Lab Tech Detained In Yale Slaying

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Police and FBI agents searched the home of a Yale University animal research technician last night and led him away in handcuffs to the cheers of neighbors in a search for evidence that might tie him to the slaying of a graduate student.

No charges were filed against 24-year-old Raymond Clark III in Middletown, but police took him into custody while searching for DNA and other physical evidence. Police said Clark would be released after they obtain evidence they need from him and his Middletown apartment.

Clark was escorted out of the apartment building in Middletown and into a silver car. Neighbors leaned over the apartment building’s iron railings and cheered as police led him away.

New Haven Police Chief James Lewis described Clark as a person of interest, not a suspect, in the death of 24-year-old Annie Le, whose body was found stuffed behind a wall in a campus research building Sunday, the day she was to be married. He said police were hoping to compare DNA taken from Clark’s hair, fingernails and saliva to more than 150 pieces of evidence collected from the crime scene. That evidence may also be compared at a state lab with DNA samples given voluntarily from other people with access to the crime scene.

“We’re going to narrow this down,” Lewis said. “We’re going to do this as quickly as we can.”

Police have collected more than 700 hours of video tape during the probe and sifted through computer records documenting who entered what parts of the research building where Le was found dead.

Investigators began staking out Clark’s home on Monday, a day after they discovered Le’s body hidden in the basement of a research building at Yale’s medical school. She vanished Sept. 8.

Clark shares the apartment with his girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, whom he is engaged to marry in December 2011, according to the couple’s wedding Web site.

“He seemed like a normal guy to me, no big deal,” said Ivan Hernandez, 22, who lives directly above Clark and would often see him sitting on a bench outside their apartment building and smoking. “I thought he was nice, actually.”

Neither the couple nor Clark’s parents returned repeated telephone calls Tuesday.

Clark moved to Middletown from New Haven six months ago, where he shared an apartment with his girlfriend and three cats, according to former neighbor Taylor Goodwin, 16.

“I never really talked to him much,” Goodwin said. “He was just some guy.”

Police have said Clark is a lab technician at Yale.

It’s unclear how long he worked there and Clark’s supervisors would not comment Tuesday.

Le worked for a Yale laboratory that conducted experiments on mice, and investigators found her body stuffed in the basement wall of a facility that housed research animals. Clark works in the lab as a technician.

Authorities had been tightlipped since Le was reported missing, just a few days before her wedding day. Police say they have ruled out her fiancee, a Columbia University graduate student, as a suspect but have provided little additional information.

Officials had promised Tuesday to release an autopsy report that would shed light on exactly how Le died. But then prosecutors blocked release of the results out of concern that it could hinder the investigation.