Yale slaying suspect a no-show at hearing

NEW HAVEN, CONN. - Accused killer Raymond Clark III did not appear at a court hearing yesterday, where a judge said he would decide later this week whether to unseal evidence authorities say proves Clark strangled Annie Le and hid her body in a laboratory wall at Yale University.

In a jailhouse visit Monday, Clark and his public-defender, attorney Joseph Lopez, met for several hours, when Clark decided he'd stay in jail rather than make the trip from the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in South Suffield, Conn., Lopez said. Clark's presence was not mandatory.

Clark, 24, has not entered a plea, but his attorney says he will eventually plead not guilty. Clark has been jailed on a $3-million bond since being arrested Sept. 17 on a murder charge in the death of Le, the Yale pharmacology graduate student who police initially suspected was a runaway bride. Her body was found on what was to be the day of her Long Island wedding to a Huntington man.

"He's going along with our advice," Lopez told Judge Ronald D. Fasano, referring to the decision not to attend Superior Court in New Haven.

Authorities have not made public their evidence linking Clark to the killing.

Anonymous law-enforcement sources have said the case against Clark, a former animal lab technician in the Yale lab where Le did research, includes key card swipes linking him to the scene of the crime, DNA matches, messages sent between Clark and Le, and proof that Clark tried to clean up the crime scene in the days after her disappearance.

Fasano said his decision on whether to unseal the four arrest and search warrants - a decision in response to a motion filed by media organizations - would come this week.

The hearing yesterday afternoon lasted less than 5 minutes.

The next hearing in the case was rescheduled for Dec. 21 at 2 p.m.