Forensic pathologist: Analyzing Levy evidence

Dr. Michael Baden

Editor's Note: CNN Access is a regular feature on CNN.com providing interviews with newsmakers from around the world.

(CNN) -- Now that the mystery of Chandra Levy's whereabouts has been solved, investigators will try to determine when and how the former Washington intern died -- a task that could prove difficult, given how much time passed between her disappearance and the discovery of her remains.

Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist, talked Thursday with CNN's Bill Hemmer about what investigators will be looking for in the Levy case.

HEMMER: You are quite critical and quite quick to blame police on this matter. How does that contribute right now? Are the police too much of an easy target?

BADEN: I'm not blaming the police for anything. I'm saying that if the body were there in May [2001], and it was missed, that's a serious problem.

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The police, I think, are doing a very good job in trying to gather all the evidence. But this shows the importance of getting to a dead body as quickly as possible, both to be able to determine a cause of death and also to be able to gather trace evidence that can link the death to another individual.

But I think the police are doing the kind of job police do. But it has to be ascertained: Where did she die? If she died -- where she was found -- in May [2001], there's some real concerns. If she died elsewhere and then was placed in this area after July, that's an important investigative clue. That would indicate that somebody who knew her did it, because strangers don't behave that way.

HEMMER: If it is determined that she did not die in that location where they found the remains, one would think that this could be a question that could possibly never be answered, as to where, correct?

BADEN: Well, it depends. Down in Atlanta, you had the murders of children found decomposed in the Chattahoochee River. And that case was solved by fiber evidence on the decomposed bodies in the water that connected the bodies to the car that Wayne Williams was driving. [Editor's note: Williams was convicted in 1982 of two murders in the Atlanta missing and murdered children cases and sentenced to life in prison. Authorities blamed him for more than 20 slayings.]

Now, in this instance [the Levy case], if the death occurred elsewhere, there may be evidence on the clothing still -- fiber evidence or other evidence, foreign materials -- that links it to another place.

HEMMER: [CNN Correspondent] Bob Franken [on Wednesday] night said his sources were telling him that nothing immediately jumped out at them as they recovered the remains and looked at them. Is that common?

BADEN: Oh, sure. The crime lab looks at things you can't see with the naked eye. The job at the scene is to collect all the evidence that can be looked at more clearly, under better lighting conditions, under microscopes, under magnification, in the crime lab. That can't be done at the crime scene, so I wouldn't expect things to jump out at the scene.

The clothing becomes extremely important because as much as the body deteriorates, the clothing may not deteriorate. If there are bullet holes, if there are stab wounds, if there is trace evidence -- foreign hair, foreign semen, foreign fibers -- that's to be identified in the crime lab.

HEMMER: Can one determine if a woman was pregnant from skeletal remains?

BADEN: Not if the uterus and the pelvic organs are gone. You'd have to have some part of the pelvic organs still there to be able to make that determination.