Chris's Crime Forum

Annie Le, is a 24 year old Yale student who went missing.
disappeared days before she was scheduled to be married, was last seen Tuesday entering a building at the university in New Haven, Conn.

Annie Le, 24: Evidence Seized but Still No Sign of Missing Yale Student.
Unidentified evidence has been seized in the search for a missing Yale University graduate student, authorities said Saturday, but they refuted a report that a body had been found.

Annie Le, 24, who disappeared days before she was scheduled to be married, was last seen Tuesday entering a building at the university in New Haven, Conn.

“Items that could potentially be evidence have been seized. None have yet been associated with Annie Le,” FBI Special Agent Kim Mertz said while declining to confirm reports that the evidence included bloody clothing.

Mertz also told reporters Saturday evening that there was no truth to a report that a body had been found.

“We are not in a position to do conclude whether this is a missing persons case or whether criminality is involved,” Mertz said.University officials have urged the public not to jump to conclusion.

“The investigation is at a very difficult stage,” University Vice President and Secretary Linda Lorimer said, adding that many agencies are working together to find out what happened to the student.She said Le’s family, which has asked for privacy, doesn’t think Le would simply run away.

Le was last seen about 10 a.m. Tuesday morning on surveillance camera outside a lab in the Yale School of Medicine complex, less than a mile from the main campus.

About the same time, she swiped herc at the facility’s entrance. There was no footage of her leaving the building, in spite of a fire alarm that went off about 12:40 p.m. The alarm isn’t thought to be connected to her disappearance.

Her purse, cell phone, credit cards and money were found in her office, a few blocks from the lab. She has not contacted her fiance, family or friends since Tuesday.

The New York Daily News, citing an unnamed police source, reported earlier Friday that detectives had questioned a Yale professor. Le, a doctoral student in pharmacology at the Ivy League university, was supposed to attend the professor’s class Tuesday afternoon, but the course was canceled shortly before Le was reported missing, according to the Daily News.But Lorimer told the Yale Daily News later that there was no reason to believe a professor is a suspect in the case.Meanwhile, the missing woman’s family canceled her Sunday wedding on Long Island, N.Y., according to a supervisor at the hall where the ceremony and reception were to have taken place.

“The wedding is off,” Nadeen Fotopoulos, a manager at the North Ritz Club in Syosset, told the News. She said 160 guests were supposed to attend.

“It’s very sad,” she told the paper. “The hall will be dark Sunday morning.”

Detectives were spotted Saturday questioning a man outside the lab where Le worked. When they finished talking, the man got in the front seat of an unmarked car and one of the FBI agents got in the back seat. The car then drove away.Authorities previously said they had no evidence to indicate foul play in Le’s disappearance. More than 100 investigators are working on the case.

On Friday, Yale offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the missing student. Investigators searched her office, the lab facilities where she did research and her apartment.

Investigators were examining security camera footage from some 75 cameras near the building where Le was last spotted.

“They are going frame by frame, looking at every image,” Conroy said Friday.

Le, a California native, was to be married to Jonathan Widawsky, a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. The two met as undergraduates at the University of Rochester. Widawsky has been cooperating with the investigation and is not considered a suspect, authorities say.

Le is 4-foot-11, 90 pounds and of Asian descent with brown hair and brown eyes.
foxnews.com

http://www.usposttoday.com/annie-le-24-evidence-seized-but-still-no-sign-of-missing-yale-student/

Such sad news...


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.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/20885454/detail.html?treets=den&tml=den_natlbreak&ts=T&tmi=den_natlbreak_1_08480209132009

Body Found In Wall ID'd As Yale Student
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Clues increasingly pointed to an inside job Monday in the slaying of a Yale graduate student whose body was found stuffed inside a wall five days after she vanished from a heavily secured lab building accessible only to university employees.

Police on Monday sought to calm fears on the Ivy League campus, saying the death of 24-year-old Annie Le was a targeted act. But they declined to name a suspect or say why anyone would want to kill the young woman just days before she was to be married.

"We're not believing it's a random act," said officer Joe Avery, a police spokesman. No one else is in danger, he said, though he would not provide details and denied broadcast reports that police had a suspect in custody
Yale officials said the building where Le worked would reopen under increased security. Still, some students worried about their safety.

