Annie Le murder cops in hunt for 'person of interest,' lab tech Raymond Clark

[steven johnson]

Source: NY Daily News





Cops are on the hunt for Yale lab technician Raymond Clark III who has been identified as a person of interest in the Annie Le murder, sources said Tuesday.

Clark, 24, works as an animal tech in the lab where Le was found dead on Sunday.

Clark did not show up for work - and neither did his sister, brother-in-law or fiance, all of whom work for Yale, the Yale Daily News reports.

Neighbors say they saw Clark and his girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, leaving with suitcases on Sunday around the time cops found Le's body.




Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/15/2009-09-15_cops_set_to_reveal_yale_student_annie_le_cause_of_death_hope_to_make_arrest_tues.html

[CTyankee]

1. Wow. An angry, controlling man keeping pit bulls penned in.

Working in gruesome animal experiments at Yale.

Oh, great. This poor girl might never had even had a chance.

I'm trying hard not to lose it here, but I am NOT liking what I'm hearing on this...

Of course, this IS the NY Daily News, not really given to the highest journalistic standards, so :hide:

[stray cat]

2. Where are you getting your information - for all you know from the article he works on fruit flies

have you ever killed a fly?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

5. Uh-oh - you just embarrassed yourself....

You didn't read the article.

Now, don't you feel silly?

[Barack_America]

15. No fruit flies in a mouse facility.

[zonkers]

49. Undeground fruit-fly fights and clubs are an epidemic here in the south.

[TZ]

29. "gruesome animal experiments"

Yeah. Feeding and cleaning cages makes him FRANKENSTEIN! Idiot.---I guess all Phlebotimists are gruesome Nazi's cause I bet the most technical thing he did was draw blood. :banghead:
More regulations and inspections on animal testing than human testing...

[Barack_America]

34. Well, some of the means of collecting blood are pretty gruesome....

Like from the eye.

If he was full time in the mouse lab he would have also been responsible for disposing of unwanted or sick mice and dealing with their caucuses.

This is a job that many might consider "gruesome".

[ljm2002]

3. That is infuriating...

...we know they interviewed him, that he had scratch marks, failed a polygraph test and requested a lawyer. But all of that together was not enough to hold him for a day or two????? I remember being surprised to hear they weren't holding him, figuring he was a likely flight risk. How the hell hard is that to figure out?

Geeze Louise!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. They didn't have enough to connect him -

a polygraph is worthless, inadmissible as evidence, and if all he had were some scratches, which could be explained in a variety of ways, they didn't have enough to hold him. When he asked for a lawyer, they had to stop.

Until they found her body, they were really hamstrung in terms of being able to make an arrest. If they find his skin under her fingernails, or trace him to the bloody clothes they found (which weren't the victims, I read), then they'd have enough to arrest him.

But, until then, there wasn't anything they could do.

The cops will find him. And soon, I suspect............................

[ozu]

9. Everyone should request a lawyer if questioned

That's not a sign of guilt; it's a sign of a reasonably intelligent person trying not to get fucked over by the judicial system in this country. And polygraphs are junk science that hold no weight in a court of law. No one should even submit to one, regardless of their guilt.

[CTyankee]

10. I agree with you on this. The science is not there on this one.

I just hope there is more to tie him to this, if he is the killer.

His DNA under her fingernails would be a good start...

[wordpix]

38. not yet but wait til end of the week---guy has anger and control issues

Not only screaming at children and his girlfriend, but anyone who keeps a dog in a cage all day is also engaging in animal cruelty.

[paulsby]

25. rubbish advice

one i see all the time.

if you are guilty, DEFINITELY request a lawyer, assuming you don't want to come clean for moral reasons or something.

i've been questioned before (when i was younger, i am a cop now) and gave a good explanation and was set free.

most stops cops do are based on the terry standard and most terry stops are brief detentions and releases. i wanted them to catch the real bad guy and so i answered questions. and that was the end of it.

i can think of scores of cases i have investigated where people answered questions w/o a lawyer and benefited from doing so.

[Hepburn]

28. Bullshit...

...there are good reasons anyone questioned should get a lawyer.

[paulsby]

30. and there are more reasons, that in MANY cases they shouldn't

as a blanket rule, its rubbish.

also, are you referring to custodial interrogations only, or are you including questioning pursuant to terry and.or social contacts?

[uncle ray]

36. police are not qualified to give legal advice.

their advice is probably not going to be in a suspects best interest.

when being questioned, having an attorney present is only going to help. not having one is only going to hurt.

i'm no legal expert, however i have dealt with lying cops on several occasions.

