Tragic Find In Search for Yale Student

Last updated 7:52 a.m. ET

Just seven months before police found what they believe is Annie Le's body hidden in a Yale University building, the graduate student wrote a magazine article about how to stay safe on the streets around the Ivy League school.

The 24-year-old bride-to-be, who had been missing since Tuesday, apparently met a violent death in a secure Yale building accessible only to students and staff, police said Sunday on what was supposed to be her wedding day.

Police would not confirm reports that another student was being questioned and had failed a lie detector test, CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reported on CBS' "The Early Show."

Photos: Student Found Dead on Wedding Day

Authorities have said little about the investigation. They hadn't positively identified the body found hidden in a wall Sunday, but they were assuming it was Le and treating her death as a homicide.

State police found the body in a building in Yale's medical complex, about a mile from the main campus. It was in an area that houses utility cables that run between floors.

Yale President Richard Levin offered support to Le's family and her fiance, Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky. The couple was to marry Sunday in Syosset, N.Y., on Long Island's north shore.

"The family and fiance and friends now must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be positively identified," Levin said.

Police on Sunday would not say if they have any suspects. They previously have said Widawsky is not a suspect and is assisting with the investigation. New Haven Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard said police also recovered "a large amount" of physical evidence, but he would not discuss what that included.

Le, who worked in a laboratory in the five-story building's basement, was reported missing last Tuesday. Surveillance video shows her arriving at around 10 a.m., but police could find no video of Le leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras operating around the complex. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her third-floor 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.

On Sunday morning, a state police van drove down a ramp into the building's basement area. Authorities also sifted through garbage at a Hartford incinerator Sunday, looking through trash that was taken from the building in the days since Le went missing.

Criminal profiler Pat Brown suggested to "The Early Show" that because Le never left the building, "all the evidence is there. The bloody clothing they found, I'm guessing, if it's related to this crime is the perpetrator's clothing and that's why it was stuffed up there in the ceiling tile, which would be fantastic because there would be evidence on that clothing, perhaps DNA from the person, so they'll at least be able to put this creep away.

"But they're going to be looking at people she knew well, somebody she worked with - a professor, another student, somebody who knew her schedule, knew where she was, and that she wouldn't have been afraid of when she was in the lab. And that's why she wasn't aware that she was in any danger."

Last winter, Le, a pharmacology student from Placerville, Calif., wrote a magazine article about how to stay safe around Yale's campus.

The article, titled "Crime and Safety in New Haven," was published in February in a magazine produced by the university's medical school. It compares higher instances of robbery in New Haven with cities that house other Ivy League schools and includes 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."

"In short, New Haven is a city and all cities have their perils," Le concludes. "But with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic."

Brown suggested that, because Le had not placed herself in a hazardous situation, "my guess is the only fault she could have is that she was too nice, that she was too sweet, and that somebody that she worked with, she didn't realize that they were obsessing over her. That's what my guess is in this. I don't see a serial killer; I see a guy who thought he was entitled to her, and was angry that she was not choosing him and she was going to pick somebody else, and as her wedding day approached he harbored that anger and took it out on her, and I bet she never saw it coming because she was just too nice a person."

Brown said that Le's case "makes me cry. It's really depressing."

Jennifer Simpson, a friend of Le's who met her at a summer program at the National Institutes of Health in 2006, told "Early Show" anchor Maggie Rodriguez that she hasn't been able to sleep much since news of her disappearance. "It truly is very, very sad. My heart goes out to John and Annie's family and John's family and all her friends."

Simpson said Le had been planning the wedding for over a year and was very excited about it. "She's been doing a countdown to her wedding day and she was doing weather patterns to make sure that the weather would be perfect on her wedding day. And she just wanted everything to be perfect, everything down to table napkins, to flowers - Annie was very, very excited about this day."

Simpson said Le was a "people person" who was friendly and cordial with everybody. "She loved people. She loved life. And we just can't imagine anybody wanting to harm Annie. With regards to her safety, if she were concerned about it, she would have said something to someone and they would have known. John would have known. Family would have known. Friends would have known.

"Annie always made sure she was safe. She doesn't walk around at night by herself and if she had to work late, she would make sure that somebody could come pick her up or walk with her."

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

"It has brought up a lot of fears for people," the Rev. Ian Buckner Oliver said just before he gave the Sunday morning sermon. "It has brought up a lot of worry and concern for her and for all our safety."

Bjorn Cooley, a 20-year-old Yale student from Oregon, said he heard the news that a body had been found while studying in his room Sunday night.

"Before they found the body, I still had hope she had just disappeared," Cooley said. "I was looking for some sort of quasi-happy ending to this whole thing."

The university planned a candlelight vigil at 8 p.m. Monday at the Ivy League school. The Yale Daily News says an e-mail to the Yale community invites participants to "bring a candle and join us in solidarity."