Judge Releases Car Seized After Le Slaying

NEW HAVEN — Someone is getting Raymond J. Clark III’s red Ford Mustang.

But it’s not clear yet to whom the car belonging to the only suspect in the slaying of Yale graduate student Annie Le will go.

In a Superior Court session that lasted about 30 seconds Wednesday, Judge Roland Fasano granted a motion by Clark’s attorney, Joseph E. Lopez, to release the car. They did not say where the car would go.

Search warrant affidavits released in December in the Le slaying showed police found red-stained items in Clark’s car, a blood-stained kitchen floor in his apartment, and more items with blood-like stains in another car he rode in the day Le disappeared.

Le was found Sept. 13 behind the wall of a Yale research building.

Regarding the car, the arrest warrant affidavit for Clark said: “Officers observed within the vehicle, in plain view, a pair of white sneakers with unknown reddish stains, a blue in color unknown garment similar to hospital ‘scrubs’ and a dark in color garbage bag.”

Police in September towed the car away for testing.

Clark is charged with murder. He has pleaded not guilty in the case. He was in court today in an orange prison jumpsuit.

Suspect Pleads Not Guilty in Yale Murder Case

USNews.com- This is a case that will be followed closely in the Yale University community and beyond: the trial of Raymond Clark III, a former Yale lab technician accused of murdering graduate student Annie Le. And the first big news from the proceedings happened yesterday.

In a short court appearance Tuesday, Clark pleaded not guilty to the murder of Le, the Yale Daily News reports. The prosecution added a charge of felony murder to the case, which would allow a jury to convict Clark of killing Le even if the death happened unintentionally in the process of committing another felony, the report says.

Clark also waived his right to a probable cause hearing, at which prosecutors would have had to show that they had enough evidence to proceed.

"In any hypothetical homicide, felony murder ensures the prosecution won't get boxed in," Beth Merkin, one of Clark's public defenders, tells the Daily News. "It provides for alternate theories to be made about the crime."

Clark was arrested on September 17 after the discovery of Le's body hidden in a lab building shocked Yale's New Haven, Conn., campus.

Lab Worker Arrested in Yale Student's Killing

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (CNN) -- A Yale University lab technician was arrested Thursday and charged with murder in the slaying of a graduate student whose body was found in the basement wall of an off-campus medical research building, police said.

Raymond Clark was apprehended about 8:10 a.m. ET at a Super 8 motel in Cromwell, Connecticut, where he had spent the night after being released Wednesday following his submission to DNA testing.

Bond for Clark has been set at $3 million, New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said.

Annie Le's body was found in the basement wall of an off-campus medical research building Sunday. She had been strangled.

Le, 24, a pharmacology student, was last seen alive September 8, the day she appeared in a surveillance video entering a four-story lab at 10 Amistad St., about 10 blocks from the main campus.

Her body was found on what was to have been her wedding day.

Lewis said the arrest "went smoothly."

He could not release details about the charges or whether DNA results led police to arrest Clark, who was initially described as a person of interest in the case.

"This arrest warrant has been sealed, so no further information can be released in order to comply with this court order," Lewis said.

He called the killing "an issue of workplace violence."

Clark could have been arrested Wednesday if he had declined to provide DNA samples and allow police to search his home, but he was released after complying, New Haven city spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga.

Two other search warrants also were executed Wednesday -- one on property belonging to Clark that was not named in the first warrant, and a second for Clark's vehicle, which was being processed Wednesday evening, Lewis said earlier.

He said Clark is a technician who does "custodial-type" work at the building. He answered police's questions for a while at first, but later retained an attorney and stopped, Lewis said.

Lewis said Clark and Le worked in the same building and passed in the hallway, but he refused to comment further on whether they knew each other.

Investigators have collected about 250 pieces of evidence, Lewis said.

"If we have one match on a person we know was at that location," police will seek an arrest warrant, he said Wednesday. Lewis earlier said police had reviewed about 700 hours of video and interviewed more than 150 people, some more than once.

A senior police official disputed Yale University President Richard Levin's claims that the suspect pool would be a "limited number" of people who had been in the basement the day Le disappeared.

