YALE UNIVERSITY Body Found Missing Graduate Student Body Found

Source:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549765,00.html

Date:  Monday, September 14, 2009

Medical Examiner: Body Found Is Missing Yale Graduate Student

A body found stuffed in the wall of a Yale university building has been indentified as missing graduate student Annie Le, New Haven police said Monday.

Authorities, who have ruled Le's death a homicide, said they do not believe the 24-year-old bride-to-be was a random target.

Le was last seen on surveillance video Tuesday entering the five-story laboratory building in Yale's medical complex, where she worked as a graduate pharmacology student.

Police told the Associated Press Monday that the killing of the person whose body was found in the wall was "not a random act" — and said they don't believe that anyone else on the campus is in danger.

Authorities on Saturday also found bloody clothes above floor tiles in the basement of the building, which police sources say likely belonged to the killer.

Yale President Richard Levin offered support to Le's family and her fiance, Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky. The couple was to marry Sunday in Syosset, N.Y., on Long Island's north shore.

"The family and fiance and friends now must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be positively identified," Levin said.

The university has also planned an evening prayer vigil for Le at 8 p.m. Monday on Yale's main campus. An e-mail sent to the Yale community invites participants to "bring a candle and join us in solidarity," the Yale Daily News reported.

In an e-mail statement sent to FOXNews.com, Yale's vice president Linda Lorimar said the university was taking extra security precautions — including added security personnel and a new bicycle patrol — to ensure students' safety.

Police on Monday would not say if they have any suspects. They previously have said Widawsky is not a suspect and is assisting with the investigation. New Haven Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard said police recovered "a large amount" of physical evidence, but he would not discuss what that included.

Last winter, Le, of Placerville, Calif., wrote a magazine article about how to stay safe around Yale's campus. The article, titled "Crime and Safety in New Haven," was published in February in a magazine produced by the university's medical school. It compares higher instances of robbery in New Haven with cities that house other Ivy League schools and includes an interview with Yale Police Chief James Perrotti, who offers advice such as "pay attention to where you are" and "avoid portraying yourself as a potential victim."

"In short, New Haven is a city and all cities have their perils," Le concludes. "But with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic."

Le was reported missing last Tuesday. Surveillance video shows her arriving at around 10 a.m., but police could find no video of Le leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras operating around the complex. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her third-floor office.



More than 100 local, state and federal police had been searching the building for days, using blueprints to uncover any place where evidence or Le's body could be hidden.

On Sunday morning, a state police van drove down a ramp into the building's basement area. Authorities also sifted through garbage at a Hartford incinerator Sunday, looking through trash that was taken from the building in the days since Le went missing.

Le's disappearance weighed heavily on Yale students, who prayed for her safe return Sunday at The University Church on Yale's campus.

"It has brought up a lot of fears for people," the Rev. Ian Buckner Oliver said just before he gave the Sunday morning sermon. "It has brought up a lot of worry and concern for her and for all our safety."

Bjorn Cooley, a 20-year-old Yale student from Oregon, said he heard the news that a body had been found while studying in his room Sunday night.

"Before they found the body, I still had hope she had just disappeared," Cooley said. "I was looking for some sort of quasi-happy ending to this whole thing."

Stoked note crime fighting: there is irony in the fact that this young woman just completed an assignment in her local student press giving advice about keeping out of crime stats. Did her article waken a local predator???


Truth Justice & the American Way? Does it Still Exist

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=F.ba0ce396-ca6b-484f-875e-0e93b7e56602&hl=en

Yale University Offers $10,000 Reward for Help Finding Missing Grad Student

Source: http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/09/12/missing-yale-student/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549222,00.html

Date: September 12, 2009 02:12 PM EDT

Yale University Offers $10,000 Reward for Help Finding Missing Grad Student

GRETA WIRE ~ FOX NEWS   Yale Police Department at (203) 432-4400

Have you been following the missing Yale student story? She was to get married this weekend....she is on video entering a Yale building but she is not seen on video leaving. Any ideas?

