Yale: Annie Le slaying suspect had building access until arrest
Cops searched the home of Yale lab tech Raymond Clark, whom they identified as a "person of interest" in the Annie Le slaying. Credit: MySpace.com
Even after police suspected lab technician Raymond Clark was the man who killed a Yale University graduate student and stuffed her body behind a wall, he had unfettered access to the Ivy League campus — but was under constant surveillance, officials confirmed Monday.
Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said Monday that the school didn’t disable an identification card that gave Clark access to campus buildings until after his arrest Thursday, four days after 24-year-old Annie Le was found strangled in the lab building where they both worked.
PHOTOS: Click here to see the latest photos of Raymond Clark and Annie Le
Yale referred further questions to the New Haven police. Police said Monday that investigators knew where Clark was at all times after Le’s body was found.
The university had said the day after Le’s body was found that there was no danger to the public.
Police say Clark killed Le, a pharmacology graduate student who did research on the mice that it was Clark’s job to care for, on Sept. 8. Her body was found five days later, on what was to be her wedding day on Long Island.
Clark was under constant surveillance even before Le’s body was found and the case was ruled a homicide. Conroy wouldn’t say whether Clark continued to work in the days before he was arrested.
New Haven police said Monday that they don’t expect to make more arrests in Le’s killing and rebutted media reports that police were considering whether Clark had an accomplice.
“It’s still my belief I don’t expect anyone to be charged,” Police Chief James Lewis said. “But I don’t know where the evidence may take us.”
Lewis confirmed that a car towed by police Saturday from the Cromwell, Conn., hotel where Clark was arrested belonged to his father, Raymond Clark Jr. Clark was either driving his father’s car or was in it at some point, police spokesman Joseph Avery said.
An attorney for the younger Clark didn’t return a call Monday.
Clark was an animal lab technician, cleaning floors and mouse cages in the lab where Le conducted research. Her team experimented on mice as part of research into enzymes that could have implications for treatment of cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that co-workers described Clark as fastidious and territorial about the mice whose cages he cleaned.
Police are investigating whether that attitude might have set off a clash between Clark and Le, originally from Placerville, Calif.
Le will be remembered Wednesday at a private memorial service at the temple that her fiance’s family attends, said Rich Pilatsky, whose wife is the cantor at Temple Beth El in Huntington, N.Y.
Le’s funeral is planned for Saturday at Holy Trinity Church in El Dorado Hills, Calif., said the Rev. Dennis Smith, acting as family spokesman.
PHOTOS: Click here to see the latest photos of Raymond Clark and Annie Le
COMPLETE COVERAGE: Click here to read more stories on Annie Le
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'We have to figure out what happened to these people' More than 100 women have been found dead outside on Long Island since 1976. NewsdayTV's Shari Einhorn and Newsday investigative reporter Sandra Peddie have this exclusive story.
