Annie Le, Yale Student and Bride to Be is missing *found deceased*

[katyk]

I'm thinking the professor. Someone had to have access and some knowledge of that building. I wrote for our college paper about crime and believe me, local thugs never even read it or knew about it.

I feel so bad for her fiance and family. To think she was probably looking forward to today more than anything and it being taken away so heinously. I just hope they find who did it to help the family find closure and get justice.

[Whisper]

I agree b/c since Columbine and Virginia Tech,they have to have swipe cards to get into those buildings(not the class's) but labs,librarys etc,etc.So either its a person that works there or stole a swipe card somehow we will have to wait and see.

[Whisper]

Police plan to work through the night to remove the unidentified body, which is still in the wall, police spokesman Joe Avery told CNN.

,

[akika666]

RIP Annie... i've spent lots of nights and weekends working in various medical school and hospital labs alone, constantly freaking myself out about my safety. but i NEVER would have been worried on a Tuesday afternoon! that poor woman, i hope she didn't suffer much at the hands of the person who did this.

if it is true that the whole joint is covered by video surveillance, how can there be much of a whodunit here? or are there blind spots in the coverage? those access swipe cards aren't that hard to steal or "borrow," but video is video, no?

[Morbid]

Ok, finally got this one up front. Didn't want to feature it until it was determined she hadn't taken off. Come on out to the FP and let's dissect this!

[Rockin Ma]

@Morbid I can't update on the front from work

New Haven (AP) — A former animal research technician has pleaded guilty to murder and attempted sexual assault in the 2009 killing of a Yale University graduate student.
Raymond Clark III entered the plea Thursday under an agreement with prosecutors that calls for a 44-year sentence.
He was accused of strangling 24-year-old Annie Le (LAY), of Placerville, Calif., in a case that drew intense national media attention to the Ivy League university.
Le's body was found stuffed behind a research lab wall on Sept. 13, 2009, five days after she was last seen inside the Yale medical building. It would have been her wedding day in New York.
The 26-year-old Clark had been charged with murder and felony murder, each carrying a possible sentence of 25 to 60 years.

http://www.theday.com/article/201103...110319706/1047

[Rockin Ma]

@Morbid I'm sorry I can't link from the iPod but be got 44 years today with a pathetic one page statement of "I'm sorry" after an hour of victim impact statements someone could probably find good article at wtnh.com

[Rockin Ma]

The discovery of semen is new news to me. I was under the impression she was murdered because he had some issue with the workplace... dirty animal cages or something.

The family of a Yale University graduate student killed in a research lab just days before she had planned to get married in 2009 sued the Ivy League school Tuesday, claiming it had failed to adequately protect women on campus for years.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in New Haven Superior Court by lawyers for the family of Annie Le, a 24-year-old Placerville, Calif., native whose strangled body was found stuffed upside-down in a wall at the Yale lab building on Sept. 13, 2009. That was the same day of her scheduled wedding and five days after she disappeared. Prosecutors also said there was evidence of a sexual assault.

Yale officials said in a statement Tuesday that the lawsuit had no merit and no additional security measures could have prevented the killing.

An animal research technician who worked in the same building, Raymond Clark III, was sentenced to 44 years in prison in June for murdering Le. He apologized for the crime at the sentencing hearing, but offered no explanation.

The lawsuit claims that before Le's killing, Yale had for years failed to take adequate steps to protect women on the New Haven campus. It also claims school officials should have known that Clark posed a potential danger to Le's safety, because he had previously demonstrated aggressive behavior and a "violent propensity towards women."

In April, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights confirmed that it was investigating complaints by Yale University students that the university had a sexually hostile environment and failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment concerns.

"Yale's persistent tolerance of sexual harassment and sexual assaults on campus caused students to file (the) complaint against Yale University," the Le family's lawyers, New York-based Joseph Tacopina and Stamford, Conn.-based Paul Slager, said in a statement Tuesday. "And, just five days before she was to be married, Annie Le was a victim of that environment."

The lawsuit, which names Yale University and its medical school, only says it is seeking an unspecified amount of money greater than $15,000, which is standard in Connecticut when lawsuits are first filed. The damages and legal fees sought by the plaintiffs could total in the millions of dollars.

The Yale statement said the lawsuit "serves neither justice nor Annie's memory, and the university will defend against it as appropriate."

"Yale had no information indicating that Raymond Clark was capable of committing this terrible crime, and no reasonable security measures could have prevented his unforeseeable act," the statement said.

The building and labs where Le and Clark worked were accessible only to people with security cards that had to be swiped through security boxes.

A spokesman for the Le family didn't return a phone message Tuesday.

Relatives previously have said that what should have been a joyous wedding suddenly turned into mourning the loss of a woman whose research included finding new treatments for chronic diseases. She was a doctoral pharmacology student who worked on a team that experimented on mice as part of research into enzymes that could have implications for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy.

Lab workers told police that Clark was controlling and viewed the lab and its mice as his territory.

Clark pleaded guilty in March to murder and attempted sexual assault under an agreement with prosecutors. The sexual assault plea was entered under the Alford doctrine, where the defendant doesn't agree with the allegations but concedes the state has enough evidence to get a conviction.

Prosecutors said there was evidence that Clark tried after the killing to generate an alibi, scrub the crime scene and even fish evidence out from behind the wall. Clark appeared happy in surveillance video taken before the killing, but later he was alone with his face in his hands at a time authorities believe was after the killing, authorities said.

Authorities said Le had broken bones and that her underwear had been disarranged. She was 4 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 89 pounds, while Clark was 5-foot-9 and 190 pounds.

Prosecutors also cited DNA evidence, including Clark's semen and a pen under Le's body that had her blood and Clark's DNA. Court papers describe a bloody crime scene and Clark's efforts to scrub floors. Investigators say Clark tried to hide a box of cleaning wipes that later was found to have traces of Le's blood.

http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/crime/f...ues-university