"I'm not walking at nights by myself anymore," said student Natoya Peart, 21, of Jamaica. "It could happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere."

Michael Vishnevetsky, 21, of New York, said he did not feel safe when he made a late trip to his lab Sunday in a different building. "It felt very different than how I usually felt," he said.

Twenty-year-old Muneeb Sultan said he's shocked that a killing could take place in a secure Yale building.

"It's a frightening idea that there's a murderer walking around on campus," said Sultan, a chemistry student.

Police found Le's body about 5 p.m. Sunday, the day she was to marry Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky, lovingly referred to on her Facebook page as "my best friend." The couple met as undergraduates at the University of Rochester and were eagerly awaiting their planned wedding on Long Island.

Police have said Widawsky is not a suspect and helped detectives in their investigation. The building where the body was found is part of the university medical school complex about a mile from Yale's main campus. It is accessible to Yale personnel with identification cards. Some 75 video surveillance cameras monitor all doorways.

The body was found in the wall chase -- a deep recess where utilities and cables run between floors. An autopsy on Monday confirmed that the remains were those of Le, and authorities formally declared her death a homicide.

Le's laboratory was in the basement of the five-story building. Her office was on the third floor, where authorities found her wallet, keys, money and purse.

Campus officials have said that the security network recorded Le entering the building by swiping her ID card about 10 a.m. Tuesday. She was never seen leaving.

Yale closed the building Monday so police could complete their investigation, according to a message sent to Yale students and staff. Scientists are being allowed in only to conduct essential research projects, and only under the supervision of a police officer.

When the building reopens, there will be extra security both inside and outside, said Yale Secretary and Vice President Linda Lorimer.

Police are analyzing what they call "a large amount" of physical evidence.

A friend said Monday that Le never showed signs of worry about her own personal safety at work, although she did express concerns about crime in New Haven in an article she wrote in February for the medical school's magazine.

"If she was concerned about (it) she would have said something to someone, and they would have known," Jennifer Simpson told CBS' "The Early Show." "And Jon (her fiance) would have known, her family would have known, friends would have known."

Simpson said Le, a pharmacology student from Placerville, Calif., was friendly to everyone.

"She was a people person," Simpson said. "She loved people. She loved life. We just can't imagine anybody wanting to harm Annie."

Another friend, Laurel Griffeath, echoed those thoughts on NBC's "Today" show.

"I can't even imagine someone mad at Annie, much less wanting to hurt her," Griffeath said. No one answered the door Monday at the Widawskys' gray, ranch-style home in Huntington, N.Y.

"He is a very nice young man," next-door neighbor George Mayer said of Jonathan Widawsky, a 24-year-old seeking his doctorate in physics. "His family, they're all just wonderful people - very, very nice people."

Both families belong to the same temple.

Mayer, whose mother had been invited to the wedding, said he hopes whoever committed the crime "gets justice - that he gets whatever he deserves."

The university planned a candlelight vigil for Monday evening.

The death is the first killing at Yale since the unsolved December 1998 death of Yale student Suzanne Jovin. The popular 21-year-old senior was stabbed 17 times in New Haven's East Rock neighborhood, about 2 miles from campus.

Jovin, of Goettingen, Germany, was last seen alive after returning a university van she had borrowed for a party thrown by a group that pairs Yale students with people with mental disabilities.

Investigators recently sought help from Jovin's classmates, who returned to campus in June for their 10-year reunion. Each received a letter asking for information about the killing.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/20885454/detail.html?treets=den&tml=den_natlbreak&ts=T&tmi=den_natlbreak_1_11440109142009

Lab tech Raymond Clark 3rd in custody for DNA tests over murder of student Annie Le

Yale lab technician Raymond Clark 3rd was taken into custody Tuesday night so cops can gather DNA evidence in the murder investigation of Yale grad student Annie Le.

In a dramatic turn of events, a storm of state troopers and FBI agents raided his Middletown, Conn., apartment about 10:30 p.m.

Minutes later, they hauled out the muscular 24-year-old in cuffs and put him in the back of an unmarked silver police car.

