Cops in Annie Le case to seek arrests via DNA matches

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Hours after a medical examiner's report was released saying Yale graduate student Annie Le was strangled, New Haven police said they will seek an arrest warrant for anyone whose DNA is a match to any of hundreds of items seized in the investigation.

New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said at a news conference Wednesday that the dozens of FBI and Connecticut troopers who swarmed Raymond Clark's Ferry Street apartment in Middletown, Conn., Tuesday night were taking him in by court order to extract DNA samples from his body.

"If we have one match on a person that we know was at that location, we will be going for an arrest warrant," he said. "It's all up to the lab now."

They executed search warrants at Clark's home and car in Middletown and the Amistad Street building in New Haven where Clark, 24, worked as a staff technician and where Le's body was found Sunday, the day of her scheduled wedding in Syosset.

"He is the only person that we have gotten any type of search warrant on at this time," Lewis said, despite noting that investigators are careful to not have "tunnel vision" and focus on one suspect prematurely.

But he said police know where Clark is at all times.

Last to see her alive

The Hartford Courant reported last night that computer records show that Clark was the last person to see her alive, according to a law-enforcement source.

Investigators traced Le's and Clark's movements through their computerized swipe cards, said the source. Clark entered the same basement room in the lab a short time after Le did and Le was never seen again and her card was never used again, the Courant reported.

Late Wednesday night, the Courant was reporting that New Haven police officers were staking out the Super 8 motel on Route 372 in Cromwell, keeping an eye on a "person of interest," in the event that an arrest warrant was signed Wednesday night, according to Cromwell police Capt. Roy Nelson.

Searching for one attacker

Lewis said he was not prepared to say whether Le, 24, died on Tuesday, Sept. 8. But he did say that police believe they are searching for one attacker.

Clark was cooperative when he was taken in Tuesday, Lewis said, but added that he had earlier invoked his right to remain silent and has retained an attorney.

"We couldn't question him if we wanted to," Lewis said.

Clark's attorney, David Dworski of Fairfield, declined to comment on Clark's location. "We're committed to proceeding appropriately with the authorities, with whom we are in regular communication," he said.

Clark, who police maintained was not under arrest though he was handcuffed when led out of his home at about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday, was released at 3 a.m. Wednesday.

Lewis said the handcuffs were used to prevent possible tainting of evidence, such as any scrapings under Clark's fingernails.

Robert Gottlieb, an attorney in Commack and Manhattan, said the handcuffs were part of normal procedure and did not immediately raise constitutional questions since Clark's body was subject to search. The securing of his hands was as normal as sealing off a room during a search for evidence.

But, Gottlieb said, "If it was done improperly and without probable cause, the evidence would have to be suppressed."