Missing Yale student Annie Le found murdered on her wedding day

The body of a female graduate student who went missing five days ago has been found hidden inside a cable duct beneath the medical labs at Yale University after a huge campus search by police.

Annie Le, a 24-year-old pharmacology doctoral student from Placerville, California, was due to have been married yesterday in Syosset, on the north shore of Long Island in New York.

Police say that they found a large amount of physical evidence near the body of Miss Le, which was located at 5pm last night after a massive search. She was lying in a "chase" - a vertical space used for ducts, pipes or wires - in the basement of the building.

"The body hasn't been positively identified as of this time. However, we are assuming it is her so we are treating it as a homicide," said Peter Reichard, the New Haven Assistant Police Chief.

Richard Levin, the President of Yale, offered condolences and support to Jonathan Widawsky, Miss Le's fiance, also 24, who is a graduate student at Columbia University.

Police have said that Mr Widawsky is not a suspect, and is helping the investigation. They refuse to say whether they have any suspects.

The New York Daily News reported on Saturday that police had questioned an unidentified Yale professor in connection with the case, claiming that MIss Le was the professor’s student and had been due to attend his class on the day she vanished. But the class was abruptly canceled and hours later Miss Le was discovered missing, the newspaper said. Police refused to confirm the report.

The newspaper also reported that in February Miss Le wrote an article for a Yale medical faculty magazine entitled Crime and Safety in New Haven, about how to stay safe around the Yale campus.

She warned that New Haven has a higher robbery rate than other cities housing Ivy League universites, and reported on advice from Yale Police Chief James Perrotti 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,” Miss Le concluded. “But with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic.”

Miss Le, a Vietnamese American, was last seen on Tuesday morning in the five-storey medical faculty building that housed the laboratory where she worked, about a mile away from the Ivy League university's main campus.

Surveillance video shows her arriving at around 10 am, but shows no record of her leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras operating around the complex. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her office in a nearby building.

More than 100 local, state and federal police had been searching for days, poring over the blueprints of the building to identify any nook where she could be hidden.

On Saturday there were media reports that the detectives had recovered bloody clothing from the building, allegedly above the false ceiling of the lab, although police spokesmen would not confirm it.

Yesterday morning, before the find, police were sifting through the rubbish at an incinerator in Hartford, looking for evidence or for her body in rubbish taken from the building in the last few days.

One of Miss Le's housemates described how she had last seen her at about 9am on Tuesday as she headed to the bus stop, wearing the brown skirt and green top that is recorded on the university CCTV camera.

"I said, 'If I don't see you before Sunday, congratulations and good luck,' " said the housemate, who asked not to be identified because Yale officials have barred university members from speaking to the press about the case. "I do know how very excited she was about the wedding."

The housemate described Annie as always very well dressed, recalling how she would always hear "the click-clack of her heels" as she walked around.

"She looked very polished and put together," the housemate said. "She is bubbly and cheerful. She always had a big smile on her face."

Yesterday Yale students prayed for her safe return at The University Church on Yale’s campus.

“It has been a week that has tested many people in many different ways,” the Rev. Ian Buckner Oliver said before his sermon. “It has brought up a lot of fears for people. It has brought up a lot of worry and concern for her and for all our safety.”

The student-dominated congregation offered a moment of silence and prayer, “for Annie, and her family, who have arrived here in New Haven, for her fiance, on this, what would have been their wedding day. Let’s lift them up in our prayers,” Rev Oliver said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6833804.ece

What a tragic story