Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods

Annie Le: The Yale Lab Murder

Accused

Raymond Clark III
Raymond Clark III
The next day, detectives started openly tailing Clark and trying to get him to talkwhich he had avoided during FBI interviews.

On Tuesday, September 15, with a warrant, investigators obtained DNA samples from Clark. Authorities released him pending results, but by now both investigators and the press were tailing him. Hecklers confronted him the night before his arrest.

News of the murder seemed to surprise his teammates when reporters cornered them at that day's game. Clark was new to their team, but he'd played on another league team the year before, with the brothers of one of the Wild Hogs' players. When his old team couldn't round up enough players to register for the new season, the Wild Hogs had been happy to grab the talented young man as a shortstop. They knew he had a temperhe'd had to be separated from an umpire last seasonbut they thought he was a good player and a solid guy.

Investigators soon found that Clark's DNA matched material found on Le's clothes and corpse. Her blood was on a pair of boots that had his name on them, and investigators found her hair on his clothes. Thursday, September 17, Clark was arrested at a Super 8 motel in Cromwell, Conn., and charged with murder. Police also towed his car and his father's Ford Taurus, which they believed Clark had been driving. His father lived in a retirement community about half a mile away. Clark had been staying with him, apparently trying to escape attention as suspicion increasingly focused on him.

Raymond Clark is being held on $3 million bail at South Suffield's maximum-security MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution. He's expected to plead not guilty at his hearing, which has been postponed until October 20.

Clark's lawyers have petitioned to keep the search warrant affidavits sealed, as they fear the information in these documents will bias potential jurors. His public defender, Thomas Ullmann, had already worried that leaks were damaging the defense. Things may be quiet for Clark until his trial.

On September 22, 400 people gathered at Annie Le's fiancé's synagogue, Temple Beth El in Huntington, Long Island, to remember her. Her groom wore his wedding ring. On September 26, another 500 friends and family members celebrated her funeral Mass at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in El Dorado Hills, Calif. Yale University held its memorial service for Le on October 12.

Categories
We're Following
Slender Man stabbing, Waukesha, Wisconsin
Gilberto Valle 'Cannibal Cop'
Advertisement