Yale Student's Slaying an Inside Job?

Police Say No Suspect in Custody Despite Reports that a Student Suspect Failed Polygraph Test

(CBS/AP)  Updated 6:16 p.m. EDT

Clues increasingly pointed to an inside job Monday in the slaying of a Yale graduate student whose body was found stuffed inside a wall five days after she vanished from a heavily secured lab building accessible only to university employees.

Police confirmed Monday that the body found Sunday was Le's and that Chief State Medical Examiner Wayne Carver had ruled the death a homicide.

Police on Monday sought to calm fears on the Ivy League campus, saying the death of 24-year-old Annie Le was a targeted act. But they declined to name a suspect or say why anyone would want to kill the young woman just days before she was to be married.

Earlier, media outlets reported that a student was being questioned and had failed a lie detector test, CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reported on CBS' "The Early Show." Later reports said the suspect also had defensive wounds.

"We're not believing it's a random act," said officer Joe Avery, a police spokesman. No one else is in danger, he said, though he would not provide details and denied broadcast reports that police had a suspect in custody.

Yale officials said the building would reopen under increased security. Still, some students worried about their safety.

Photos: Annie Le murder

"I'm not walking at nights by myself anymore," said student Natoya Peart, 21, of Jamaica. "It could happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere."

Michael Vishnevetsky, 21, of New York, said he did not feel safe when he made a late trip to his lab Sunday in a different building. "It felt very different than how I usually felt," he said.

Twenty-year-old Muneeb Sultan said he's shocked that a killing could take place in a secure Yale building.

"It's a frightening idea that there's a murderer walking around on campus," said Sultan, a chemistry student.

Police found Le's body about 5 p.m. Sunday, the day she was to marry Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky, lovingly referred to on her Facebook page as "my best friend." The couple met as undergraduates at the University of Rochester and were eagerly awaiting their planned wedding on Long Island.

Police have said Widawsky is not a suspect and helped detectives in their investigation.

The building where the body was found is part of the university medical school complex about a mile from Yale's main campus and is accessible to Yale personnel with identification cards. Some 75 video surveillance cameras monitor all doorways.

The body was found in the wall chase - a deep recess where utilities and cables run between floors. An autopsy on Monday confirmed that the remains were those of Le, and authorities formally declared her death a homicide.

Le's laboratory was in the basement of the five-story building. Her office was on the third floor of another building about four blocks away, where authorities found her wallet, keys, money and purse.

Campus officials have said that the security network recorded Le entering the building by swiping her ID card about 10 a.m. Tuesday. She was never seen leaving.

More on the Annie Le investigation from CBSNews.com

"The Early Show:" Yale Student's Body Found
Tragic Find In Search for Yale Student
Photos: Student Found Dead on Wedding Day
"CBS Evening News:" Incinerator Searched for Missing Student

Yale closed the building Monday so police could complete their investigation, according to a message sent to Yale students and staff. Scientists are being allowed in only to conduct essential research projects, and only under the supervision of a police officer.

When the building reopens, there will be extra security both inside and outside, said Yale Secretary and Vice President Linda Lorimer.

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

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.

Le wrote an article that was published in February in the medical school's magazine. The piece, titled "Crime and Safety in New Haven," (PDF) compared higher instances of robbery in New Haven with cities that house other Ivy League schools. It also included an interview with Yale Police Chief James Perrotti, who offered advice such as "pay attention to where you are" and "avoid portraying yourself as a potential victim."

Police are analyzing what they call "a large amount" of physical evidence.

They sifted through garbage at a Hartford incinerator Sunday, looking through trash that was taken from the building in the days since Le went missing.

A friend said Monday the doctoral student never showed signs of worry about her own personal safety at work, although she did express concerns about crime in New Haven in an article she wrote last year.

"If she was concerned about (it) she would have said something to someone and they would have known," Jennifer Simpson told CBS Co-Anchor Maggie Rodriguez on "The Early Show." "And Jon (her fiance) would have known, her family would have known, friends would have known."

Simpson said Le, a pharmacology student from California, was friendly to everyone.

"She was a people person," Simpson said. "She loved people. She loved life. We just can't imagine anybody wanting to harm Annie."

