Yale student disappears before wedding, body found (update page 5)

[shanam]

This is the most current update. There is an all out effort to find her.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/nationa...RVJrcA5jETSFeP

Vanished student's teacher questioned
Canceled gal's class before she vanished
By DOUGLAS MONTERO in New Haven, Conn., and DAN MANGAN in New York
Last Updated: 10:28 AM, September 12, 2009
Posted: 3:29 AM, September 12, 2009
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One of missing Yale grad student Annie Le's professors reportedly was questioned by cops after they learned he canceled a class the bride-to-be was due to attend the same day she mysteriously disappeared.

The prof called off the class Tuesday, well before anyone raised an alarm that Le had vanished -- just five days ahead of her scheduled Long Island wedding, Fox61-TV in Connecticut reported. The professor has not been charged.


LAST LOOK: Annie Le, here with fiancé Jon Widawsky, was seen on video entering a Yale lab facility -- but not exiting.
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Meanwhile, The Post has learned that Le's mom, Vivian, told a woman at a New Haven supermarket that her daughter's disappearance was "not cold feet," while handing out missing-person fliers Wednesday.

The somber mom also told the woman that "it's not the boyfriend" -- Columbia University physics grad student Jonathan Widawsky -- who's to blame for Le going missing.

More than 100 Yale Police, FBI agents, state and city cops continued an intensive search for Le yesterday as Yale announced a $10,000 reward for information on her whereabouts. They checked the basement of the Amistad Street Building in New Haven where she last was seen entering Tuesday morning, reviewed building blueprints and examined the aspiring doctor's computer.

Investigators also are reviewing security-camera footage to see if she was spotted leaving.

Le was deeply in love with Widawsky and talked constantly about their wedding, which was scheduled to take place tomorrow in Syosset. Those nuptials were canceled yesterday.

"Less than one week til the big day!" Le, 24, wrote on her Facebook page last Sunday.

Her page also read, "Lucky I'm in love with my best friend :)," under a photo of her and Widawsky.

Le was "hellbent on getting married," her uncle Minh Nguyen told the Yale Daily News.

And Yale Pharmacology Department chair Joseph Schlessinger told the paper, "She was always talking about the wedding."

Le in February wrote an article titled "Crime and Safety in New Haven" in Yale's B Magazine.

She detailed safety tips from Yale Police Chief James Perrotti and concluded that "with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic."

"She did not feel safe in New Haven," Schlessinger told the Yale Daily News.

[Roo]

Report that a body was found.......
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_c...case_wide.html

Body of missing Yale student Annie Le found on campus in medical school lab

BY Matthew Lysiak In New Haven and Samuel Goldsmith
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Updated Saturday, September 12th 2009, 4:19 PM


Investigators found the body of missing Yale graduate student Annie Le in the building where she was last seen, the Daily News has learned.

The report came a short time after the police found bloody clothes stuffed in the ceiling of the building at 10 Amistad St. in New Haven.

Authorities emptied the building Saturday afternoon and declared it a murder scene.

The building houses the university's molecular biology labs at the Medical School complex about a mile from the main campus. Cops had found Le's purse, cell phone, credit cards and cash earlier this week.

Investigators had questioned a man outside the lab Saturday morning — then put him in an unmarked car with an FBI agent and drove away.

Officials would not say whether the man was a suspect, a witness, or neither.

Security records show the 24-year-old doctoral student in pharmacology swiped her identification card to enter the building around 10 a.m. Tuesday, and have no indication that she ever left.

"[The case] is still wide open," a law enforcement source told the Daily News. "We are looking into everything."

The source said investigators are looking at:

* A burglary gone bad — the lab where Le was last seen is full of valuable equipment.

* Kidnapping — Le's mother owns nail salons in California and has access to cash.

* A professor who suddenly canceled a class Le was to attend around the time she went missing.

Investigators are still searching through hundreds of hours of surveillance footage and following up on tips.

"They are going frame by frame, looking at every image," said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy. "We are also reviewing footage of nearby businesses.

