NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A Yale graduate student found stuffed in the wall of a research center had been suffocated, the medical examiner reported Wednesday as police awaited DNA tests on evidence taken from a lab technician who worked in the building.
Police call Raymond Clark III a “person of interest” in the slaying of Annie Le. Authorities hoped to compare DNA taken from Clark’s hair, fingernails and saliva with more than 250 pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene on the Ivy League campus and from Clark’s Middletown, Conn., apartment and his car.
“It’s all up to the lab now,” Police Chief James Lewis said at a news conference. “The basis of the investigation now is really on the physical evidence.”
Meanwhile, The Hartford Courant reported that computer records show that Clark was the last person to see Le alive, according to a law enforcement source.
Investigators traced Le’s and Clark’s movements through their computerized swipe cards, said the source, who is familiar with the investigation. Le entered the Yale laboratory about 10 a.m. Sept. 8. She passed through a basement lab area moments later. Then she swiped her way into a separate room of that lab.
Clark entered that room a short time later, the source said. Le was never seen again, and her card was never used again.
Clark moved around the laboratory area quite a bit that day, including entering rooms that he normally would not be expected to be in, the source said.