Another friend, Laurel Griffeath, echoed those thoughts on NBC's "Today" show.

"I can't even imagine someone mad at Annie, much less wanting to hurt her," Griffeath said.

No one answered the door Monday at the Widawskys' gray, ranch-style home in Huntington, New York.

"He is a very nice young man," next-door neighbor George Mayer said of Widawsky, a 24-year-old seeking his doctorate in physics. "His family, they're all just wonderful people - very, very nice people."

Mayer said he hopes whoever committed the crime "gets justice - that he gets whatever he deserves."

The university planned a candlelight vigil for Monday evening.

The death is the first killing at Yale since the unsolved December 1998 death of Yale student Suzanne Jovin. The popular 21-year-old senior was stabbed 17 times in New Haven's East Rock neighborhood, about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from campus.

Jovin, of Goettingen, Germany, was last seen alive after returning a university van she had borrowed for a party thrown by a group that pairs Yale students with people with mental disabilities.

Investigators recently sought help from Jovin's classmates, who returned to campus in June for their 10-year reunion. Each received a letter asking for information about the killing.

[bubbadubba]

<<<<"Inside job." Please explain.>>>>

An inside job is where someone with financial duties steals from the company they work for using their job fiduciary position to accomplish the crime.
I guess there must be something like that in this story we have not heard about since they used that phrase. We must never question the outstanding quality of reporting and writing these days by the media.

[bubbadubba]

If she had decided to rip people off for little work and big bucks as an attorney instead of trying to help people as a doctor maybe she might still be alive.

[docpeter1953]

Huh??????????????????????

Need to drink the coffee, smoking coffee appears to be destroying your brain cells faster.

[whatareyounuts]

You have some nerve liz? is it. You sound like you hate this women. YOUB DONT EVEN KNOW HER ARE YOU NUTS? You are attacting her personally , insulting her. It sounds like Maybe you arfe the murdere trying to let u kno hy you killed her. Because why and how can you figure all this out by a few comments and photos Do you know her?

You know what makes a women pretty ? her smile, her inner peace, joy and happiness . Not the shap of her nose hey lts see a phpo of you what do you look like. The fact she is nice and friendly to people. And not a disrespectful person like you. You are the ugly one maybe you mess around with your co-workers . And who the F&^*(* are you to insult nd accuse a victim simply because of her ethnic background. BTW she was born in the USA she's american.. You are such a lowlife BIOTCH

[aubfmet]

"Inside job." Please explain.

[enzoc45]

RIP!!

[cattiej]

To be murdered the DAY BEFORE your wedding is truly a terrible terrible act by a person who isn't in their right mind. The story doesn't say how she was found but I can only imagine that the odor by the body was how they found this young women. I hope they find the crazy person and put that person in prison for life or give them a death sentence..This is a crazy world we live in in spite of the advancements of our culture. This is a world of murder and mayhem. There are few people will morals anymore. This IS a very sad story. We pray the family will find peace.

[rsmik]

You should contact the police, they obviously could use your help.

[brianp55]

As I understand it, you need to swipe a magnetic card to get into the building and of course, a record of the cardholder is maintained. So, determining the perpetrator should be fairly easy. This is a very sad story.

[tmittelstaed]

No, unfortunately not. They didn't mention swiping people out so the killer could have conceivably gone into the building a couple -days- earlier and just hung around waiting. It could potentially be a very large number of suspects. And it's been 5 days, the killer has had ample time to get away. It's going to take many days to go through the entire list of people.

The hope is since they found the body they can get some DNA evidence off of it.

[rational_1]

I work at a university in a building with one of these access card systems and it's only activated certain hours of the day (6 pm - 7 am). I don't know if this is also true of this building at Yale. Another issue with these access systems is that sometimes people can get in with someone else who swipes a card, after saying they forgot their card. We're told never to let unknown people in, but who can control that 100%? So there may be no real record of the killer entering the building, complicating the job of the police significantly.

[thesevenveils]

Why would a person go to their office on their wedding day?
Wouldn't one think that a person preparing to get married wouldn't have time for such a distraction unless...
The murderer coaxed her to the building for some "help".
or???

The point is, her going to this location on a wedding day not normal.