"We are looking for DNA and physical evidence," New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said at a news conference as Clark was taken in.

"This is not an arrest warrant, this is a search warrant."

Investigators will take DNA and hair samples from Clark and examine his body, police said. They also removed evidence from his home.

Cops identified Clark only as a person of interest and said they will either arrest him or rule him out as a suspect by the end of the week.

"We don't know if he is cooperating or not," Lewis said. "If he doesn't comply with this search warrant, he will be arrested."

Cops had staked out Clark - who does menial work with animals as a tech in a building where Le had an office - for 24 hours before they took him in.

He did not show up for work Tuesday - and neither did his sister, brother-in-law or fiancée, all of whom work in the same lab and have the same job.

Le was last seen leaving her office about 10 a.m. on Sept. 8 and walking into another lab. That's where the brainy beauty was found stuffed in a wall on Sunday, the day she was supposed to get married on Long Island.

Though cops have not released a cause of death, she was reportedly asphyxiated.

Clark entered the building after Le, and moved throughout the building in an erratic way, cops told the Daily News.

Police zeroed in on Clark several days ago, after he failed lie detector tests and had scratch marks on his chest that suggest he was in a struggle.

Cops and FBI agents interviewed the lab tech several times before Tuesday night. At one point, he stopped talking and asked for a lawyer, the New Haven Register reported.

Authorities in unmarked cars arrived at Clark's apartment complex Monday afternoon and frequently followed and pulled over drivers, neighbors said.

"It definitely freaks me out," said Ivan Hernandez, 22, who lives directly above Clark. "A possible murderer living right under you, that's crazy. I thought he was just a normal guy."

One of Clark's former neighbors in New Haven said he screamed at children and was "very controlling" of his girlfriend.

"Ray was very controlling of his girlfriend," said Anne Marie Goodwin, 40. "He would never let her talk to anyone. I would hear a lot of yelling upstairs."

Clark - a 2004 graduate of Branford High School, who mostly worked with rodents at Yale - "kept a pit bull caged in his apartment," Goodwin said.

"We could hear the dog crying all day while he was at work. He screamed at my 17-year-old son. It was horrifying."

Clark lives with his girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, and the couple shares a MySpace page. Hromadka writes extensively about her "wonderful boyfriend Ray."

In May 2008, she blogged about a rumor that Clark was cheating on her with a girl in his Yale lab.

"My boyfriend, Ray, if you don't know him, has no interest in any of the other girls at YARC as anything more than friends," she wrote, referring to the Yale Animal Resource Center.

"He is a bit naive, doesn't always use the best judgment, definitely is not the best judge of character but he is a good guy," she wrote. "He has a big heart and tries to see the best in people ALL THE TIME! even when everyone else is telling him that the person is a psycho or that the person can't be trusted."

Her most recent entry, written on Friday, says: "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!!"

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/15/2009-09-15_cops_set_to_reveal_yale_student_annie_le_cause_of_death_hope_to_make_arrest_tues.html

When this story first came upon my screen, I wasn't sure if I should take it seriously or not. There were so many conflicting reports it sounded like some college prank.

They found a body.
No, we can't confirm that.
They found bloody clothing.
No, we can't comment on that.
We have a suspect, person of interest, someone who might know something...
No, no suspects yet.

Congratulations, Doreen, for sifting through the garbage and coming up with a story that sounds believable.

I hope they do a better job investigating the case than they have reporting it. (so far!)

"just a matter of time"

Police nearing arrest in Yale killing; DNA links Raymond Clark to Annie Le murder - report
The arrest of a Yale lab technician in the murder of grad student Annie Le is "imminent," an official said Thursday.

Raymond Clark 3rd, the only "person of interest" in the strangulation of the grad student, is expected to be hauled out of a Super 8 motel in Cromwell, Conn., Thursday morning.

"An arrest is imminent," said New Haven Police Department spokesman Joe Avery. "This is happening real soon."

An 8 a.m. news conference is planned.

The New Haven Register reported that authorities have linked DNA from Clark, who worked in the same Yale building as Le, to the murder.

