“She had a smile that would light up the room.” We’ve all heard that one, it accompanies so many of the worst tragedies, and this one is no different. The story of Annie Le is tragic, unexpected, and still a bit of a mystery.
Annie Le was born in San Jose, California to a Vietnamese-American family. She was an absolutely brilliant woman, valedictorian of her graduating class at Union Mine High School in El Dorado, California. Her classmates even voted her “most likely to be the next Einstein.”
She attended the University of Rochester, where she studied cell developmental biology, and minored in anthropology. After receiving her degree, she was accepted into a graduate program – at Yale University, an Ivy League college in New Haven, Connecticut, where she sought to earn her doctorate in pharmacology.
She wasn’t all work and no play though. In fact, she was engaged, due to be married on September 13, 2009 to the love of her life, Jonathan Widawsky.
Annie worked in a research laboratory at the university, where she was researching treatment of diabetes and certain forms of cancer.
On the morning of September 8, 2009, just five days before she was due to be married, Annie left her apartment and took Yale Transit to the Sterling Hall of Medicine on campus, where she had an office. At about 10am, she left Sterling Hall, and walked to another campus building at 10 Amistad Street where her research laboratory was located.
According to security footage, she was spotted entering the Amistad building just after 10am. Around 9pm that evening, her housemates called the police – she never returned home. Despite efforts to call her, she never answered. When police viewed security footage, they discovered that she never left the Amistad Building.
Her phone, keys, wallet, personal belongings had all been left inside her office. With her wedding fast approaching, some suspected that she was just suffering from pre-wedding jitters. Despite this, her disappearance was still taken seriously.
Police immediately closed the whole Amistad building for investigation. They searched for her everywhere, including refuse at the Hartford dump, where Yale’s garbage is incinerated. They would leave no stone unturned.
Soon, the FBI and Connecticut State Police force joined the New Haven Police Department in their search. It wasn’t until her wedding day that her family got at least one of the answers they were looking for.
Police had found bloody clothing above a ceiling tile in the building, which is monitored by more than 70 security cameras. They knew she was there, and they knew they were looking for someone who worked there – the entrance and rooms inside the building all required Yale identification cards to be opened.
As they searched for Annie, they also found themselves searching for any reason someone would want to harm her. They found her long before they found out why – in fact, to this day no one really knows for sure why.
“It is my tragic duty to report that a body of a female was found in the basement of the Amistad Building late this afternoon. The identity of the woman has not yet been established. Law enforcement officials remain on the scene; this is an active investigation and we hope it is resolved quickly.” wrote Richard Levin, Yale president, in a letter to university staff and students.
What he didn’t say was that at 5pm, on the day she was due to be married, police cadaver dogs found her decomposing body – stuffed inside a wall in the lab room. A lab room that had been used to house animals used for experiments and research.
When we say “stuffed,” we mean stuffed – her bones had been broken to make her fit. An unidentified police source told The New York Post, “She was like mush; so smashed up you couldn’t recognize her.”
An autopsy was conducted, and it was determined that her death was the result of “traumatic asphyxia due to neck compression.” She had a broken jaw and a broken collarbone – injuries they determined to have occurred prior to her death. When she was found, she was also in a state of partial undress, and semen was found on her underwear and body.
Was this a sexual assault gone wrong?
Knowing that someone with access to the building, and specifically had reason to enter that lab, police quickly honed in on their suspect. Raymond Clark was a 24-year-old lab technician. On September 16, police obtained a warrant to collect his DNA, and the next day he was arrested after his DNA matched the semen found on her body.
So why did he do it? He has never given a motive, but those who knew him spoke of his reputation for being angry with students whom he deemed left the lab in an untidy state after they completed their work. Annie Le had been one of those people, Clark had previously emailed her, complaining that she had left dirty mice cages behind after one of her studies.
But if it was just that, anger over the mess she left behind, would he have sexually assaulted her?
A former acquaintance said of Clark, “He was a pretty nice kid… very good with people who were older. He respected authority.”
Kelly Godfrey, a former schoolmate who had spoken with him within the year, spoke to his character. “Ray was just the nicest kid. He wasn’t judgemental. He was really quiet, but he was very friendly. He was easily one of the nicest guys in our class. This is a real shock.”
Then someone else spoke to his character which shed light on another side of this man. Annemarie Goodwin, a neighbor, spoke regarding his relationship and treatment of his girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, whom he also worked with at the Yale lab. “[He was] very controlling of his girlfriend. He wouldn’t let her talk to me or anything.”
Initially, Clark pleaded not guilty, but in March, 2011, he gave in. Without giving reason for the murder, Clark pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for a 44-year prison term. On the charge of attempted sexual assault, he entered an Alford plea – essentially a guilty plea that does not admit guilt, but concedes the sufficiency of the evidence against him.
He was formally sentenced on June 3, 2011, and expressed his remorse during his sentencing – though he still gave no reason for the crime.
He is currently serving his sentence at the Cheshire Correctional Institution and is scheduled for release on September 16, 2053.
Annie Le was so well loved that memorials were held in both California and New York. Her funeral was broadcast live via the internet.
As for Yale, the Yale Daily News reported that professor and Cold War historian, John Lewis Gaddis, called September 14 the “saddest day to open class” since the day after the 9/11 attacks.
Another similarly mysterious story is that of Canadian student, Elisa Lam, who entered a hotel, but never came out.
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