NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A former animal-research technician was sentenced Friday to 44 years in prison for killing a Yale graduate student days before what was to be her wedding day in 2009.
The judge’s decision came after anguished relatives described how their anticipation of a celebration turned to grief as they returned home with her in a coffin.
Raymond Clark III, 26, apologized in New Haven Superior Court for strangling Annie Le, 24, of Placerville, Calif. Her body was found upside down stuffed in a wall of a research lab Sept. 13, 2009, her wedding day and five days after she was last seen inside the Yale medical building.
“Annie was and will always be a wonderful person, by far a better person that I will ever be in my life,” Clark said. “I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I ruined lives and I’m sorry for taking Annie Le’s life.”
Judge Roland Fasano told Clark that he had snuffed out the life of a promising young woman and virtually destroyed the lives of two families.
Le’s relatives repeatedly sobbed as they described how what was supposed to be a joyous wedding turned into mourning the loss of a woman whose research included finding new treatments for chronic diseases.
Clark, whose fiancee attended the hearing, wiped away tears as they spoke.
“She was about to start her life as a young bride,” said Le’s mother, Vivian. “She told me many times how happy she was to start her family. I will never see her walking down the aisle. I will never hold my grandchildren. I will never see Annie’s dreams come true.”
Clark pleaded guilty in March to murder and attempted sexual assault under an agreement with prosecutors.
A prosecutor said at the time that there was evidence that Clark tried after the killing to generate an alibi, scrub the crime scene and even fish out evidence from behind the wall.
Clark previously had been charged with murder and felony murder, each carrying a possible sentence of 25 to 60 years.
Le was a doctoral pharmacology student who worked on a team that experimented on mice as part of research into enzymes that could have implications for treatment of cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy.
James Bui, Le’s uncle, recalled rocking his niece to sleep as a baby and her excitement at the age of 10 when she finally beat him in Scrabble with the word “czar.”
“All I have left are the happy memories that I shared with Annie,” he said in a statement read by a relative.
