Posts Tagged ‘annie le’

Jessica Del Rocco: Raymond Clark’s High School Girlfriend Speaks Out

September 23rd, 2009

Raymond Clark's high school girlfriend Jessica Del Rocco

Jessica Del Rocco, accused Annie Le killer Raymond Clark’s high school girlfriend, has finally come forward to tell her story. Although constrained by police requests that she not speak about the alleged sexual abuse she may have experienced at Clark’s hands, Del Rocco spoke with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America (the full GMA interview can be seen here) about her relationship with the man under arrest for the murder of Yale student Annie Le.

Other high school friends of Raymond Clark have spoken of him as a normal decent guy whom they consider the unlikeliest of killers. Jessica Del Rocco saw that side of him, too.

“He was very popular. He was a very nice guy. Everybody loved him. He was a good student. He was a great baseball player. At first, he was perfect – he was charming, he was sweet, took me out.”

As their relationship proceeded, however, Del Rocco began to see another side to Raymond Clark. ”About three months into everything, he started to get a little controlling,” she said in the GMA interview.

Clark began dictating what she could wear and where she could go. She would be upbraided for speaking to the wrong person or even using the wrong voice in conversation. If she got out of line, Clark’s dark side began to show through. ”He would get very angry. He would frighten me. He did get physical,” said Del Rocco.

Del Rocco was not the only one to see the controlling side of Raymond Clark. Neighbor Anna Marie Goodwin saw similar displays of controlling behavior toward his current girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, as well. “He would never let her talk to anyone. I would hear a lot of yelling upstairs,” says Goodwin.

Clark began to display the sort of rage towards Jessica Del Rocco that Annie Clark may have seen on the fateful day of her murder. ”He’d get this little look in his eye. Sometimes it would be best just to do what he said, just to avoid the fight.” Perhaps Annie Le made the mistake of standing up to the controlling lab technician.

Says Jessica Del Rocco, “If things didn’t go his way, then he’d make them go his way.”

When Del Rocco tried to end the relationship, Clark became violent. ”He didn’t want it to be over, and an incident occurred.” That incident has been reported by media sources to be a forced sexual encounter, but Del Rocco has been asked by police not to speak of the incident.

Unable to free herself from the man who would be tried as Annie Le’s killer, Del Rocco contacted the school and ultimately the police. For about two weeks, she had to be escorted from school to her car until she and Clark both began to date other people and his rage finally cooled off.

Jessica Del Rocco offers advice to anyone who finds herself in a similar predicament. ”If any girl feels uncomfortable in a relationship. Take a stand and realize you don’t deserve to be treated like that. You deserve better.”

Raymond Clark Motive: Why He Might Have Killed Yale Student Annie Le

Latest Annie Le Update: Evidence Mounting Against Raymond Clark

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Raymond Clark Motive: Why He Might Have Killed Yale Student Annie Le

September 18th, 2009

Raymond Clark III

Was it a crime of passion? Workplace rage? Or Something Else? How did a September 8th meeting between lab technician Raymond Clark and Yale student Annie Le in a basement laboratory of a medical research building end in murder? If Raymond Clark had a motive, police claim not to know what it is, and since Clark is so far not talking to police or to anyone else, the rest of us can only speculate.

If press reports are accurate, cops have Raymond Clark dead to rights. The have computer “swipe” card evidence placing Clark and Le in the same room at the same time on the day of the murder, and showing that Clark was later in the basement room where Annie Le’s body was finally discovered after a thorough search of the Amistad Building several days after she disappeared. They have DNA evidence from Clark and Le linking Clark to where Le’s body was hidden as well as to bloody clothes that were discovered in a ceiling elsewhere in the building.

The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming enough for the police to have finally arrested Clark for Le’s murder. But what was Raymond Clark’s motive? How could the Yale lab technician known to his high school friends as a gentle, decent young man commit an unspeakable crime of extraordinary violence against a tiny young woman under five feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds?

Police claim not to know. ”The only person that really, truly knows the motive in this crime is the suspect,” said New Haven Police Chief James Lewis. “What made him do what he did, we may not know until trial. We may never know.”

