Police: Found body is likely missing Yale student
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Police on Sunday said they found what they believe is the body of a Yale University graduate student and bride-to-be hidden inside the wall of a university building where she was last seen five days before.
New Haven Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard said officials are presuming the body was that of doctoral student Annie Le, who has been the focus of a massive police search since Tuesday.
"It hasn't been positively identified as of this time," Reichard told reporters Sunday night. "However, we are assuming it is her ... so we are treating it as a homicide."
State police found the body at around 5 p.m. Sunday in an area of the building that houses utility cables that run between floors. The building is in the Ivy League school's medical complex, about a mile from the main campus.
Reichard said police also recovered "a large amount" of physical evidence, but he would not discuss what that included.
Yale President Richard Levin offered support to Le's family and her fiance, Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky. The couple was to marry Sunday in Syosset, N.Y., on Long Island's north shore.
"The family and fiance and friends now must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be positively identified," Levin said. "I met earlier this evening with Annie's family, with her fiance and his family and I conveyed to them all the deeply felt support of the entire university community."
Police on Sunday would not say if they have any suspects. They previously have said Widawsky is not a suspect and is assisting with the investigation.
Le, 24, was last seen Tuesday morning in the five-story building that housed the laboratory where she worked. Surveillance video shows her arriving around 10 a.m., but police had been baffled since the investigation began because there was no video of Le leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras operating around the complex. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her office.
More than 100 local, state and federal police had been searching the building for days, using blueprints to uncover any place where evidence or Le's body could be hidden.
Investigators on Saturday said they recovered evidence from the building, but would not confirm media reports that the items included bloody clothing.
On Sunday morning, a state police van drove down a ramp into the basement area of the building where the lab is located. Authorities also sifted through garbage at a Hartford incinerator Sunday, looking through trash that was taken from the building in the days since Le went missing.
Le, a a pharmacology student from Placerville, Calif., wrote a magazine article earlier this year about how to stay safe around the Ivy League campus.
The article, titled "Crime and Safety in New Haven," was published in February in a magazine produced by Yale's medical school. It compares higher instances of robbery in New Haven with cities that house other Ivy League schools and includes an interview with Yale Police Chief James Perrotti, who offers advice such as "pay attention to where you are" and "avoid portraying yourself as a potential victim."
"In short, New Haven is a city and all cities have their perils," Le concludes. "But with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic."
Le's disappearance weighed heavily on Yale students, who prayed for her safe return Sunday at The University Church on Yale's campus.
"It has been a week that has tested many people in many different ways," the Rev. Ian Buckner Oliver said just before he gave the Sunday morning sermon. "It has brought up a lot of fears for people. It has brought up a lot of worry and concern for her and for all our safety."
The student-dominated congregation offered a moment of silence and prayer, "for Annie, and her family, who have arrived here in New Haven, for her fiance, on this, what would have been their wedding day. Let's lift them up in our prayers," Oliver said.
--AP
Real sad.
Haiz..............
Sequence of events that led to her eventual demise, it's the fates.
Technician in custody in Yale grad student slaying
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Police and FBI agents searched the home of a Yale University animal research technician Tuesday night and led him away in handcuffs to the cheers of neighbors in a hunt for evidence that might tie him to the slaying of a graduate student.
No charges were filed against 24-year-old Raymond Clark III in Middletown, but police took him into custody while searching for DNA and other physical evidence. Police said Clark would be released after they obtain evidence they need from him and his Middletown apartment.
Clark was escorted out of the apartment building in Middletown and into a silver car. Neighbors leaned over the apartment building's iron railings and cheered as police led him away.
New Haven Police Chief James Lewis described Clark as a person of interest, not a suspect, in the death of 24-year-old Annie Le. The Yale graduate student's body was found stuffed behind a wall in a campus research building Sunday, the day she was to be married.
Lewis said police were hoping to compare DNA taken from Clark's hair, fingernails and saliva to more than 150 pieces of evidence collected from the crime scene. That evidence may also be compared at a state lab with DNA samples given voluntarily from other people with access to the crime scene.
"We're going to narrow this down," Lewis said. "We're going to do this as quickly as we can."
