Source: Records point to lab tech in slaying

Hartford Courant

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — 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 Hartford Courant on Wednesday.

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 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 be 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.

The chief state medical examiner ruled Wednesday that Le, 24, who was pursuing a joint doctoral and medical degree, died of traumatic asphyxiation by neck compression.

When Clark was initially interviewed by federal agents shortly after Le was reported missing, he acknowledged seeing Le in the laboratory, the source said. He then was asked to take a polygraph test, which he failed, sources said.

Federal authorities also issued polygraph tests to anyone who had access to the laboratories, including Clark’s girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, who is also a lab technician. She passed her polygraph test, the source said.

Le’s devastated family, speaking through a pastor, expressed gratitude to the law offices and the Yale community, including a Vietnamese student association, for their response to the tragedy. Scooped up at his Middletown apartment by a squadron of police officers armed with search warrants, Clark was released from custody Wednesday after giving police a DNA sample.

Investigators will compare it with 150 items of evidence found in and around Le’s makeshift tomb in the wall of the laboratory basement.

Now, investigators await the DNA test results, which Police Chief James Lewis said could lead to an arrest.

“It’s all up to the lab now,” Lewis said during a Wednesday evening news conference.

Police already have served four search warrants in the case, three in search of evidence at Clark’s home and in his car and another on Clark’s body. Those search warrants have been sealed from public view, according to prosecutors.