Annie Le - Missing Yale student

[Deputy Dan]

Police say the killing of a 24-year-old Yale University graduate student whose body was found stuffed in a wall on the day she was to be married was not a random act

Link to video

[LUCKY13]

The cause of death for a Yale Ph.D. student murdered days before her wedding won't be released Tuesday as initially promised and there will be no arrests made in the near future, police said.

foxnews.com

[LUCKY13]

A Connecticut official told the Associated Press Tuesday that the New Haven police have identified a "person of interest" in the death of a Yale University graduate student.*




MSNBC News

[LUCKY13]

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 search for evidence that might tie him to the slaying of a graduate student.

foxnews.com

[DADOCTOR]

Yale University employee Raymond Clark, 24, has been questioned and released without being arrested in connection with the killing of Yale student Annie Le, police said. A judge issued a search warrant for his home and a body warrant for his DNA, said James Lewis, the police chief in New Haven, Connecticut.

Link to CNN Crime

[LUCKY13]

New Haven police say it may be hours until they receive DNA results from items seized from a Yale research technician, in relation to the murder of graduate student at the university.

foxnews.com

[Deputy Dan]

We know how a UR alumna was killed at Yale

Link to video

[DADOCTOR]

UPDATE: Police have left the apartment of a Yale University animal research technician after searching the scene for hours overnight looking for evidence in the killing of a graduate student who worked in the same lab.


Raymond Clark III was taken into custody Tuesday night at his apartment in Middletown, Conn., so officials could collect DNA samples.



Clark has been described as a person of interest, not a suspect, in the death of Annie Le. Her body was found stuffed behind a wall in the laboratory Sunday.


Overnight, Connecticut State Police officers sorted through items on a card table set up outside the apartment’s door.


A tow truck took away a red Ford Mustang neighbors say was used by Clark.




NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Police have taken a Yale University animal research technician into custody to collect DNA samples and searched his apartment for evidence that might link him to the death of a graduate student who worked in the same lab.


More than 20 police officers and FBI agents searched the apartment of 24-year-old Raymond Clark III Tuesday night and led him away him as neighbors leaned over the building’s iron railing and cheered.


New Haven Police Chief James Lewis described Clark as a person of interest, not a suspect, in the death of Annie Le. The 24-year-old graduate student’s body was found stuffed behind a wall in a campus research building Sunday, the day she was to be married.


Police said Clark would be released after they obtain evidence they need from him and his Middletown apartment. Investigators are hoping to figure out within days whether Clark can be ruled out as the killer.


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 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 the basement of a research building at Yale’s medical school. 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.


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, and investigators found her body stuffed in the basement wall of a facility that housed research animals.


Authorities had been tightlipped since Le was reported missing, just a few days before her wedding day. Police say they have ruled out her fiancee, a Columbia University graduate student, as a suspect but have provided little additional information.


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.


Officials had promised Tuesday to release an autopsy report that would explain how Le died. But then prosecutors blocked release of the results out of concern that it could hinder the investigation.


Keeping information secret during an investigation helps police confront possible suspects with little-known evidence about a crime and makes it harder for them to fabricate a cover story, said David Zlotnick, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I.



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 building security systems recorded who entered the building and what times they entered. Some 75 video surveillance cameras monitor all doorways.


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.”


Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., and AP news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.


policelink.com

[4leafclover]

DNA from the Yale lab tech suspected in the murder of grad student Annie Le has been linked to her death, sources tell the New Haven Register . Raymond Clark, 24, is expected to be arrested today, and is currently under police surveillance at the Connecticut motel where he's staying. The...

Crime & Courts

[LUCKY13]

Police have matched DNA from a Yale research technician to evidence found at the crime scene on the Ivy League campus where graduate student Annie Le was found murdered this week, police sources reportedly said late Wednesday.

According to the New Haven Register, police have obtained, or are now in the process of obtaining, an arrest warrant against Raymond Clark III, 24, who had been named a "person of interest" in the case.


New Haven police spokesman Joe Avery said early Thursday that an arrest was expected "soon."


Officers are currently staked out at a motel Clark is staying at in Cromwell, about 25 miles north of New Haven, and are scheduled to hold a press conference at 8 a.m. ET where an arrest announcement is expected.


New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said earlier that charges will be filed against anyone whose DNA matches evidence found at the crime scene.


Authorities compared DNA taken from Clark's hair, fingernails and saliva with more than 250 pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene in New Haven, Conn., and from Clark's Middletown, Conn., apartment.

PHOTOS: Yale Graduate Student Murdered


Le's body was found on Sunday — the day her wedding had been planned for — stuffed into a wall of the lab building where she did research and to which Clark had access. Dr. Wayne Carver in a brief statement on Wednesday said an autopsy of Le determined that she was murdered by "traumatic asphyxia" due to neck compression.


Clark is not talking to police, Lewis said.


"At some point he may be willing to answer questions, but at this point he has invoked his rights," Lewis said. "He has an attorney. We couldn't question him if we wanted to."


Clark is a Yale staff member who did custodial work at the laboratory, such as cleaning mouse cages. He has three relatives — his fiance, his sister and brother-in-law — that do similar work at the Yale lab.


Clark and several other people have been under constant surveillance. The New Haven Police chief declined to say who those people were.


Two new search warrants were issued on Wednesday for a red Ford Mustang belonging to Clark and for other undisclosed items.


Clark was taken into police custody late Tuesday and released Wednesday at 3 a.m. after authorities collected DNA samples from him, questioned him and searched his apartment. No charges have been filed against him.


Clark said through his lawyer that he wanted to cooperate with the investigation. His attorney David Dworski said Wednesday his client is "committed to proceeding appropriately with the authorities." He would not comment further.


Clark lives in an apartment with fiancee Jennifer Hromadka, whom he plans to marry in December 2011, according to the couple's wedding Web site.


Among the possible motives detectives are mulling over is Clark's reported criticism of Le for her handling of the lab mice the two worked with, according to the New York Daily News.


Citing e-mails the pair reportedly exchanged, the Daily News said Clark had accused Le of failing to follow protocol when handling the mice, and she'd promised to do better.


Late Tuesday, capping a weeklong hunt first for Le and then for her killer, Clark was escorted out of his apartment and into a silver car. Neighbors leaned over the building's iron railings and cheered as police led him away.


New Haven Police Chief James Lewis declined to comment on reports that Clark's fiancee had contacted authorities Tuesday night when he came home with scratches, wearing different clothes than the ones he'd left for work in.


Hromadka, wrote on her MySpace page that she's not perfect, but cautioned people not to judge her.


"Who are you to judge the life I live? I know I'm not perfect and I don't live to be, but before you start pointing fingers make sure your hands are clean!!" the 23-year-old wrote.


The date of the MySpace posting is unclear. The page has since been taken down.


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