Police Seeking Missing Yale Student Find Body Inside Wall
September 14th, 2009Maybe the authorities should interview people who hang out inside the tomb.
Possibly Related: Dead Scientists
Via: New York Times:
It was supposed to have been Annie Le’s wedding night. But hours after the missing Yale graduate student was to have been married, investigators found a body stuffed inside a wall of the lab building where she was last seen alive on Tuesday.
While the remains had yet to be officially identified, Peter Reichard, the assistant New Haven police chief, said the authorities were assuming they were of Ms. Le, 24, a slight, California-bred daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who was studying pharmacology.
The discovery appeared to have ended the six-day search for Ms. Le that began with speculation of a runaway bride but quickly gave way to near certainty that a crime had been committed.
Yale University’s president, Richard C. Levin, wrote in an e-mail message to students Sunday night, “Our hearts go out to Annie Le’s family, fiancé and friends, who must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be identified.”
At the elite Ivy League university’s medical school campus in the Hill section of New Haven, about half a mile from the main campus of neo-Gothic and Georgian Revival architecture, students seemed shocked and fearful Sunday night.
“I’m freaked.” said Lucas Cheadle, 26, who is studying for his doctorate in neuroscience. Mr. Cheadle appeared agitated as he spoke, taking out a cigarette as he walked a few blocks from 10 Amistad Street, where the body was found. “My awareness of danger has definitely increased,” he said.
The authorities have not identified any suspects, but Ms. Le’s disappearance recalled a disturbing case from December 1998: the stabbing death of Suzanne Jovin, 21, a Yale senior whose body was found in a neighborhood not far from campus; that crime remains unsolved.
Ms. Le was from Placerville, Calif., a town of about 10,000 people in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Rochester, where she met Jonathan Widawsky, a graduate student at Columbia University whose family lives on Long Island in Huntington, N.Y. They fell in love. They planned to be married on Sept. 13 at the North Ritz Club in Syosset, N.Y., a catering hall by a big pond and a gazebo, set well back from the highway. More than 160 people were set to attend.
By Friday, family members had canceled the wedding.
Ms. Le’s absence was first noted on Tuesday, hours after she was seen on surveillance video entering the four-story lab building at 10 Amistad Street, down the street from Yale New Haven Hospital and about 10 blocks south of the main Yale campus. A young woman, 4-foot-11 and 90 pounds, she was wearing a brown skirt and bright green T-shirt.
Her purse containing her ID, cellphone and money was found in her office in another Yale building a few blocks away.
Over the following days, investigators pored over hundreds of hours of video from dozens of cameras, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ms. Le.
By Thursday, Yale officials said that more than 100 law enforcement officials were looking for Ms. Le. A $10,000 reward was posted for her whereabouts.
Ms. Le was not naïve about her safety. In February, she wrote an article for a student magazine offering tips on how to avoid becoming the victim of a crime.
“New Haven is a city, and all cities have their perils,” she wrote, “but with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic.”
On Saturday, the police reportedly found bloody clothes above ceiling tiles in the lab building on Amistad. Other reports said the clothes were not the same ones Ms. Le was last seen wearing.
On Sunday, the search appeared to have moved to a waste-processing facility on the industrial fringe of Hartford where trash from much of New Haven, as well of the rest of the state, is burned to generate electric power. Officials did not say if they had found anything there.
Joe Avery, a New Haven police spokesman, said the body “was found behind the wall in something called a chase, which is a space that carries utilities from one floor to another.”
At the news conference Sunday night, Chief Reichard declined to supply more details. “We have an ongoing homicide case,” he said, “so we cannot tell you what we have, where we found anything or what it is.”
On Long Island, near Mr. Widawsky’s family’s home, those who knew the couple were already mourning.
“This is Annie’s bouquet,” a woman said to a television reporter earlier, proffering a sad-looking array of roses. “It’s wilting.”
On Bittersweet Place in Huntington, the Widawsky family remained in seclusion. The Le family, who had traveled to New Haven, was not heard from either.
Deborah Kiley of Deborah’s Hair Loft in Huntington, N.Y., was to have styled the hair of Ms. Le, her mother, Mr. Widawsky’s mother and five attendants on Sunday morning. She said she was praying for Ms. Le and her family.
