Lab Technician Arrested in Murder of Yale Student

Lab Technician Arrested in Murder of Yale Student
By JAMES BARRON and SERGE F. KOVALESKI
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 17, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/nyregion/18yale.html?_r=1&ref=global-home


A lab technician was arrested early Thursday and charged in the murder of Annie M. Le, a Yale graduate student whose body was hidden in the wall of a university building after she was strangled, the police in New Haven said.

The technician, Raymond Clark III, 24, was taken into custody at a Super 8 motel in Cromwell, Conn., after DNA evidence linked him to Ms. Le’s killing, the police said. He did not resist. Chief James Lewis of the New Haven police would not provide a motive when he announced the arrest, but he emphasized that the authorities believed it was a workplace crime.

"It is important to note that this is not about urban crime, university crime, domestic crime, but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country,” he said.

Mr. Clark was charged with murder and arraigned in New Haven Superior Court. Judge Jon C. Blue set bail at $3 million because, he said, it was “obviously a very serious case.”

Mr. Clark, wearing khaki pants and a striped polo shirt, which exposed tattoos that swirled around both his forearms, kept his head down throughout the five-minute arraignment. In response to the judge’s confirming that he had read Mr. Clark his rights, Mr. Clark simply nodded and said, “Yes, Sir.”

He did not enter a plea, and his next court appearance will be on Oct. 6. The arrest warrant was sealed for 14 days because it was part of the continuing investigation, the authorities said.

Mr. Clark had been described as a “person of interest” in the case earlier in the week, and he had been taken briefly into custody, at which point DNA and hair samples were taken from him under court order. He was then released, but the police said they remained aware of his whereabouts at all times.

A law enforcement official said on Wednesday that Mr. Clark had scratch marks on his chest and on his arms, where there were also bruises. This raised the suspicions of investigators, said the official, who refused to be identified because the case was still open.

Mr. Clark and Ms. Le worked in the same building — Mr. Clark as a technician and Ms. Le watching experiments with mice — but little else was known about whether there was any connection or relationship between them. Ms. Le’s body was found in a wall in the basement of the building on Sunday, the day she was to be married. She had been missing since the previous Tuesday.

Chief Lewis said that Mr. Clark and Ms. Le did not have a romantic connection, and he repeated that it was not a “street crime” or a “domestic crime.” He added: “We have to really educate ourselves who we work with and how we deal with each other and those issues.”

Richard C. Levin, the president of Yale, released a statement that echoed Chief Lewis’s comment describing the killing as workplace related. “This incident could have happened in any city, in any university, or in any workplace,” he said. “It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures.”

He implored members of the Yale population to trust one another, referring at one point to those who work in laboratory settings, as Ms. Le and Mr. Clark did. “It is frightening that a member of our own community might have committed this terrible crime,” Mr. Levin said. “But we must not let this incident shatter our trust in one another. The work of the University requires us to engage with each other in the classroom, to collaborate in the laboratory, and to trust one another in workplaces across the campus.”

Looking forward, he said: “In the days and weeks ahead, we will redouble our efforts to educate the community about Yale’s zero tolerance policy for violent, threatening, and abusive behavior.”

The arrest capped 24 hours of fast-moving developments in the case.

On Thursday, the police had said that Mr. Clark was not the only person they were looking at in connection with Ms. Le’s disappearance and death. But he was the only one from whom they had taken DNA samples, and the only one whose car — a red Ford Mustang — they had hauled away to search.

James Barron contributed reporting.