Although high school friends describe Clark as kind and decent, those who knew him more recently paint a different picture. Former neighbor Anna Marie Goodwin says he was aggressive and controlling towards his live-in girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka. “He would never let her talk to anyone. I would hear a lot of yelling upstairs,” says Goodwin.

People who knew him from the Amistad Street Building where he worked have described Raymond Clark as a “control freak”. One researcher was quoted in the New York Times as saying he would grow angry when lab workers would forget to where their slip-on shoe covers in the laboratory rooms. He was also said to be over-officious towards researchers whose lab practices failed to meet his standards.

The only contact we know of between Raymond Clark and Annie Le previous to her September 8th murder was an e-mail exchange in which Clark complained of her failure to follow proper laboratory procedures in the handling of her lab mice. Clark was said to be upset about dirty cages and other problems with the mice. Could Annie Le’s death be a case of “lab rage”?

Or was it a crime of passion. Clark’s girlfriend Jennifer Hromadka had recently taken to her Myspace page defending her boyfriend from charges that he had cheated on her. Could the cheating have been with Annie Le? There’s no evidence to suggest that it was. Police have said that Le was not sexually assaulted the day of the murder, and that they consider the crime to be one of “workplace violence”.

Why, then did he do it? Was it a crime without a motive, a momentary loss of control by an otherwise “normal” young man? Or was the motive something more sinister, a secret obsession ending in murder? Only Raymond Clark knows for sure; and for now, he’s not talking.

Related Articles:

Raymond Clark Arrested for Annie Le Yale Student Murder -DNR

Jennifer Hromadka MySpace and Raymond Clark E-Mails – DNR

Cops: Motive in Yale killing may never be known – NY Newsday

Raymond Clark’s Co-Workers Describe Him as a ‘Control Freak’ – ABC News

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Raymond Clark Arrested for Annie Le Yale Student Murder

September 17th, 2009

What in recent days has seemed like an inevitability has become a reality as police have finally arrested Raymond Clark for the murder of Yale student Annie Le. Clark, a 24-year-old lab technician at the Amistad Street Building where Le was last seen alive, has been the focus of police attention since Le’s body was discovered on Saturday.

“Based on numerous interviews, forensic evidence, and information learned from viewing video surveillance, detectives have secured the arrest warrant for Clark,” said New Haven, Connecticut Police Chief James Lewis.

Computer records from the building’s security system have placed Raymond Clark in the same room at the same time as Annie Le on the day of her murder. Record also placed him in the basement room where Le’s body was discovered later the same day.

Video of Raymond Clark Arrest

Annie Le Victim of “Workplace Violence”

Police have now said that Annie Le was not sexually assaulted and have called her murder a case of “workplace violence”. There have been suggestions that Raymond Clark and Annie Le came into conflict over the way she handled the laboratory mice used in her medical experiments. Le was working towards a PhD in Pharmacology at Yale.

The New York Daily News has dubbed this the “of mice and murder” theory. Clark sent Le an e-mail on September 8th complaining about her failure to follow proper protocols with her lab animals. He also sought a meeting with her to discuss the subject.

Now that police are calling Annie Le’s murder a case of workplace violence, the “of mice and murder” theory has become more plausible. Perhaps an argument over laboratory mice got out of hand. News stories about Raymond Clark have often referred to his “muscular physique”. The contrast between the muscular Clark and the tiny, 90 pound Le could hardly be more dramatic. Any physical confrontation between the two might have led to an accidental death. Lennie’s killing of Curley’s wife in John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” comes to mind.

On the other hand, maybe Clark meant to kill Annie Le, taking revenge on her for who-knows-what slights she or other Yale graduate students may have inflicted on him as he worked as a menial janitor in a building filled with uber-smart (and often arrogant) medical students.

Police Chief James Lewis at a news conference called the case a “workplace crime”:

Annie Le had unlimited potential. This is not about urban crime, university crime or domestic crime, but a workplace crime, which has become a concern around the country,” Lewis said.

Undoubtedly more details of what really happened in that laboratory room that led to the death of Annie Le will be revealed in the days to come. For now, at least it’s a relief to know that her killer is behind bars.