“I can’t even accept it right now,” Ms. Kiley said. “I never forget a soul I meet. I was going to be part of a beautiful day, which is the most important day of a girl’s life other than the day she gives birth.”
Robert Davey, Angela Macropoulos and Sarah Wheaton contributed reporting.
“I’m freaked.” said Lucas Cheadle, 26, who is studying for his doctorate in neuroscience. Mr. Cheadle appeared agitated as he spoke, taking out a cigarette as he walked a few blocks from 10 Amistad Street, where the body was found. “My awareness of danger has definitely increased,” he said.
HAHA, this guy must be some kind of lab-rat/computer nerd where everything happens in ‘World of War Craft’ reality…”My awareness of danger has definitely increased….” Who talks like that?!? Sorry, just struck my funny bone, although this obviously had to be some kind of Skull&Bones ritualistic offering….
poor little girl never had a chance against these matriculating dollar-devils who must soak their gold bars in the blood of virgins in order to multiply their wealth by gajillion and receive the coveted “Murdered Virgin” medal, you know, to go with their “Tortured Cat” medal and “Shot ‘Friend’ in Eye with B-B Gun” medal…then they get to graduate, have real fun, get “Started Coup” medal, or “Started Multi-National Company and Fucked Everybody” medal…jolly good, old fellow!
Reminds me of the Suzanne Jovin case:
http://killtown.blogspot.com/2007/01/yale-students-98-murder-linked-to-911.html
This is a woeful story. Sheesh. Anyone who picks on a 4’11 chick has a definite motive.
Small stature envy or what? Makes me wonder, in my humble opinion,just what pharma topic was Ms. Annie Lee studying?
Long ago (1987?) I worked with a woman whose husband, who by studying mice during his PhD thesis work, learned how to create a valve for the meese’s heart so that it would keep beating.
I’m sure he didn’t make millions off of his research but someone did.
My antennae are up on the pharma angle of this story.
May Ms. Annie Lee rest in peace and guide others to her killer.
@Eileen
Subreddit user mom-bot tipped me off to this.
https://ugsp.nih.gov/scholars_mentors/scholars_d.asp?m=06&id=162&Start_Date=2006
Annie M. Le
University: University of Rochester
Hometown: Placerville, CA
NIH Research Project:
The Effects of Microtubules and Intermediate Filaments on Human Mesenchymal Stem Cell Chondrogenesis
Mentor: Rocky Tuan, Ph.D.
Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
Scholar Picture
I am a senior at the University of Rochester majoring in cell and developmental biology with a minor in medical anthropology and a concentration “cluster” in ancient philosophy. While my studies in biology are my main interest, what really drives me towards a research career is my experience in medical anthropology, which has highlighted the severity of health issues in societies worldwide.
As a UGSP Scholar, I am conducting a summer project at the NIH on bone tissue engineering using multipotent mesenchymal cells. I am training under the direction of Dr. Rocky Tuan, head of the Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. The purpose of the project is to further our understanding of the processes of bone and cartilage formation and implement this in regenerating tissue for patients suffering from degenerative bone diseases, most commonly osteoarthritis as a result of aging.
I am also working in with Dr. Michael Zuscik at University of Rochester. My senior thesis involves modeling the conditions of osteoarthritis in chicken articular cartilage cells to develop a better understanding of this disease. Designing, optimizing, and running experiments on my own has greatly increased my breadth of knowledge, and I have improved my scientific thinking skills that I first developed at the NIH.
My educational goals include obtaining a Ph.D. in pharmacology through the NIH Graduate Partnership Program. I plan to conduct three years of research at the NIH for my post-doctoral studies in this field. Professionally, I would like to enter academia either as an investigator at the NIH or as a professor.
Kevin, Yuh.and Duh.
If I were a detective I’d sure be checking into the whereabouts of Dr. Rocky Tuan, head of the Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases; as well as Dr. Michael Zuscik at University of Rochester during the days of interest in this case.
But that’s just me thinkin and being witness to some major weirdnesses I witnessed re PHD candidate researchers while attaining my Masters degree at an accredited institution, as well as the other example I cited previously.
Something really smells here. Fraud in the hallowed halls of academia? I am not shocked.
Not about to mention names, but doesn’t it suck when a PHD candidate is required to provide proof of evidence research to their professor’s – who have their own agenda? Like uh, provide support for my latest book?
Hope you catch my drift.
I believe There is a motive here.