New Haven police charged a Yale lab technician with the brutal murder of bride-to-be Annie Le.
Raymond Clark, 24, a lab technician who worked in the same building with Le, was taken into custody early Thursday morning after DNA evidence linked him to the killing, the New York Times reported. The body of the 24-year-old grad student was found stuffed behind the wall in a basement lab on Sunday, which would have been her wedding day.
Clark was arraigned at midday and is being held in solitary confinement on $3 million bail.
"He is in solitary confinement for his own safety because of the nature of his crime," Lt. John Bernard told the Daily News. "We don't know who is out there maybe waiting to take action against him."
"He's just somber," Bernard added to the paper. "It's his first time in jail. This is all new to him. He hasn't cried. He hasn't said a word to anyone."
"We did a strip search of him and checked his mental state. He's in good mental state."
Police obtained an arrest warrant first thing Wednesday morning and moved in to cuff Clark at the Super 8 motel where he had been staying. His head was down as he went quietly into custody, according to news reports.
"Based on numerous interviews, forensic evidence, and information learned from viewing video surveillance, detectives have secured the arrest warrant for Clark," New Haven Police Chief James Lewis told reporters, according to the News.
Lewis didn't offer a motive for the crime.
"It is important to note that this is not about urban crime, university crime, domestic crime but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country,” he said, according to the Times.
The New Haven Independent said it was not a "romantic" crime.
Clark was the last person to see Le alive, and investigators have determined that he used his Yale-issued key card to enter the room where Le's body was found, the Hartford Courant reported.
Swipe card information shows Le entering a room in the lab basement, followed shortly thereafter by Clark. Her key card is never used again, though her body was found in a different room, according to the Courant. Clark was shown to have moved through several rooms, the card data showed, including the room where she was found.
Clark's fiancee, sister and brother-in-law all work at Yale. Clark had janitorial duties at the lab that required him to clean the cages of the animals used in medical testing, the New York Post reported.
The Connecticut medical examiner's office released a portion of Le's autopsy report on Wednesday that showed she died of "traumatic asphyxiation" from a compression on the neck, which could have come from a choke hold.
"It is frightening that a member of our own community might have committed this terrible crime," said Yale University President Richard Levin in a statement. "But we must not let this incident shatter our trust in one another."