"We have yet to I.D. her leaving the building," he said. "The FBI is continuing to do interviews with everyone who knew the student."

Yale announced Friday a $10,000 reward for information on Le.

Investigators had also examined blueprints of the building to make sure nothing was missed in their search.

Le graduated from the University of Rochester in 2007, where she received a degree in bioscience and met her fiance, Jonathan Widawsky, who she was set to marry Sunday in Syosset.

Police say Widawsky, a Columbia University graduate student, is not a suspect and is assisting with the investigation.

[LVLux]

This is sickening and I am suspecting the Professor becasue I can not imagine a thief or a kidnapper hiding her body-they would have just left the scene. Was her body found in the same location as her bloody clothes? This makes me so sad & afraid.

[LVLux]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549527,00.html

This article says that it is not true that the body has been found-I wonder which is correct?


Authorities in Connecticut refuted media reports Saturday that a body had been found in the search for a missing Yale graduate student, but they confirmed, without elaborating, that evidence had been seized.

Annie Le, 24, who disappeared days before she was scheduled to be married, was last seen Tuesday entering a building at the New Haven, Conn., university.

A report that a body was found inside the building was not true, FBI Special Agent Kim Mertz said at a news conference Friday evening.

"Items that could potentially be evidence have been seized. None have yet been associated with Annie Le,” Mertz said, responding to other reports of bloody clothing found inside the building.

University officials have urged the public not to jump to conclusion.

"The investigation is at a very difficult stage," University Vice President and Secretary Linda Lorimer said, adding that many agencies are working together to find out what happened to the student.

The New York Daily News, citing an unnamed police source, reported earlier Friday that detectives had questioned a Yale professor. Le, a doctoral student in pharmacology at the Ivy League university, was supposed to attend the professor's class Tuesday afternoon, but the course was canceled shortly before Le was reported missing, according to the Daily News.


But Lorimer told the Yale Daily News later that there was no reason to believe a professor is a suspect in the case.

Click here for photos.

Meanwhile, the missing woman's family canceled her Sunday wedding on Long Island, N.Y., according to a supervisor at the hall where the ceremony and reception were to have taken place.

"The wedding is off," Nadeen Fotopoulos, a manager at the North Ritz Club in Syosset, told the News. She said 160 guests were supposed to attend.

"It's very sad," she told the paper. "The hall will be dark Sunday morning."

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Detectives were spotted Saturday questioning a man outside the lab where Le worked. When they finished talking, the man got in the front seat of an unmarked car and one of the FBI agents got in the back seat. The car then drove away.

Authorities previously said they had no evidence to indicate foul play in Le's disappearance. More than 100 investigators are working on the case.

On Friday, Yale offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the missing student. Investigators searched her office, the lab facilities where she did research and her apartment.

Agent Bill Reiner said the FBI wouldn't answer any questions about the investigation while it's ongoing.

Le was last seen about 10 a.m. Tuesday morning on surveillance camera outside a lab in the Yale School of Medicine complex, less than a mile from the main campus.

About the same time, she swiped her Yale ID at the facility's entrance. There was no footage of her leaving the building, in spite of a fire alarm that went off about 12:40 p.m. The alarm isn't thought to be connected to her disappearance.

Her purse, cell phone, credit cards and money were found in her office, a few blocks from the lab. She has not contacted her fiance, family or friends since Tuesday.

Investigators were examining security camera footage from some 75 cameras near the building where Le was last spotted.

"They are going frame by frame, looking at every image," Conroy said Friday.

Le, a California native, was to be married to Jonathan Widawsky, a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. The two met as undergraduates at the University of Rochester. Widawsky has been cooperating with the investigation and is not considered a suspect, authorities say.

Le is 4-foot-11, 90 pounds and of Asian descent with brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information on Le’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Yale Police Department at (203) 432-4400.

[LVLux]

Here is another link that confirms-No Body Found yet:
http://www.news10.net/news/local/sto...=66817&catid=2

[Roo]

Originally Posted by LVLux

Here is another link that confirms-No Body Found yet: http://www.news10.net/news/local/sto...=66817&catid=2

Thanks for the update, I changed the title! This story is sooo sad

[LVLux]

I know-it just makes me feel so unsafe if it turns out to be the Professor-I mean who would risk their career and do something like this-I almost hope it was a robbery either way it is a loss of a productive beautiful life!

