Body thought to be that of missing Yale student is found at lab

By Globe Staff  |  September 14, 2009

Police in Connecticut said last night they found what appeared to be the body of a Yale University graduate student hidden inside a wall at a university lab where she worked and was last seen five days before.

At a press conference in New Haven, Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard of the New Haven Police Department told reporters that they presume the body was that of doctoral student Annie Le, the focus of a police search since Tuesday.

“It hasn’t been positively identified as of this time,’’ Reichard told reporters last night, according to the Associated Press. “However, we are assuming it is her . . . so we are treating it as a homicide.’’

State Police said they found the body about 5 p.m. in a part of the building that houses utility cables that run between floors. The building is in the university’s medical complex.

Reichard told reporters that investigators have recovered “a large amount’’ of physical evidence, but he would not discuss what it included.

In a press release, police called the area where the body was found an “extensive crime scene.’’

Police said they have not made any arrests.

Richard Levin, Yale’s president, offered support to Le’s family and her fiance, Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky. The couple was to have married yesterday in Syosset, N.Y., on Long Island.

“The family and fiance and friends now must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be positively identified,’’ Levin told the Associated Press. “I met . . . with Annie’s family, with her fiance and his family, and I conveyed to them all the deeply felt support of the entire university community.’’

Police have said Widawsky is not a suspect and is assisting with the investigation.

Le, 24, was last seen Tuesday morning in the five-story building that houses the laboratory where she worked. Surveillance video shows her arriving about 10 a.m., but police had been baffled because there was no video of Le leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras operating throughout the complex. Her identification, money, credit cards, and purse were found in her 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.

Investigators said on Saturday that they recovered evidence from the building, but would not confirm media reports that the items included bloody clothing.

Yesterday morning, a State Police van drove down a ramp into the basement area of the building where the lab is. Authorities also sifted through garbage at a Hartford incinerator yesterday, looking through trash that had been taken from the building since Tuesday.

Le, a doctoral student in pharmacology from Placerville, Calif., wrote a magazine article earlier this year about how to stay safe around the Ivy League campus.

The article, titled “Crime and Safety in New Haven,’’ was published in February in a magazine produced by Yale’s medical school.

It compared instances of robbery in New Haven with cities that house other Ivy League schools, and included 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.’’

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

“It has been a week that has tested many people in many different ways,’’ the Rev. Ian Buckner Oliver said just before he gave the morning 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.’’