"We know everyone that was in the basement ... and we passed that on to police," Levin said. "There is an abundance of evidence."

But the police official, whom CNN is not naming because of the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation, said investigators believe dozens of people could have had access to that area of the building.

Authorities have not released information on what DNA evidence may have been found, although investigators said earlier that bloody clothing was found hidden above tiles in a drop ceiling in another part of the building.

Police have not described the clothes that were found, nor said to whom they might have belonged. Teams of investigators at a Connecticut State Police lab worked through the weekend processing and examining the bloodstained garments.

But Thomas Kaplan, editor in chief of the Yale Daily News, said a Yale police official told the college paper that the clothes were not what Le was wearing when she entered the building.

Lewis said Wednesday that processing of the building was nearing completion and police would likely clear it Thursday morning.

Le was to have been married Sunday on New York's Long Island to Jonathan Widawsky, a Columbia University graduate student.

Le was from Placerville, California, and seemed to have been aware of the risks of crime in a university town. In February, she compared crime and safety at Yale with other Ivy League schools for a piece for B magazine, published by the medical school.

Among the tips she offered: Keep a minimum amount on your person. When she walked over to the research building last week, she left her purse, credit cards and cell phone in her office.

Police Seek DNA From Yale Worker in Death of Student

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (CNN) -- Police said Tuesday night they have a Yale University employee in custody in connection with the killing of Yale student Annie Le.

A judge has issued a search warrant and a body warrant on Raymond Clark, 24, of Middletown, police said.

The body warrant allows police to collect DNA from Clark, who will be arrested if he does not comply but will be released if he does, police said.

Le's body was found Sunday in a wall of an off-campus medical research building, police said.

Clark is a lab technician at Yale, police said at a news conference Tuesday night.

Earlier Tuesday, a senior police official told CNN that investigators have interviewed more than 200 people in the case.

The official also disputed Yale University President Richard Levin, who had indicated that the suspect pool would be a "limited number" of people who had been in the basement the day Le disappeared.

"We know everyone that was in the basement ... and we passed that on to police," Levin said. "There is an abundance of evidence."

But the police official, whom CNN is not naming because of the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation, said investigators believe dozens of people could have had access to that area of the building.

Le, 24, disappeared September 8. She was last seen on surveillance video as she entered the four-story lab at 10 Amistad Street, about 10 blocks from the main campus. After going over hours of tapes, authorities said they had not found images of her leaving the building.

The police official said that investigators were unlikely to make any arrest until DNA evidence is returned from analysis and that the probe could take days.

Police have not released information on what DNA evidence may have been found, although investigators said earlier that bloody clothing was found hidden above tiles in a drop ceiling in another part of the building.

Authorities have not described the clothes that were found, nor said to whom they might have belonged. Teams of investigators at a Connecticut State Police lab worked through the weekend processing and examining the bloodstained clothes.

But Thomas Kaplan, editor in chief of the Yale Daily News, said a Yale police official told the paper that the clothes were not what Le was wearing when she entered the building.

On Sunday, New Haven Police spokesman Joe Avery said that Le's killing was not a random act but would not elaborate.

Meanwhile, a home in Middletown, Connecticut -- believed to be the home of a Yale technician -- was the scene of a large police presence Tuesday. Police, however, would not say whether their presence at the home was related to their investigation of Le's death.

Le, a graduate student in Yale's pharmacology program, was to have been married Sunday on New York's Long Island to Jonathan Widawsky, a graduate student at Columbia University.

Her friend Vanessa Flores said Le was overjoyed about getting married.

"She was just so excited about this wedding and everything from, you know, her flowers to her wedding dress and just certain details about it," Flores told HLN's Nancy Grace. "We talked about this back in 2008. She was already thinking about the weather, whether June, July was going to be too hot, August, so September, would it be nice?"

Le was from Placerville, California, and seemed to have been well aware of the risks of crime in a university town. In February, she compared crime and safety at Yale with other Ivy League schools for a piece for B magazine, published by the medical school.

Among the tips she offered: Keep a minimum amount on your person. When she walked over to the research building on September 8, she left her purse, credit cards and cell phone in her office.