[woeisme1]

It was'nt her wedding day. That was the day after she was murdered.

She didn't go to the lab on her wedding day which was Sunday. She went to the lab on Tuesday, 5 days earlier. It's all in black in white.

She didn't go to the lab on her wedding day which was Sunday. She went to the lab on Tuesday, 5 days earlier. It's all in black in white.

[nirak2-2009]

Her wedding day was the day the found the body.

[woeisme1]

CBS...I have a news story for you. WE ALL WERE SAYING THAT YESTERDAY!

[erasmus111]

Geez. They sure are slow, huh?

[vietnamwar]

CBS, here is a news:

Calif. community mourns loss of Yale grad student


Students run past the main office of Union Mine High School in El Dorado, Calif., where Yale student Annie Le graduated in 2003, Monday, Sept. 14, 2009. Le's body was found stuffed inside a wall in medical lab building on the Yale campus Sunday. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) - APPLACERVILLE, Calif. ? When those who knew her talk about Annie Le, they do so in superlatives ? best student they ever had, most dedicated volunteer, smartest teenager they've ever known.
So it was not surprising when her classmates at Union Mine High School in California's Sierra foothills voted her the female student "Most Likely to be the Next Einstein," according to the class yearbook from 2003, the year she graduated.
"She was just a wonderful person, a great student, driven, vibrant, energetic, well-respected by her teachers and by her peers, one of the best students who's ever attended this school," said Principal Tony DeVille.
On Monday, authorities in New Haven, Conn., confirmed that a body found in a Yale University medical laboratory building was that of Le, a 24-year-old pharmacology graduate student. Her body was discovered Sunday, the day she was to get married.
Teachers who recall her as a top student were so distraught they did not want to talk, said DeVille, who was not at the school during Le's time there but spoke with those who knew her.
He said she was class valedictorian, a member of the National Honor Society and knew early on that she wanted a career in medicine. A yearbook picture from her senior year shows Le wearing a lab coat dissecting a cat in a human physiology class.
In a yearbook posting, Le said her goal was to become a laboratory pathologist, a career she said would require about 12 years of higher education. She was so dedicated that she spent an hour or two every night applying for scholarships, DeVille said, eventually being awarded more than $160,000.
"I just hope that all that hard work is going to pay off and I'm really going to enjoy my job," Le wrote in her yearbook.
DeVille said Le's teachers were upset because they knew she was going to be successful once she left the high school near Placerville, which sits in a mountainous, densely wooded region about 45 miles east of Sacramento.
"One of the things they said is what a terrible waste of potential," DeVille said. "Who knows what this young lady was capable of, given her caliber and her drive."
Le appears to have come from modest circumstances. The house she is believed to have lived in while attending Union Mine High School sits 16 miles from Diamond Springs, a town of roughly 5,000. Miles of narrow mountain roads wind through thick trees before giving way to a gravel road. Two miles past the end of the pavement, atop a hill, sits a single-story ranch house Le shared with a brother and other family members.
On Monday, the yard around the house was filled with children's toys, a pile of firewood, a partially finished tree house, a tire swing and jungle gym. A knock on the front door went unanswered.
Outside school, Le volunteered at a hospital in a program designed for high school students who want to enter the medical profession. She was named volunteer of the year during her senior year.
She worked alongside doctors at Marshall Medical Center in Placerville to further her interest in pathology, the study of disease, and shared her experiences in her high school science classes. She once arrived with a replica of a brain, fascinating her classmates.
Dr. Gary Martin, director of operations for the hospital's pathology department, said Le was the best student he's ever had in the volunteer program.
He called Le, who was 4-foot-11, "a little stick of dynamite. She was smart, she was vivacious, always cheery, a ton of energy," he recalled.
"It's difficult when you're a supervisor and the student is smarter than you," he said.
Martin said Le also stood out because she was warm and friendly with others. She was brainy but made friends easily and was humble about her accomplishments. Her high school yearbook shows numerous pictures of her with a beaming smile, surrounded by friends.
Martin said Le was particularly interested in cell structure and cell biology, and he was pleased that she went on to pursue the field. He said the two exchanged a handful of e-mails over the years.
"This is a big tragedy," he said. "This is a person that was ready to go out in the world and help people."