'Intense' search for missing Yale student, set to wed on LI

The FBI and New Haven police on Friday continued their intensive search for a Yale University graduate student who disappeared just days before she was to marry a Huntington man this weekend.

On campus early Friday, missing-persons posters with photos of Annie Le were taped to the windows of the Yale research lab where she was last seen on Tuesday morning. One of the photos in the posters shows her entering the building, carrying papers, the morning she went missing.

The 24-year-old doctoral student in pharmacology "has not been seen or heard from by family, co-workers and friends" since then, according to the poster.

Le is to wed Huntington native Jonathan Widawsky, 24, a Columbia University graduate student in physics, at the North Ritz Club in Syosset on Sunday morning, according to a neighbor who is invited to the ceremony. A reception hall manager said Friday the wedding has not been called off.

"I heard she was a nice girl and very much in love with him, and he with her," said Lucille Mayer, who lives next door to the Widawsky family on Bittersweet Place in Huntington.

No one answered the door at the Widawsky home Thursday night, and Jonathan Widawsky could not be reached for comment. On Friday morning, a bouquet of flowers leaned against the front door.

A manager at the Syosset reception hall where the couple is supposed to get married Sunday said the wedding is still on - so far.

"We spoke to their parents last week, and we have no idea if they want to cancel," said Vasilios Nerantzinis, a manager at the Jericho Turnpike venue. "No one has called us to cancel."

Yale officials told the Yale Daily News that Widawsky is in New Haven, cooperating with authorities investigating Le's disappearance.

Entries on her Facebook page indicated a young woman excited about her upcoming wedding, the New Haven Register reported. "Lucky I'm in love with my best friend," Le posted.

Le swiped her university identification card to enter the lab building about 10 a.m., but left her purse, cell phone, credit cards and cash in her office, located in another Yale building about three blocks away, the Yale Daily News reported. The university stepped up security in that building Thursday, according to published reports.

Tom Conroy, a Yale spokesman, told the Register last night that "there's no evidence . . . at this time" of foul play in Le's disappearance.

State police used bloodhounds to search the area where Le was last seen, and the FBI was assisting the investigation, Yale Police Chief James Perotti told The Associated Press. Authorities also are reviewing images from closed-circuit cameras.

"It's an intense, ongoing investigation," Yale spokeswoman Dorie Baker told the Hartford Courant.

Photocopied missing person posters featuring photos of Le and a police tip line phone number are posted across town - from the main campus to the research building where the bride-to-be was last seen to the downtown Dunkin' Donuts.

On Friday morning, the block around Amistad Hall, the research building, was lined with satellite trucks and press vans.

On the quiet, tree-lined block where Le lives, gone is the throng of reporters who had camped out when news broke of her disappearance, neighbors said.

A package in the bride-to-be's name was left at the stoop of her New Haven home, where she lives on the third floor. The package was from Rue La La, which bills itself as "an exclusive online destination of premier brand, private sale Boutiques."

A resident of the house declined to comment Friday morning.

On the Columbia campus, Widawsky lives with roommate Theodore Kramer on the sixth floor of a six-story beige brick building at the corner of 118th and Amsterdam streets. Kramer was not available Friday morning.

Le, originally from Placerville, Calif., met Widawsky when they were undergraduates at the University of Rochester, according to published reports.

She was a lively, hardworking student then, according to her mentor, Rocky Tuan, who supervised a highly selective National Institutes of Health undergraduate scholars program.

"She was a very happy person," Tuan told the Register. "Everybody got along with her. She's always smiling, laughing."

Le, 4-foot-11 and weighing 90 pounds, was last seen wearing a brown skirt, green short-sleeved T-shirt, brown shoes and a brown necklace.

Her cell phone voice message says: "Hey. You've reached Annie. Please leave your name, number and a brief message, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Bye."

With Zachary R. Dowdy, Joseph Mallia, Pervaiz Shallwani, Karla Schuster and Chau Lam