Annie Le Update: Raymond Clark Released; Cause of Death: Asphyxiated

Annie Le Suspect Identified as Raymond Clark

Annie Le Suspect: Lab Technician Is Leading Suspect in Yale Student Murder

Annie Le Body Found

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Latest Annie Le Update: Evidence Mounting Against Raymond Clark

September 16th, 2009

The net is beginning to close in around laboratory technician Raymond Clark in the murder of Yale student Annie Le. Clark has been named as a “person of interest” in the case and has been the focus of intense scrutiny by law enforcement. Computer records than have been leaked to the Hartford Courant now place him in the same room at the same time as Le on the day she was murdered.

According to the Courant article, Annie Le entered a basement laboratory at around 10 a.m on September 8, using a swipe card to gain entrance to the room. Clark entered the same room a few minutes later. Computer records show Le never used her swipe card again. The entrance records also place Raymond Clark in the basement room where Le’s body was discovered later that day. The article suggests that the computer records made Clark an object of police suspicion from the beginning of the investigation. If the Courant article is true, an arrest can’t be far away.

Raymond Clark Motive

Speculation persists over what Raymond Clark’s motive may have been if he did indeed kill Annie Le. At the moment, police have not revealed their thinking on the matter, but that hasn’t stopped media and other observers from offering their own speculations. Bear in mind that what follows is merely arm-chair theorizing, but the evidence in the case that rests in the public domain now points overwhelmingly at Raymond Clark as the likely perpetrator. It would be shocking at this point if an arrest were not made soon.

E-Mails Between Annie Le and Raymond Clark

The New York Daily News has pointed out the existence of a recent e-mail exchange between Le and Clark. Clark initiated the exchange by complaining that Le was not following established protocols in her treatment of the laboratory mice used in her experiments. Le replied with a conciliatory manner, but police have apparently speculated that the Clark somehow became enraged by the incident, leading to an attack on Annie Le.

This seems like a pretty thread-bare idea without more supporting evidence, but stranger things have happened. The Daily news calls it the “of mice and murder” theory. Clark and his girlfriend kept a menagerie of animals including a pit bull who was reported kept caged in a crate most of the time.

Update 9/17: Raymond Clark has now been arrested for the murder of Annie Le. Police are calling the case one of “workplace violence” which would seem to lend credence to the “of mice and murder” theory. Evidently Clark and Le clashed over some workplace issue which led to the confrontation ending in Le’s murder.

Raymond Clark Frustrated Lover

Raymond Clark’s live-in girlfriend Jennifer Hromadka had a Myspace page, now deleted, on which she defended Clark against charges that he had cheated on her with someone at the lab. Wagging tongues have speculated that Clark and Annie Le may have had a brief affair which led to a bad end as her marriage approached. Hromadka wrote about the alleged cheating:

My boyfriend, Ray, if you don’t know him, has no interest in any of the other girls at [the university research center] as anything more than friends.
“This rumor of a ‘fling’ is probably the most stupid thing i have ever heard and really is not even worth going into detail about.

Clark apparently has a history of unhappy breakups, having been involved in a police report over his breakup with his high school girlfriend in 2003. The ex-girlfriend reportedly told police that Clark had confronted her and forced her to have sex when she tried to end the relationship.

A former neighbor of Raymond Clark and Jennifer Hromadka has also told reporters that he was very controlling towards his current girlfriend. “He would never let her talk to anyone. I would hear a lot of yelling upstairs,” said neighbor Anna Marie Goodwin.

If true, this history of anger and violence towards women would support the frustrated lover theory.

On the other hand, there is no evidence to indicate that Clark and Le ever had a relationship of any kind. The other possibility is that Clark became obsessed with Annie Le from afar, and finally attacked her when she refused his advances. This is perhaps more likely.

Jennifer Hromadka Myspace Page

Jennifer Hromadka kept a Myspace page, which has now been deleted. Bingj.com has preserved a cached version of the page from last May. On the cached version of Jennifer Hromadka’s Myspace page, she greets visitors with the curiously defensive:

Who are you to judge the life I live? I know I’m not perfect and I don’t live to be, but before you start pointing fingers make sure your hands are clean!!

