Annie Marie Le
Courtesy Yale University
Newly released documents provide a vivid description of the suspicious actions that led them to university lab technician, Raymond Clark, 24, who was arrested after Le's body was found stuffed into a ceiling duct at the building of the New Haven, Conn., campus where she worked.
On Sept. 10, two days after Le went missing days before her wedding, Rachel Roth, a graduate student she had worked with, approached Yale Police Officer Sabrina Wood and showed her a box of sanitary wipes that appeared to have a blood spatter on it, according to arrest warrant affidavits.
Suspicious Behavior
Wood told police she had found the box on a steel push cart outside the room Le was last known to have entered. Meanwhile Clark, not yet a suspect, entered and exited the room several times, and at one point stopped and looked at the box of Wipe Alls. Subsequent DNA tests determined the blood on the box was Le's, according to the documents.Clark's behavior turned even more questionable. Back in room G13, he positioned himself between Officer Wood and the metal cart and, while turning toward the police officer, "moved the box of wipes from the corner to the far right corner and turned the box so that the blood spatter was facing the right hand side of the cart away from plain sight," the court documents say.
That was the beginning of the end for Clark, who was arrested seven days later and charged with strangling Le to death. (His lawyer says he intends to plead not guilty.) The arrest warrant affidavits detail other evidence the cops gathered against him including a green pen found under Le's body that had both Le and Clark's DNA on it, and a bloody sock with both Clark and Le's DNA on it. Tests on other items – including work boots with missing shoelaces and "blood-like stains" on them and the words "Ray C" written on the back – are still pending.
So far, none of the documents released suggest a motive for the murder. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 21.
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