Yale Grad Student Strangled to Death
COOPER: We have new information tonight about how Yale grad student Annie Le was killed. The medical examiner's office says the 24-year-old was killed by traumatic asphyxia, caused by neck compression. In other words, she was strangled. Who did it? That of course, is the question of the hour. A lab technician who works in the building where Le's body was found, this person is being called a person of interest. Police searched his home and car today, they are testing his DNA. Tom Foreman has the latest in tonight's "Crime and Punishment" report.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thirty miles from the crime scene, the street where Raymond Clark lives is buzzing. Police took him into custody at his apartment here to collect DNA. He's since been released and his lawyer says he's cooperating. But no one we met has seen him back home, so neighbors like Ashley Rowe are remembering times they spoke to him.</s>ASHLEY ROWE, RAYMOND CLARK'S NEIGHBOR: He was decent. His dog was really excited and he was just like, "Oh, he's really friendly, don't worry. You can pet him." He was really nice. So pretty much he was just known to love his dog. And walk around with his dog all the time.</s>FOREMAN (on camera): And you said he was sort of different in that he wanted to know a lot about the people he was talking to.</s>ROWE: He wanted to know their full name, where they're from. Stuff like that.</s>FOREMAN: Clark, who was 24, is not a student at Yale, but works there taking care of mice in the medical labs. His fiancee and two relatives also work in the labs according to police. But officials will say little about how Clark knew Annie Le.</s>CHIEF JAMES LEWIS, NEW HAVEN POLICE DEPARTMENT: They worked in the same building. They passed in the hallways; anything beyond that I'm not going to talk about.</s>FOREMAN: Any past troubles for Le?</s>LEWIS: I'm not going to talk about that issue.</s>FOREMAN: Any video of Clark in the building that day?</s>LEWIS: I'm not going to talk about what video we have or don't have.</s>FOREMAN: An old high school friend, Lisa Heselin, remembers Clark well.</s>LISA HESELIN, RAYMOND CLARK'S HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND: He was a nice kid. He was a jokester, kind of like a class clown. Everybody knew him. Everybody liked him.</s>FOREMAN (on camera): For a while, Clark lived here not far from Yale. But neighbors here have little to say. This is the house where he used to live; up there on the second floor we're told. But all of the residents of this building now say that they either moved in after he left or if they knew him, they did not know him well. They saw him in passing at best. He had a girlfriend and a dog by most accounts. But that's about all they know. (voice-over): For now, police are still collecting evidence and stressing that Clark is not a suspect while signs and a family member's home are keeping the curious away from this person of interest.</s>COOPER: So this guy seems to have kind of disappeared from view. I assume police know exactly where he is, yes?</s>FOREMAN: Yes, they do, Anderson. They made that point today. We heard little bits and pieces coming in all day where he might be, but the police did say categorically and they've said from the beginning, "Look, we have been keeping an eye on where this person is." He is a person of extreme interest to them, and he is not a suspect but they're not going to let him out of their site. In fact, we got a report just a short while ago about how a neighboring police jurisdiction tonight is helping them keep an eye on an area where they have him; they know where he is. He is free to do what he wishes, but nonetheless they are keeping an eye on him and say will keep them in their sight at all times until they determine that he is no longer a person of interest or something more -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: All right. Tom, thanks. We're joined by -- again, by criminal pathologist, Dr. Cyril Wecht and former FBI agent and profiler Candice Delong. So Candice, we know now that she was strangled. What about this jumps out at you in terms of the crime scene, the way the body was disposed of, the clothing was disposed of and the manner of death?</s>CANDICE DELONG, FORMER FBI AGENT AND PROFILER: One of the first things that struck me when I heard five days after she was last seen that her body was found in the laboratory, and then secreted in a wall was certainly that the person responsible for her murder was someone very familiar with that laboratory; someone who also had a reason to be there. There were 75 -- there are 75 surveillance cameras there. So a vagrant certainly didn't wander in. And crimes of this nature -- it didn't look premeditated to me. And crimes of this nature where a woman is attacked and murdered and left like that tend to not be premeditated. And it usually is someone that knew the victim.</s>COOPER: Dr. Wecht, strangulation is, how difficult is that? It's an incredibly intimate thing as well. It's not killing someone from afar, it's up close.</s>DR. CYRIL WECHT, CRIMINAL PATHOLOGIST: It's not difficult to accomplish, Anderson. Remember, this young lady, 90 pounds, 4'10". So an adult male very easily, especially if the victim is unsuspecting, can immediately encircle the neck with the two hands. Pressure on the neck for about 20 seconds can result in unconsciousness and 30 seconds definitely deep unconsciousness and after that, if pressure is continued or not, death may ensue. So it's not hard at all to envision how this could be accomplished from a physical stand point. I agree with your other guest that this most likely was something that evolved. It probably began with some sexual advances and got out of hand. The strangulation is a classical method of killing in this kind of a situation as opposed obviously to shooting, stabbing, and even beating. The DNA evidence is going to be key here, as well as other forensic trace evidence. Hair, fibers, any blood transferred from one to the other. We heard something about scratches, I don't know if that's true or not, then material from her fingernails. What will that yield when compared to DNA from this man and other people, too. So I think there is no need and there should not be a rush to judgment, since there's a tight population, nobody is going to be fleeing the country, and they are making certain that they do all the necessary tests. There's no question that this is a job performed by somebody there, who as has been pointed out knew darn well where everything was and tried to hide things just so that a couple or few days could -- how to escape all of the findings and give that individual more time to think about his particular alibi.</s>COOPER: Candice, just the fact that -- you're saying you don't think it's premeditated, if it was something that happened spontaneously that would probably improve police chances of finding some sort of DNA evidence or some sort of physical evidence. We know they've already they say taken in more than 200 pieces of potential evidence.</s>DELONG: Yes, because crimes like this, when there's a crime scene like this and someone is killed, this doesn't look like it was premeditated. Her body was discovered. All kinds of evidence, as you mentioned, 200 items of evidence. I think this is probably going to be resolved very quickly. And I agree with Dr. Wecht, this is probably -- when we see a woman killed in this manner, generally what happened is that there was an interchange of some kind, often times an advance by the male. He's rebuffed. Doesn't take the rejection well and things devolve from there and it's almost always a hands-on manual strangulation because it was unplanned. The offender didn't bring the weapon. And he's very angry and upset, not necessarily this one but generally speaking and he expresses that by going for the victim's throat.</s>COOPER: Dr. Wecht, appreciate your expertise tonight and Candice Delong, as well. Thank you very much.</s>WECHT: Thank you.</s>COOPER: We've got a lot more on the killing of Annie Le on our Web site. You can go to AC360.com to see a timeline of the murder, as we know it, and the mystery of it. The investigation, of course, still unfolding. You can also weigh in the live chat. Let us know what you think about this and other stories, talk to other viewers; Ac360.com, the live chat. I'll log on right now; I'm a little bit late to the party. The lessons learned from another murdered Yale student killed more than a decade ago, her case never solved; her family still searching for answers. Well have an up close look at that case. Also ahead, our series, "Medical Malpractice: Who Wins, Who Loses, Who Pays?" Tonight, we'll hear from a doctor who was sued by a patient after she saved her life. We'll be right back.