Lab tech Raymond Clark arrested in Annie Le slay
** CORRECTS PHOTOGRAPHER'S NAME AND SOURCE ** Raymond Clark III, 24, is driven away from an apartment building by police on Tuesday Sept. 15, 2009 in Middletown, Conn. Police released the Yale University animal research technician early Wednesday after collecting DNA samples and questioning him in the killing of graduate student Annie Le who worked in the same lab. (AP Photo/The Hartford Courant, John Woike) MANDATORY CREDIT Credit: AP Photo/John Woike
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Police moved in on a Connecticut motel room Thursday morning and arrested Yale lab technician Raymond Clark III for the murder of grad student Annie Le, in what they called a case of "workplace violence."
New Haven Police Department Chief James Lewis said that Clark, 24, of Middletown, Conn., was arrested at about 8 a.m. at a Super 8 Motel in Cromwell, Conn.
“This is not about urban crime. It is not about university or campus crime,” Lewis said. “This is about workplace violence.”
Clark, who worked as a technician at the Yale Animal Research Center in the building where Le was last seen entering on Sept. 8, is being held on $3 million bond, Lewis said.
Clark was removed from the motel in handcuffs Thursday and placed into a patrol car for his transport to New Haven, about 30 miles away. “He’s on his way” to police headquarters, Lewis said.
The body of Le was found stuffed into a basement wall in the lab building on Sunday, the same day she was to be married in Syosset to Jonathan Widawsky of Huntington.
The Rev. Dennis Smith, a spokesman for the Le family, said earlier on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday that police saying an arrest is expected soon is “wonderful news” to the family and will help give some closure.
“It’s such a terrible thing to have lost Annie as they have and not know who did it. That adds to the grief,” he said.
Clark had been questioned late Tuesday, after police executed search warrants for both his apartment at 40 Ferry St. in Middletown and one for his body, and then was brought to a state police lab, where DNA samples were taken. He was then released.
Wednesday, two additional warrants were served — one for a red Ford Mustang driven by Clark, the other to search his apartment for items not included in the first search.
Police have said they have about 250 pieces of evidence that are being analyzed and police sources said DNA results had linked Clark to at least some of that evidence.
Lewis said at a news conference Wednesday dozens of FBI and Connecticut troopers swarmed Clark’s apartment Tuesday to take him to extract that DNA, adding: “If we have one match on a person that we know was at that location, we will be going for an arrest warrant. It’s all up to the lab now.”
Noting that investigators have been careful to not have “tunnel vision” and focus on one suspect prematurely, Lewis still said of Clark: “He is the only person that we have gotten any type of search warrant on at this time.”
Meanwhile, The Hartford Courant, citing to a law-enforcement source, reported Wednesday night that computer records show Clark was the last person to see Le alive.
Investigators traced Le’s and Clark’s movements through their computerized swipe cards, the source said.
Those records showed that Clark entered the same basement room in the lab a short time after Le did and that Le was never seen again and her card was never used again, the Courant reported.
With Zachary Dowdy and The Associated Press.
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