Sources told the newspaper that cops were obtaining an arrest warrant for Clark, 24, who has been holed up in the motel since Wednesday night.

Undercover investigators were massed in the parking lot - and one motorist passing by shouted, "Get him, get him!" at police.

Clark apparently decamped to the motel after cops hauled him from his home in handcuffs Tuesday, obtained DNA samples and let him go.

While police were waiting for DNA results, they had gathered circumstantial evidence.

Clark reportedly failed a lie detector test and had scratch marks on his chest. And computer records from Yale suggested he was the last person to see Le.

Swipe cards Le and Clark used to move through different areas of college buildings showed they were in the same room shortly after 10 a.m. on Sept. 8, The Hartford Courant reported.

Le, 24, wasn't seen alive after that, and her card wasn't used again. But Clark swiped into the area where she was found strangled five days later in a crawlspace, a law enforcement source told the paper.

New Haven Police Chief James Lewis refused to give details of Clark and Le's relationship, saying only that they worked in the same building and passed each other in the halls.

Cops interviewed Clark several times in the days after Le disappeared, but then he stopped talking with detectives and asked for a lawyer.

Clark's lawyer, David Dworski, said yesterday the muscular technician was cooperating with the investigation. "We are committed to proceeding appropriately with authorities with whom we are in regular communication," Dworski said.

State police officers impounded Clark's red Mustang yesterday. They also took about 150 pieces of forensic evidence from the Yale lab, where he mostly did janitorial work.

Le's body was discovered stuffed behind a basement wall inside the lab on Sunday - the same day she had planned to get married on Long Island.

The official cause of her death was ruled as "traumatic asphyxiation due to neck compression."

As cops and Clark played a waiting game last night, new details about his background emerged - including an allegation of forcible sex.

A high school sweetheart told Connecticut cops six years ago that he forced her to have sex, the New Haven Independent reported.

"I feel like I'm 16 all over again," the unidentified woman wrote in recent postings on her Facebook page, the Independent reported. "It's just bringing back everything."

Clark and the young woman attended Branford High School, where he played on the baseball team and was a member of the Asian Awareness Club.

Cops were summoned to the Connecticut school in 2003 after Clark and the girlfriend got into a confrontation.

She told cops "that at one time [the male] did force her to have sex with him," a detective wrote in the police report.

The young woman declined to press charges.

Clark's neighbors in Middletown, Conn., were in disbelief that he was at the center of a murder probe.

"He always seemed too quiet," neighbor Rick Tarallo, 23, said. "Other than that, he seemed like a very good guy. He didn't strike me as he was gonna kill somebody. I'm still in shock."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/16/2009-09-16_report_police_nearing_arrest_after_dna_linked_raymond_clark_to_annie_le_murder.html

Now it sure sounds like they are getting somewhere, doesn't it? This story gives me the impression the police know what they're doing, and they're not messing around!

yes Bill!! Good news he NOW has been officially arrested and CHARGED with the murder of Annie.
Yale Lab Worker Arrested in Murder of Grad Student Le

Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Police arrested a Yale University laboratory worker and charged him in the murder of graduate student Annie Le, 24, who was strangled earlier this month five days before she was to be married.

Raymond Clark, a 24-year-old who cleaned mouse cages in the Yale lab building where Le worked and where her body was found, was taken into custody this morning at a motel about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of New Haven, where Yale is located.

Clark had been the only “person of interest” in the case since Le’s body was discovered hidden in the building’s basement on Sept. 13, five days after she went missing. Evidence returned a DNA match overnight, the New Haven Register reported.

New Haven Police Chief James Lewis wouldn’t confirm the report of the DNA match and said the arrest warrant was sealed. He denied reports of a romantic relationship between the two.

“Annie Le was a young woman with unlimited potential,” Lewis said at a press conference. “It’s important to note this is not about urban crime. It’s not about university crime, it’s not about domestic crime but an issue of workplace violence which is becoming a growing concern around the country.”

Computer Records

The Hartford Courant reported that records of computerized swipe cards from the lab building on Sept. 8 led police to focus on Clark. He entered a basement lab room shortly after Le that morning and her card was never used again, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified law-enforcement source familiar with the investigation. Clark also swiped into the area where her body was found, the Courant said.