Yale University announced a $10,000 reward for help finding a graduate student days before her wedding, after investigators find no clues after searching her laboratory and apartment.

Annie Marie Le, 24, a doctoral student in pharmacology at Yale's School of Medicine, vanished Tuesday. She was last seen that morning on surveillance camera outside a lab in the medical school complex, less than mile from the main campus in New Haven, Conn.

The California native was to be married on Sunday to fiance Jonathan Widawsky, a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. The two met as undergraduates at the University of Rochester.

Her purse, cell phone, credit cards and money were found in her office. She has not contacted her fiance, family or friends since Tuesday.

“We are responding to this at this point as if it could be any kind of bad situation,” University Vice President and Secretary Linda Lorimer told the Yale Daily News. “You don’t just not go home for a couple of days.”

Widawsky has been cooperating with the investigation, she told the paper, and "there's not a worry about" any potential involvement he might have had in Le's disappearance.

Le was in her lab at the Sterling Hall of Medicine Tuesday morning, and then walked a few blocks to another lab facility at 10 Amistad Street. A security camera captured her going into the building at 10 a.m., the same time she swiped her Yale ID card at the entrance.

There was no image of her leaving, but Yale security officials were scanning all footage from surveillance cameras at each of the facility's entrances and exits.

Le was reported missing after she did not return to her office or show up for a pathology class where she was a teaching assistant, The New Haven Register reported.

Asked about the possibility of foul play, Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said Thursday that "there's no evidence of it at this time."

A fire alarm set off by a faulty smoke detector about 12:40 p.m. at the Amistad Street building isn't thought to be connected to Le's disappearance, university Deputy Secretary Martha Highsmith told the Yale Daily News.

On Thursday, Connecticut state police with bloodhounds searched the area where Le was last seen, and authorities went through nearby trash bins.

Yale Police Chief James Perrotti said the FBI was assisting in the investigation, and Le's fiance, professors, colleagues, friends and family also were helping in the search.

Ironically, Le wrote a magazine article earlier this year about how to stay safe on the Ivy League campus.

Annie Le's article, called "Crime and Safety in New Haven," was published in February in a magazine produced by Yale's medical school.

It compares higher instances of robbery in New Haven to cities that house other Ivy League schools and includes an interview with Perrotti, who advised students to "pay attention to where you are" and "avoid portraying yourself as a potential victim."

"In short, New Haven is a city and all cities have their perils," Le concludes. "But with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic."

Le was excited about her upcoming wedding on Long Island, N.Y., said friends and colleagues including Debbie Apuzzo, who works in the pharmacology department. Apuzzo described Le as energetic and conscientious.

“Lucky I’m in love with my best friend,” Le wrote in a posting on Facebook, one of several about the marriage, according to the Register. Others included details about the ceremony, the reception and the honeymoon in Greece.

She received her undergraduate degree in bioscience in 2007 from the University of Rochester in New York state, said school spokeswoman Sharon Dickman.

While at the University of Rochester, she did a summer project at the National Institutes of Health on bone tissue engineering with a goal of regenerating tissue for people suffering from degenerative bone diseases. She said her career goal was to work as an NIH investigator or as a professor.

Her mentor, Rocky Tuan, described her as bright and hardworking, saying the NIH undergraduate scholars program was very selective.

"She's a very happy person," Tuan said. "Everybody got along with her. She's always smiling, laughing."

Le is 4-foot-11, 90 pounds and of Asian descent with brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information on Le’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Yale Police Department at (203) 432-4400.

Stoked note crime fighting: there is irony in the fact that this young woman just completed an assignment in her local student press giving advice about keeping out of crime stats. Did her article waken a local predator???

Truth Justice & the American Way? Does it Still Exist

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=F.ba0ce396-ca6b-484f-875e-0e93b7e56602&hl=en