Yale murder suspect gets regular visits from fiancee

The fiancee of accused Yale killer Raymond J. Clark III has visited him in prison nearly every week since Clark's arrest last year in connection with the grisly slaying of Annie Le, according to prison records obtained by Newsday.

Like Clark's parents, fiancee Jennifer Hromadka has made the frequent trips, sometimes at night and on weekends, to the high-security MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in South Suffield, Conn., where the accused killer is jailed on $3 million bond.

The visitor logs are among more than 150 pages of Clark's Connecticut Department of Correction file that detail Clark's time in lockup since his arrest on Sept. 17.

Clark's case is to be heard Tuesday in Superior Court in New Haven. He is expected to plead not guilty, according to an Associated Press report. Joe Lopez, Clark’s attorney, said Clark plans to waive his right to a probable cause hearing at which prosecutors would have to prove they have enough evidence to justify the murder charge, the report said.

The prison records show that since Clark's arraignment just blocks from Yale's gothic campus, he has been subjected to the everyday indignities of prison life, from being forced to wear a bulky anti-suicide smock upon intake to being strip-searched multiple times in a single day when he got to jail - procedures guards preserved on videotape, the records show.

In prison paperwork, Clark wrote in neat penmanship that his nickname was "Ray Ray," that he is not a drug user, and that he's held jobs at Walmart and Yale University, where he worked as an animal technician in the lab building where Le, 24, did her research and was later found dead behind the wall that's behind a toilet.

"Nervous," "very respectful," and asking "many questions" is how one jailer described Clark, according to records.

Fearful that other inmates might extort, abuse or assault Clark, officials kept him largely secluded at first, but now he shares a cell.

Using an abbreviation, another document said of the 5-foot-9, 190-pound Clark: "I/M could become a victim due to his slight frame and because it's his 1st incarceration. . . .

"Inmate Clark's case has generated a tremendous amount of media coverage throughout Connecticut and across the nation, to include National TV stations and media," one official wrote. "General Population placement may result in inmate Clark being assaulted due to inmates wanting to gain notoriety for themselves."

Clark has acclimated to his new life behind bars, another document said: "I/M Clark observed quickly interacting with other - I/Ms."

Clark, who turns 25 on Thursday, has been assigned a regular group of inmates for recreation.

>>PHOTOS: Click here to see photos from Annie Le's funeral, and the latest photos of Raymond Clark