A witness to the arrest at the motel, Andrew Grocki, described Clark as a “clean-cut kid; somber, head down,” wearing a golf shirt and khakis as police escorted him through the lobby. “It was pretty uneventful.”

A local police official, Captain Roy Nelson, wouldn’t comment on who was in the hotel with Clark. “It was a peaceful arrest,” Nelson said at the scene.

He will be arraigned within 24 hours, said Lewis, the police chief. A phone message left after the arrest for Clark’s attorney, David Dworski of Fairfield, Connecticut, wasn’t immediately returned.

Clark started working as a lab technician at Yale in December 2004, university President Richard Levin said in a statement today.

“His supervisor reports that nothing in the history of his employment at the university gave an indication that his involvement in such a crime might be possible,” Levin said.

‘Dark Side’

Levin added that the incident wasn’t a reflection of campus security at Yale.

“This incident could have happened in any city, in any university or in any workplace,” Levin. “It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures.”

Clark was released by police yesterday after the authorities brought him in to take samples of his DNA.

The Office of Connecticut’s Chief Medical Examiner said in a statement yesterday that Le died of “traumatic asphyxiation due to neck compression.”

New Haven police said they hadn’t received any prior complaints about Clark.

“Never,” said Officer Joseph Avery, a spokesman for the department, when asked in an interview this week if Clark had ever come to the department’s attention.

Surveillance Tapes

Le’s body was found in a Yale School of Medicine research lab at 10 Amistad St. in New Haven on Sept. 13, the day she was supposed to be married.

Investigators pored over 700 hours of videotapes from surveillance cameras around the laboratory, interviewed more than 150 people and seized several hundred pieces of evidence, much of which was sent to forensic labs for testing, Lewis said.

Le, who was studying for a doctorate in pharmacology, was from Placerville, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Yale Daily News reported. She graduated from the University of Rochester, in New York, where she met her fiance, Jonathan Widawsky, now a graduate student at Columbia University in New York City, the newspaper said.

The murder was the first at Yale since 1998, when Suzanne Jovin, 21, was stabbed 17 times in the head, neck and back about 2 miles from campus. The case remains unsolved, according to the student newspaper.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ab.EjQATIxH0

I'm glad they're getting somewhere with this case! I'm curious as to what other evidence they have!

New Haven (WTNH) - A judge has released the arrest warrant affidavit for Raymond Clark, the man accused in the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Le.

Annie Le disappeared September 8th. Her body was found a few days later, stuffed inside a wall at the Yale building where she and Clark worked. The medical examiner ruled that Le was strangled to death.

The arrest warrant reveals many new details in the case against Clark - except the motive for the crime.

Read the arrest warrant (pdf)

Le's blood was found on a box of wipes that were in the lab, as well as on a lab coat, believed to be Clark's. Other DNA evidence includes items that were found in the wall where Le's body was discovered.

"DNA evidence has linked the victim to a box with a blood stain pattern and a lab coat," the affidavit reads. "DNA evidence has also linked Clark and the victim together, in part, to a bloody sock found on top of a ceiling tile and green ink pen located under the victim's body."

The warrant also details Clark's behavior following Le's disappearance; police say Clark began scrubbing a drain and the floor in a lab when they were there investigating.

"Clark was using a cleansing pad or brush to clean the floor. Sergeant Jones thought this was odd because the floor was clean. Sergeant Jones did not observe anything that needed cleaning," the affidavit states.

Police say it appeared that blood stains had been cleaned off the wall in one lab room and that there was a "possible medium velocity blood-like spray pattern" on the wall in another lab room.

"It was apparent that the perpetrator attempted to clean the blood-like pattern," the warrant reads.

A blood-stained cleaning bottle found in one of the labs was also seized as evidence.

In addition, the arrest warrant also details Clark's movements in the Yale building the day Le disappeared, presumably the day of her murder. Employees must use a key card to gain access to rooms, and police noted that Clark's use significantly increased the day of Le's disappearance.

Two portions of the arrest warrant were redacted.

http://www.cnn.com/JUSTICE/