Police have collected more than 700 hours of videotape during the probe and sifted through computer records documenting who entered what parts of the research building where Le was found dead.
Investigators began staking out Clark's home Monday, a day after they discovered Le's body hidden in a basement wall of a facility at Yale's medical school that housed research animals. She vanished Sept. 8.
Clark shares the apartment with his girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, whom he is engaged to marry in December 2011, according to the couple's wedding Web site.
"He seemed like a normal guy to me, no big deal," said Ivan Hernandez, 22, who lives directly above Clark and would often see him sitting on a bench outside their apartment building and smoking. "I thought he was nice, actually."
Neither the couple nor Clark's parents returned repeated telephone calls Tuesday.
Clark moved to Middletown from New Haven six months ago, where he shared an apartment with his girlfriend and three cats, according to former neighbor Taylor Goodwin, 16.
Police have said Clark is a lab technician at Yale. It's unclear how long he worked there and Clark's supervisors would not comment Tuesday.
Le worked for a Yale laboratory that conducted experiments on mice. Clark works in the same lab.
Authorities had been tightlipped since Le was reported missing last week. Police say they have ruled out her fiancee, a Columbia University graduate student, as a suspect but have provided little additional information.
Officials had promised Tuesday to release an autopsy report that would shed light on exactly how Le died. But then prosecutors blocked release of the results out of concern that it could hinder the investigation.
Investigators usually have reasons for keeping information secret during a criminal probe, said David Zlotnick, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I.
Secrecy helps police confront possible suspects with little-known evidence about a crime and makes it harder them to fabricate a cover story.
"Having that information secret or private helps the investigators know, first of all, what buttons to push on the person, and it makes sure they haven't tainted the investigation," Zlotnick said.
The Le family issued a statement Tuesday through a family friend, the Rev. Dennis Smith, that thanked friends and the Yale community for their support during their grieving. The family also asked for privacy.
The secrecy surrounding the case has bred confusion in some quarters, and officials have repeatedly denied media reports.
"You guys made up the fact that we had somebody in custody, the media in general," New Haven police spokesman Joe Avery told reporters outside the police department Tuesday.
The lack of information also has led to some measure of fear at Yale, which last dealt with a homicide in 1998 _ the sensational and still-unsolved stabbing death of 21-year-old Suzanne Jovin about 2 miles from campus.
Yale President Richard Levin was more forthcoming to Yale medical students, telling them Monday that police have narrowed the number of potential suspects to a small pool because security systems at the building where Le's body was found recorded who entered the building and what times they entered.
The building is accessible to Yale personnel with identification cards. Some 75 video surveillance cameras monitor all doorways.
Several news organizations have reported that police were interviewing a possible suspect who failed a polygraph test and had defense wounds on his body. At least one reported Tuesday that it was the lab technician in Middletown.
Along the way, various media have reported that Le was stabbed, that police found her bloody clothes and that a professor was a prime suspect _ virtually all claims unconfirmed by police or met by flat denials.
New Haven police said they would restrict information even more in coming days after an NBC producer was injured Tuesday as reporters outside the police department pushed to surround a spokesman during a briefing.
"That this horrible tragedy happened at all is incomprehensible," said Le's roommate, Natalie Powers. "That it happened to her, I think is infinitely more so. It seems completely senseless."
--AP
Sad
Which MF wan to do this... wala0
her fiance muz be ...
Police focus on Yale murder suspect's attitude
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Staffers in white coats reported to work Friday at the end of an extraordinary week at Yale as police considered whether a graduate student's grisly death might have stemmed from a dispute with an animal research technician described as an overbearing "control freak."
A law enforcement official said police are looking into the possibility that Raymond Clark III's attitude led to a deadly workplace confrontation with 24-year-old Annie Le. She vanished Sept. 8, and her body was found in a utility compartment in a Yale medical school building five days later, on what was to be her wedding day.
Police charged Clark, 24, with murder on Thursday, arresting him at a motel a day after taking hair, fingernail and saliva samples to compare with evidence from the grisly crime scene.