[LVLux]

I just read that she was only 4'11 and weighed 90 lbs-could easily have been smuggled out of the building in a container.

[rainedrop1019]

This is just so sad.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family.

[amanda]

Incredibly sad. I hope they find her safe and sound, although this sounds pretty ominous.

I guess that the only thing that I can add is that it's incredibly jarring when violent crimes are committed in a college town. This spring, a widely respected UGA business professor gunned down his wife and two other people less than a mile from campus and less than a half mile away from a huge annual festival that was going on at the time. He apparently killed himself the same day, but Athens police didn't find his body for two weeks.

People that live in college towns mostly feel like they live in a bubble, and it's almost a small loss of innocence when something like this happens, if indeed a crime has been committed. My thoughts go out to her, her family and friends, and everyone on the Yale campus that just had to grow up a little bit.

[Roo]

^^ I remember the first time I visited Yale and New Haven is not like other small college towns IMO. I was really shocked at how dangerous the surrounding area appeared, even in the day time. For those who have never been there, picture a very bad inner-city area that has sprouted up around and surrounded a collection of very old buildings. That's what the "campus" looks like. For the amount of money that school costs, I'd be scared to send my child there... I have since been back to that area several times and the last time I was there with my uncle, who is a retired state trooper, he expressed reluctance in leaving his car parked on the street during the day while we ate pizza.

[amanda]

Originally Posted by Roo

^^ I remember the first time I visited Yale and New Haven is not like other small college towns IMO. I was really shocked at how dangerous the surrounding area appeared, even in the day time. For those who have never been there, picture a very bad inner-city area that has sprouted up around and surrounded a collection of very old buildings. That's what the "campus" looks like. For the amount of money that school costs, I'd be scared to send my child there... I have since been back to that area several times and the last time I was there with my uncle, who is a retired state trooper, he expressed reluctance in leaving his car parked on the street during the day while we ate pizza.

I think maybe it's more that a professor may have been involved and that it may have happened on campus. There are certainly parts of Athens, not far at all from campus, where I would not leave my car. Other parts are fine, but the shock of that crime was that it was committed both by and against upstanding members of the university community. And that seems like it may be the case here, which is very difficult to manage within a community like that.

[Roo]

^ I am wondering about the Professor too. This whole thing is incredibly sad.......

[LVLux]

Roo that is probably why she was so nervous living there-I could not picture why she would be scared since most campus have an insulated feeling of safety around them-it sounds like it is just an all around rough area and probably why the campus had so many security cameras surrounding the building.

I would be curious to know if the class that was cancalled was the only class being held in the building that day and how many people were in the building when the fire alarm was sounded-if someone was trying to carry her body our in a suit case or something maybe that is why they sounded the alarm so that they could leave with a group and not be as noticeable leaving with a case-maybe someone even pulled her up into the ceiling/crawl space area and raped,killed her and left the clothes and tucked her in a case and then hit the alarm and left-I wish they would find her so that some questions might be answered.

[Roo]

My possible theories:

-She had a stalker/obsessive person who wanted a relationship with her and had come into contact with her in the school environment. This person was upset about the wedding coming up this weekend and lost it...

-Whoever this person is, they had knowledge of her movements as well as the inner workings of the school. May have even known which areas did not have cameras. Maybe student/staff person.

-Could also be another student who was jealous/angry over something she was doing academically. Grad school is notoriously competitive and in my experience I have seen some areas of study that can attract unstable people. Some of them get unhinged in ivy league situations because they've come from other schools where they were at the top of their game and don't cope well when they are put in a situation where they are competing in a tough academic environment with others who are their equals. I would definitely categorize Yale as a place where you'd probably see that a lot.

I am glad her fiancee was in school in NYC, which is over an hour on the train away and therefore easy to establish his whereabouts. He must be devastated