[paulsby]

37. it's a false conclusion

"not having one is only going to hurt"

unsupported by evidence on your part, and disputed by my (20+ yrs of ) law enforcement experience.

you also didn't answer the question as to what you were defining as "questioning", iow custodial interrogation and/or terry and/or social contact

that makes a HUGE difference.

[Hepburn]

42. I will match you my 25+ years as a lawyer and call you on it.

Cops are NOT there for the benefit of the person they are questioning. PERIOD. The only person there who has the knowledge and the obligation to protect the person is his or her lawyer.

I have had to un-do the damage that LE has done over the years way too many times to not strongly advise anyone who is being question to:

1. Shut the hell up; and

2. Lawyer up.

JMHO

[paulsby]

45. cops are there

as impartial gatherers of evidence and to investigate.

it is JUST as important to eliminate suspicion on the innocent as to bring the guilty to justice.

your advice is common, but bogus.

if you are INNOCENT, it is OFTEN to your benefit to answer questions.

and you STILL ignored the question. which makes a significant difference.

[uncle ray]

51. and i have similar decades worth of experience avoiding law enforcement officers.

i'm not naive. i know how the police work.

your question didn't need to be asked, the context here is someone being questioned about a murder, not saying hi to the cop next door. which i do, without an attorney present.:eyes:

[NYC Liberal]

32. Video: Officer George Bruch explains why you should NEVER, EVER talk to the police:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8167533318153586646#docid=6014022229458915912

[paulsby]

24. darn that pesky consitution

and that pesky probable cause!

what's a little unlawful detention, when it's for a good cause huh?

:sarcasm:

[ljm2002]

31. You are right, of course...

...I was under the impression that they could lawfully hold him for a limited period of time based on what they knew so far. Apparently I was wrong about that -- and I certainly would not want them holding him illegally.

Nevertheless, hearing that he had fled made me frustrated. You'd think they could at least keep him under surveillance, given the amount of circumstantial evidence they had.

Well it's moot now anyway, since they found him and have taken more evidence. Maybe this time, having released him, they'll keep better track of him.

He's innocent until proven guilty. I'll admit I think he's the guy. I'll also admit that I am prone to the usual human wish for vengeance against someone who could do such a thing. Not the death-penalty type vengeance, I just want her killer to be locked up forever. So terribly sad.

[paulsby]

33. it is certainly true

that constitutional protections often aid criminal in evading detection, apprehension, and conviction

it's a price we pay.

[Hepburn]

43. Better that 100 guilty men go free than one innocent convicted.

If you don't like following the mandates of the U.S. Const, a suggestion: Get the hell off whatever LE force you are on. If you cannot follow the law and/or feel offended by it, you are in the wrong place.

[paulsby]

46. i agree

one has to be dispassionate and pragmatic.

[chatnoir]

4. If he failed a polygraph and had defensive wounds

sounds like he was an obvious flight risk. Why didn't the PD have someone on this guy?

[CTyankee]

11. I am a New Haven resident, so please do not get me started on this city's PD.

Nothing against the working police. I'm talking about the DeStefano administration. This mayor is a disaster for the city. He is an incompetent, arrogant and corrupt official. I wish we could at long last get rid of him. But unfortunately he is unopposed by any real threats in November. I will vote for the Green Candidate.

NO more! Ricci v. DeStefano was enough for me!

[wordpix]

39. Bysceiwicz for next CT guv!

[CTyankee]

44. Oh, be still my beating heart! Yes! nt

[chatnoir]

7. Someone on Gawker found their MySpace pages

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=196915495

And an older one? Sounds like a real winner:

http://www.myspace.com/140451154

[CTyankee]

8. Well, that second myspace entry sounded pretty interesting...

farts and "my pussy." How lovely a guy is he?

[wordpix]

40. whoops! Account deleted

[LibDemAlways]

12. Wouldn't be surprised if the last thing he googled was

"countries without an extradition treaty with the US." Good luck catching up with him.

[bluestateguy]

13. Ah yes the old "person of interest"

In other words, we don't have enough evidence to use the word "suspect", so we call him a person of interest to cover our ass.

[Barack_America]

14. Hard to understand why he wasn't under surveillance.

He skipped town AFTER they found bloodied clothes in the lab basement. I would think that the suspicion of foul play was high and that point and this guy had already failed a polygraph.

[CTyankee]

16. geez, the guy was skipping outta town just as they were finding the body on Sunday.

