NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Police in Connecticut on Sunday said they found what they think is the body of a Yale University graduate student and bride-to-be inside the wall of a university building where she was last seen five days before.
New Haven Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard said officials presumed the body was that of doctoral student Annie Le, although they had not yet positively identified it. Le has been the focus of a massive police search since Tuesday.
New Haven police said they have contacted Le’s family and have assumed control of the investigation, which is now being treated as a homicide.
State police found the body at about 5 p.m. Sunday in an area of the building that houses utility cables that run between floors.
Le was last seen Tuesday morning. She swiped her identification card to enter the building that morning, but there was no record of her leaving, despite about 75 surveillance cameras that cover the complex. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her office.
In a story published Saturday, the Yale Daily News quoted an unnamed New Haven Police Department official as saying bloody clothes were found in a ceiling at the building.
Yale offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to Le’s whereabouts.
Le, 24, was from Placerville, Calif. She was to marry Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky on Sunday. Police say Widawsky is not a suspect and is assisting with the investigation.
On Sunday, students prayed for Le’s safe return at the University Church.
“It has been a week that has tested many people in many different ways,” the Rev. Ian Buckner Oliver said at the service. “. . . It has brought up a lot of worry and concern for her and for all our safety.”
The student-dominated congregation offered a moment of silence and prayer “for Annie, and her family, who have arrived here in New Haven, for her fiance, on this, what would have been their wedding day,” Oliver said.
