Raymond Clark III, the 24-year-old lab technician accused of strangling Yale pharmacology student Annie Le to death last fall, pled not guilty yesterday to two charges: murder and felony murder. The court hit Clark with the latter, surprise charge–which would allow the jury to convict even if the killing was only an accident, committed during another felony (rape, kidnapping, etc.)–at the beginning of Tuesday’s hearing.

The double not-guilty plea comes in the wake of mounting evidence against the Middletown resident, and gruesome details recently revealed in an 80 page arrest-warrant. The document detailed suspicious behavior on the part of Clark–including attempts to hide and clean bloody evidence–gore-stained articles of clothing (which he changed three times on the day of the murder), biological evidence in his car and home, scratches and cuts on his skin–indicating a struggle–and overuse of his keycard in Le’s work area. From the affidavit:

“While turning towards Officer Wood, Clark moved [a bloodstained] box of wipes from the corner to the far right corner and turned the box so that the blood splatter was facing to the right hand side of the cart away from plain sight.” Clark moved the box, then “leaned up against the cart and made small talk” with Wood. [New Haven Independent]

Clark is currently passing his time in maximum security prison on $3 million bail. He receives regular visits from his former fiancee–also a lab technician–and parents. A jailer described Clark as:

“nervous,” “very respectful,” and asking “many questions.”

He is no longer on suicide watch, and his fellow inmates have reportedly nicknamed him “Ray Ray.” He is allowed recreation time, and, according to his defenders, Beth Merkin and Joe Lopez, his mood is “good.”

Annie Le, Yale GRD ‘13, was the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, grew up in tiny Placerville, California, and was her high school’s valedictorian. Friends described her as perpetually energetic, academically and intellectually impassioned, and very, very in love. At the time of her murder, she was preparing to marry her fiance, Columbia grad student and U of Rochester sweetheart Jonathan Widawsky. Her brother, Chris Le, wrote:

“She may be small, but she be fierce. Stuck in a 4′ 11″ frame, she had a 7′ tall personality. She will always live on through us.”

Le was last seen alive on security camera, entering 10 Amistad Hall at 10am on September 8, 2009. On her planned wedding day, September 13, investigators discovered her body, stuffed inside a wall in the building’s basement. She was 24 years old.

After the jump, read excerpts from the Clark case’s official affidavit, detailing the crime.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.