Raymond Clark: Arrest in the Annie Le murder case

What happened

Police arrested lab technician Raymond Clark III on Thursday and charged him in the murder of Annie Le, a Yale graduate student whose body was hidden in the wall of a university building after she was strangled. Clark, who had been described as a "person of interest" in the case, had been taken into custody briefly earlier in the week so police could collect DNA and hair samples. (The New York Times)

What the commentators said

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Raymond Clark III was clearly the suspect police were focusing on all along, said Chris Rovzar in New York magazine. The Yale lab technician was the only "person of interest" in the Annie Le murder case. After taking DNA samples from him police had to either "dismiss him as a suspect" or arrest him—"apparently, they went with an arrest."

The New Haven Register reported that Clark's DNA matched crime-scene evidence—but that wasn't the only reason investigators had to suspect him, said The Hartford Courant. Police had already traced the movements of Annie Le and Raymond Clark through their computerized security swipe cards, which put them together in a room in the basement of the lab building. "Le was never seen again and her card was never used again"—and Clark swiped into the area where Le's body was found.

"New Haven Police Chief James Lewis wouldn’t confirm the report of the DNA match," said Brian K. Sullivan and Peter S. Green in Bloomberg, but he did deny reports of a romantic relationship between Annie Le and Raymond Clark. "Annie Le was a young woman with unlimited potential," Lewis said, and her murder—just days before she was to be married—was a tragic case of "workplace violence."