Later on the page, she adds:

I have realized in the last few weeks the kind of people I want and need in my life. I have no time for your drama or your BS take it somewhere else. It is not my problem that you have no life! I am completely done! Don’t come to me when your “friends” stab you in the back I don’t want to know about it cause I don’t care.

On the other hand she was much more positive about boyfriend Ray Clark:

I’m 22 years old and recently moved to Middletown, CT with my wonderful boyfriend Ray (we are just together for financial reason though hahaha). I love animals!! I have 2 horses, a shiba inu and 2 cats. I have been through a lot in the last 5 years and am finally in a place were I can say I’m truely happy.

Cause of Death in Annie Le Murder

After some delay, local county coroner has released the results of the autopsy in Annie Le’s death. The official cause of death is listed as “traumatic asphyxia due to neck compression.” In other words, strangulation caused by pressure from hands or some other object.

Police have reportedly taken extensive DNA samples from Raymond Clark including from beneath his fingernails in hopes of matching his DNA to evidence found on the body of Annie Le.

Related Articles

Annie Le Update: Raymond Clark Released; Cause of Death: Asphyxiated

Annie Le Suspect Identified as Raymond Clark

Annie Le Suspect: Lab Technician Is Leading Suspect in Yale Student Murder

Annie Le Body Found

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Annie Le Update: Raymond Clark Released; Cause of Death: Asphyxiated

September 16th, 2009

In new developments in the Yale student Annie Le murder case, Raymond Clark, who has been named by news outlets as a “person of interest” in the case, has been released by police. Also, the Hartford Courant is reporting that sources have revealed to them that Annie Le’s cause of death was asphyxiation.

Police released Raymond Clark from custody at about 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, indicating that they don’t have enough evidence to charge him in the case. Statements from law enforcement are ambiguous about whether he is the chief suspect in the case.

Police served a search warrant on lab technician Raymond Clark’s Middleton, CT apartment on Tuesday evening, working throughout the night to find possible evidence linking him to the crime. The apartment has been under police surveillance since Clark was taken into custody for questioning. Clark has not been arrested but has apparently been the focus of police interest in the case. DNA samples have reportedly been taken from Clark.

It may be difficult to collect evidence from the crime scene because dozens of people may have had access to the area in the five days between Annie Le’s disappearence and the finding of her body. Police have been criticized for not cordoning off the building after Le was reported missing. It wasn’t until several days after her disapperance that they began to make a thorough search of the Amistad Street Building where she was last seen.

Bloody clothes have reportedly been discovered at the crime scene, but it is not known to whom the clothes belong, or whose blood is on them. Raymond Clark has become an object of suspician in Le’s murder in part because he has scratches on his chest that may be associated with a struggle. He is also said to have failed a lie detector test and been uncooperative with police.

According to a story in the New York Daily News, Clark’s neighbors have said that he was very controlling towards his live-in girlfriend Jennifer Hromadka.

“He would never let her talk to anyone. I would hear a lot of yelling upstairs,” said neighbor Anna Marie Goodwin.

On the Myspace page Clark and Jennifer Hromadka share, she wrote of her boyfriend:

“He is a bit naive, doesn’t always use the best judgment, definitely is not the best judge of character but he is a good guy,” she wrote. “He has a big heart and tries to see the best in people ALL THE TIME! even when everyone else is telling him that the person is a psycho or that the person can’t be trusted.”

Raymond Clark has worked at the Amistad Street Building where Annie Le’s body was found for four years. He is listed as an “animal technician” and his job is said to involve caring for animals used in laboratory experiments.

Annie Le Cause of Death: Asphyxiation

The Hartford Courant newspaper is reporting that sources have revealed to it that Annie Le was asphyxiated. Chief State Medical Examiner Wayne F. Carver has yet to officially release details in the case in order to prevent interfering with the on-going investigation into her murder.

Asphyxiation when used in forensic pathology can encompass both strangulation as well as suffocation. It refers to blockage of the airway until the person dies. Asphyxiation can be recognized in autopsied by the build-up of excessive carbon in the tissues.

Related Articles:

Annie Le Suspect Identified as Raymond Clark

Annie Le Suspect: Lab Technician Is Leading Suspect in Yale Student Murder

Annie Le Body Found