whether it was possible that he bumped into a woman and the encounter was a misunderstanding. Guandique said that it was. He explained that he was jogging in the park when he felt a pain in his knee. He bent over to massage it and a female jogger ran into him, causing both of them to tumble off the trail. Guandique said he tried to help the jogger, but she began to fight and scream. Flustered, Guandique said, he ran away.

Guandique had just implicated himself in the attack on Wiegand.