Oh, man. What an embarassment for New Haven. I wish to hell we had a mayor that could really DO something other than aggrandize himself constantly (and without merit)...

This mayor, JOHN DESTEFANO (yes, as in Ricci v. DeStefano) has disgraced Democrats AGAIN!

Take note! You heard it here!

[MassLiberal]

17. It was a missing person case before the bloody clothing was found

No evidence of foul play up until that point.

[Barack_America]

18. He skipped town after the bloody clothing was found.

I'm not a cop, but if I were I would have put surveillance on the guy who had scratches on his chest and failed a polygraph test after those clothes were found.

That's what I was trying to say, anyhow.

[MassLiberal]

19. Sorry, I misunderstood your point

Yes, that would make sense -- watching the guy who seems suspicious. I live in the New Haven area and have been following this case very closely, and there is a lot we still don't know. Can the cops keep a guy from leaving home if he's not yet officially a suspect? I don't know. He still hasn't been named as a suspect -- they're still referring to him as a "person of interest." It may be that they don't yet have lab results that link him definitively to the murder.

There are so many unanswered questions at this point.

[Barack_America]

20. I wasn't advocating detaining him in any way, just watching him.

Following him.

In any case, it's a moot point. He's gone (though I suspect he will show up sooner rather than later).

[paulsby]

26. no

"Can the cops keep a guy from leaving home if he's not yet officially a suspect? I don't know"

the only person who can do something like that is a judge, and it's going to require an arraignment and formal charging.

cops can SUGGEST it, but that has no legal authority.

we make arrests on PC. absent PC, people are free to move about at will (well, except for terry stops and community caretaking detentions and...)

[MassLiberal]

21. They've got him

Just saw a press conference by NHPD -- cops had a search warrant to enter Clark's apartment and take him into custody. The officer who spoke said they are looking to gather some physical evidence (DNA) from Clark but emphasized that he is not being arrested yet.

WFSB: http://www.wfsb.com/news/20929480/detail.html

[mackerel]

22. This case was very serious and the FBI was involved.

Apparently there is some really important testing going on in the basement.

[theHandpuppet]

27. Don't think so.

The head of the campus newspaper said there was open access to the basement lab even after Le went missing, and that two reporters for the Yale newspaper had gone down there just before her body was found. The problem now is that the crime scene is totally contaminated because the basement was freely accessible right up to the moment her body was found.

[progressivebydesign]

23. wouldn't be shocked if this had something to do with her marrying someone else that weekend.

From the strange stuff in the story. If he did it, he may have been a stalker type. How sad... what a tragic loss for her friends and family, and for the world -- as she was headed toward making a mark in the field of medicine and research.

[CTyankee]

35. That could have been a "reason" she was killed. If he was such a loser and

she was what he could never be, plus desiring her and seeing her going off to marry someone else...well, I can put this together in my head. If it is true, I hope they got their killer...

[wordpix]

41. perhaps made a physical advance, she pushed him off, he got angry and "asphyxiated" her

[CTyankee]

47. What I don't understand about asphyxiation is how come there were bloody clothes?

Or does choking someone to death cause blood flow outside of the person's body?

[miyazaki]

48. well a physical struggle before the asphyxiation for sure.

easy for any of them to get bloodied. though of course in this case
the manner of death is unknown to the public at the moment.

edit: tv news just announced she was strangled.

[Jennicut]

50. My husband has played with his band at Toad's Place over the years, a club near Yale.

I have seen some other shows there too.
Yale students would come to the shows all the time. Never were any of them rude or disrespectful and never out of control drunk and crazy. Lots of good college kids I would run into.

Poor girl. I hope they have the right guy and the students can feel safer.

[MassLiberal]

52. Records show Clark was last to see Annie Le alive

Hartford Courant:

NEW HAVEN - Computer records show that lab technician Raymond Clark III, a "person of interest" in the slaying of Yale graduate student Annie Le, was the last person to see her alive, a law-enforcement source told The Courant today.

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 at 10 Amistad St. at about 10 a.m. on 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 same room a short time later, the source said, citing the computer records. Le was never seen again and her card was never used again.

Clark had moved around the laboratory area quite a bit that day, including entering rooms that he normally would not expected to be in, the source said. Clark also swiped into another area -- the place where Le's body was eventually found after five days, stuffed into a 2-foot crawl space behind a wall. The pattern of movements captured by the computer records are the reason authorities focused almost immediately on Clark, 24, the source said.

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/yale-annie-le/hc-annie-le-raymond-clark-yale-slaying,0,857789.story