Bond was set at $3 million for Clark, who kept his head down and said "Yes, your honor," when asked whether he understood his rights. He did not enter a plea.
The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing and many details remain sealed, said Yale workers told police that Clark was a "control freak" who clashed with scientists and their proteges in the lab where they both worked at the Ivy League school.
Investigators haven't decided if the theory will ultimately lead to a motive, but don't believe that they'll need to establish one when Clark goes to trial because they have an abundance of strong forensic evidence, the official said.
Authorities are offering few details about the crime. They would not discuss a motive, largely because Clark will not talk to police, and would not disclose the DNA test results or how they connected Clark to the slaying.
Security guards continued their street patrols Friday morning and news crews set up for another day of staking out the college's medical complex. A makeshift memorial of candles and flowers was arranged at the entrance to a park across the street from the lab building, in an area of squat, utilitarian buildings about a mile from the majestic main campus.
Yale students are relieved that a suspect is in custody, yet shaken that the crime happened there.
"I think it's important to the community to know that something's been done and that somebody's actually being brought to justice," Juliana Biondo said Thursday.
But that doesn't bring full comfort to Doug Lindsay.
"Despite the fact that they found somebody ... it was still, to me, kind of scary," he said.
Le's work at the university involved experiments on mice that were part of research into enzymes that could have implications for treatment of cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy, while Clark's technician job involved cleaning floors and mouse cages.
At a news conference Thursday, New Haven Police Chief James Lewis called Le's death a case of workplace violence. He would not elaborate except to say reports that the two had a romantic relationship were untrue.
"It is important to note that this is not about urban crime, university crime, domestic crime but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country," Lewis said, adding that he would not rule out additional charges.
The Rev. Dennis Smith, a Le family spokesman, said he was not authorized to comment on the arrest. Smith said he did not know whether Le had ever complained about Clark.
Clark appeared in court with two public defenders who were new to the case. A private-practice attorney who had represented him during the investigation did not attend the hearing and said Thursday he no longer represents Clark. The attorney declined to give a reason.
Public defender Joseph Lopez said he was still reviewing the case and declined to comment.
Two friends of Clark's since childhood, appearing on CNN's Larry King Live on Thursday night, said they were stunned by the murder allegations and could not reconcile them with the young man they've known for years.
"That's not the Raymond Clark I've talked to my whole entire life," Bobby Heslin said.
"I just can't picture him doing something like this," Maurice Perry said.
The New York Times reported that Clark at times grew angry if lab workers did not wear shoe covers. "He would make a big deal of it, instead of just requesting that they wear them," said a researcher who asked not to be identified.
ABC News reported that Clark sent a text message to Le on the day she vanished requesting a meeting to discuss the cleanliness of mouse cages in the research lab.
Reached at their homes after work Thursday, several of Le's co-workers at the lab declined to comment on her or Clark.
The Connecticut medical examiner said Wednesday that Le died of "traumatic asphyxiation," which could indicate a choke hold or some other form of suffocation caused by a hand or an object such as a pipe.
Investigators focused on Clark early in the investigation and searched his apartment Tuesday, when they labeled him a person of interest. He remained under constant surveillance after he was released early Wednesday and found a room at the Super 8 motel in Cromwell, Conn.
Clark was arrested about 8 a.m. Thursday. Details of the warrant remained sealed.
The New Haven Register printed a rare extra edition announcing Clark's arrest, wrapping it around Thursday's daily newspaper and selling it on the streets, editor Jack Kramer said.
Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Correction, confirmed that Clark was being held Thursday night at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, a high-security facility in Suffield, about 20 miles north of Hartford.
Garnett said it was unclear whether Clark would remain there until his next scheduled court date Oct. 6.
Yale President Richard Levin released a statement shortly after the arrest, saying Clark's employment history raised no suspicions.
"This incident could have happened in any city, in any university, or in any workplace. It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures," Levin said in a message sent to the Yale community.
--AP
This really makes me think twice before study aboard
Lots of my friends are still going overseas to study.
Originally posted by lianamaster:Lots of my friends are still going overseas to study.
yes, i knw tht doesnt stop people frm going ovrseas to study, but with the rise of racism..u knw..