In the latest update into the case of Annie Le, the Yale graduate student whose body was discovered in the basement of Yale Medical School, officials have confirmed that Le was strangled to death:

According to a spokeswoman for Connecticut’s Chief Medical Examiner, Wayne Carver, Ms. Le died from ‘traumatic asphyxia,’ caused by ‘neck compression.’

This is a reversal from the statement issued yesterday by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which instead of releasing the cause of Le’s death, stated

it would withhold that information indefinitely at the request of prosecutors. At the press conference, Lewis declined to comment on a report in The Hartford Courant that said Le died of asphyxiation.

This admission seems to suggest that the case is proceeding quickly, and is closer to identifying the perpetrator.

Police have recently identified 24-year-old Raymond Clark as a suspect in the Anne Le murder at Yale. Cops arrived at his apartment in Middletown, Connecticut but did not arrest him, claiming to only have a “person of interest.” A lab technician at the lab where Le worked, Clark displayed visible chest marks and also failed a polygraph test. But according to a source close to Clark and his family:

Of course, he had scratches on his arm–from his cat. I know he didn’t do it, but I can’t understand how anybody would do that in the first place and put her in the wall like that. And they would have had to do it at night because certainly nobody could have done it during the day when everybody was looking.

Clark hadn’t been seen since last Thursday following the Tuesday disappearance of Le. Le’s body was found this weekend in a chute in the basement of the pharmacology research facility on 10 Amistad Street. Yale has since increased security in the surrounding area following the murder. Le’s fiancé Jonathan Widawsky, who had been cleared of being a suspect, has been assisting police with their investigation.

Late this afternoon a woman’s body was found in the basement of 10 Amistad Street at Yale Medical School. Based on the wording of Yale President Richard Levin’s email to the community, the body is presumably Annie Le, the graduate student and bride-to-be who went missing last Wednesday. Today was to have been her wedding day.

Our hearts go out to Annie Le’s family, fiancé and friends, who must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be identified.  I have met again with her family and conveyed to them the deeply felt support of the Yale community.

The body—which was hidden inside of the walls of the same building where Le was last seen—has yet to be officially identified by the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Yesterday, investigators discovered a set of bloody clothes hidden in the ceiling of the Amistad building. Though the clothes did not match the outfit Le had been wearing when entering the building Wednesday morning, police began searching local landfills and an abandoned industrial area in Hartford for evidence.

Le’s wedding has been canceled and her fiancé, a student at Columbia, is not a suspect.

Read President Levin’s email in full after the jump.

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Annie Le, a graduate student at the Yale School of Medicine, has been missing since Tuesday. Surveillance cameras last spotted Le entering the Amistad Street facility at the medical school where she was a research assistant for associate professor Anton Bennett. Le is supposed to be married on Sunday.

The Yale Daily News describes the 24 year-old student as such:

Le, a 4-foot-11-inch Asian female who has shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes, was last seen wearing a knee-length brown skirt, a bright green short-sleeved T-shirt, brown shoes and a brown necklace.

Curiously, Le had left her purse, cell phone, and other belongings in her lab before leaving. She’s carrying only her Yale ID card and does not have access to a car.

Anyone with information about Le’s whereabouts should contact the Yale Police Department at (203) 432-4400. We will make any necessary jokes upon her safe return.