Annie Le, 24, was days away from marrying the love of her life when she went missing. Her murder was known to have a gripe with her and other students.
Annie Le was a young woman with a bright future ahead of her.
She was on track to earn a doctorate from a prestigious Ivy League institution and was just days away from getting married when the 24-year-old vanished, seemingly without trace.
Tragically, on the day she was supposed to marry the love of her life she was found dead, her broken body discovered mangled and upside down in a wall.
Annie had disappeared from her lab at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut in 2009, and while her killer was finally found – his reasons for kidnapping, killing and then dumping her body in such a gruesome way have never been discovered and remain a mystery to this day.
Born in San Jose, California in 1985, the star Vietnamese student was valedictorian at high school and voted “most likely to be the next Einstein” as per The New York Times. Winning a whopping $160,000 in scholarships she then graduated from University of Rochester in Upstate New York, with a degree in cell developmental biology. Here she fell in love with her ill-fated groom, Jonathan Widawsky.
The morning of her disappearance Annie left for her lab, with CCTV showing her entering the building at 10am on September 8. This would also become her final resting place. When she failed to return home by the evening, one of her five flatmates raised the alarm, as per the Hartford Courant. Her notebook, handbag and credit card were all found still inside the building.
Tragically, months before, Annie had written an article about campus safety titled “Crime and Safety in New Haven” for Yale Medical School’s B Magazine. Initially authorities hypothesised that Annie had cold feet about the wedding. However, they were dumbfounded by the fact CCTV never showed her leaving the building, which required ID cards for entry and exit. Then, they found bloodied clothing in the ceiling of the lab on Street on September 12, and the building became a crime scene. Then the smell, “similar to that of a decomposing body”, was noticed by police, according to Yale Daily News , on September 13.
Her body was found at 5pm on her wedding-day-to-be September 13, 2009, stuffed upside down in a wall.
Yale President Richard wrote in an address to students: “It is my tragic duty to report that the 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.”
“[The killer] just crushed her in there. She was like mush — she was so smashed up you couldn’t recognize her,” an unidentified police source told The New York Post.
Annie’s cause of death was determined as death by “traumatic asphyxiation by neck compression,” as reported by CBS News. The medical examiner said she had a broken jaw and collar bone injuries while she was alive. It was found she had been sexually assaulted. The culprit was Ray Clark, a lab technician who was known to be hard on students who left the lab dirty. One source told ABC News that Clark had emailed Annie to complain about her leaving dirty mice cages behind.
A DNA sample led to Clark’s arrest on September 17. Clark eventually pleaded guilty to murder and received a 44-year prison sentence. He also entered Alford plea for once count of attempt to commit sexual assault, meaning he does not admit to the charge but concedes there’s enough evidence for a conviction. Clark will likely be nearly 70 years old at the time of his release. He told the New Haven Register: “I alone am responsible for the death of Annie Le and causing tremendous pain to all who loved and cared about Annie.”
