The Life & Death of Annie Le

Clark was arrested early Thursday on 17 /09/2009 at a Super 8 motel in nearby Cromwell. Clark is being held on $3 million bond, Lewis said, but he would not provide details of what prompted Clark's arrest or whether DNA linked Clark to Le's murder. He said Clark's arrest warrant was sealed, so he was prohibited from discussing the evidence. Yale President Richard Levin said the school's administration is "relieved" by the news of an arrest, but warned, "We must resist the temptation to rush to judgment."

Annie Le, whose body was found on the day she planned to wed, was mourned Monday by family members and friends from her hometown in the scenic Sierra Nevada foothills as smart and vibrant, kind and funny. The Yale University graduate student of Vietnamese heritage grew up in a remote, hilly area off a twisting, one-lane gravel road with an aunt and uncle she regarded as parents.
"She may be small, but she be fierce," Chris Le wrote of his 24-year-old sister, who was pursuing a degree in pharmacology. "Stuck in a 4' 11" frame, she had a 7' tall personality. She will always live on through us." Le graduated from Union Mine High School in nearby El Dorado, valedictorian of a class of 362 and one of two students voted "Most Likely to Be the Next Einstein." In a picture of the victorious pair, Le wears a white lab coat and her broad smile, and holds a partly dissected cat.

Le volunteered hundreds of hours at Marshall Medical Center in El Dorado County and was volunteer of the year for the 2002-03 academic year. Scores of high school volunteers have tromped through the mountain hospital's corridors, enough that they tend to blend together. That's particularly true in pathology, a discipline glamorized by the likes of television's "NCIS" and "CSI." But Le, who graduated from high school in 2003 with a 4.28 grade point average, stood out.

"Her motive was science. She was curious in cell biology and how all these things work on the microscopic level," Martin said. "Every one of my pathologists saw themselves in Annie. At her valedictorian speech, she talked about what pathology meant to her."

"So, I've got to go to school for about 12 years first," the clear-eyed girl said, "get my MD and be certified as a surgeon. I just hope that all that hard work is going to pay off and I'm really going to enjoy my job." Although Le ended up pursuing a career in pharmacology, she was quoted in her senior yearbook as gunning for a future as "a laboratory pathologist -- it's one step above surgery." said Gary Martin, director of operations for the hospital's pathology department. "We used to joke that she could do a calculus problem quicker than she could wash a bottle." But bottle washing she did -- happily. When she was done with the "mundane chores," Martin said, she'd get to pick a slide, sit next to a pathologist, look through the microscope and learn.

Union Mine High Principal Tony DeVille said Monday that Le labored for hours every day during the college admissions process and earned more than $160,000 in scholarship money. "The teachers that knew Annie and interacted with her are distraught," said DeVille, who came to the school after Le graduated. "They talk about the terrible waste of potential. It's very sad for everyone." DeVille said the school was considering a memorial and wanted to "offer whatever kind of assistance and support to her family" that was possible. ......More
For non-commercial review & promotional use only. No copyright infringement intended. Pictures, photos & material contents are copyright of its original owners or holders. All rights and credit go directly to its rightful owners

The Life and Death of Annie Le (2)

The funeral for slain Yale grad student Annie Le will take place on Saturday at a church near her family's rural California home.


The family planned an invitation-only service at Holy Trinity Church in El Dorado Hills. Le will be laid to rest at a cemetery in nearby Rescue, a family spokesman said Monday.

"Now the family is away from where the crime happened, and I think that's probably good," the Rev.
Dennis Smith, a New Haven pastor, told the Yale Daily News. "There are still major events ahead of them with the funeral and all that it entails."


The 24-year-old pharmacology student was killed on Sept. 8 - five days before her wedding - and hidden in a Yale lab basement. A lab technician, Ray Clark 3rd, 24, has been charged with the murder.
Smith said the Le family felt some closure after Clark's arrest.

Chris Le, Annie's younger brother, told an ABC station in Sacramento Sunday his sister "lived a good life" and said his family wants privacy.

The brother said his family wants people to donate money to the I Have a Dream Foundation, a non-profit that helps low-income families afford college.


Le's fiance, Columbia grad student Jonathan Widawsky, 24, emerged from his parent's Huntington, L.I. home Monday and told reporters he was "not in a position to talk."

He and his family will hold a memorial service for Le at Temple Beth El in Huntington on Wednesday night. Back in New Haven, the lab where Le's body was found reopened as the campus tries to move past the troubling events of the past two weeks.

Anton Bennett, the pharmacology professor who was Le's adviser, said she was "a bright light of enormous potential prematurely extinguished."

"The tragic loss of Annie Le, who had become an integral member of our laboratory, now seeds another source of inspiration," he said. "Annie Le's work will continue. We will draw upon the energy of Annie Le's life to help us fulfill our efforts of striving to make a difference in this world."

Investigators said Monday they don't expect to make more arrests in the murder, indicating that they believe Clark acted alone.