Annie Le Murder Suspect Raymond Clark III Was "Controlling" Says Ex
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) He is the Yale lab technician charged with murdering 24-year-old graduate student Annie Le. Now a former high school girlfriend of Raymond Clark III says that he was extremely controlling in their relationship.
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Jessica Delrocco said, in an interview Wednesday, that Clark told her everything from the clothes she could wear, to the places she could go and the friends she could have.
Clark would also get very angry and "physical" with her, Delrocco said, to the point where she was frightened. She declined to elaborate on any physical confrontations.
Clark is charged with murder in the strangulation of Le, whose body was found on what would have been her wedding day. Her body was hidden in a wall recess in a university medical school research building where they both worked.
One of Clark's lawyers, public defender Beth Merkin, declined to comment Wednesday.
Police said they don't know a motive for the Sept. 8 slaying. Some of Clark's co-workers have described him as a "control freak" who rigidly enforced the rules in the lab where research mice were caged.
An animal lab technician at Yale since 2004, Clark cleaned floors and mouse cages. Le, a doctoral pharmacology student, was on a team that experimented on mice as part of research into enzymes that could have implications for treatment of cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy.
Clark's fiancee, his sister Denise Kent and brother-in-law Shawn Kent, are also animal lab technicians. Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said they remain employed by the university, but he would not say whether they've returned to work. Clark was suspended after his arrest last week.
Clark attended high school in Branford, a small middle-class suburb of New Haven.
In 2003, when he was a senior at Branford High, police reportedly warned him to stay away from a girlfriend because he upset her so much when she tried to break up with him.
The warning was reported by the New Haven Independent, which obtained a copy of the police report. It isn't known whether Delrocco is the girlfriend described in the report, and police refused to give a copy of it Crimesider, citing the investigation into Le's death.
According to the police report, the girlfriend and her mother told a detective that Clark once forced her to have sex, but no charges were filed.
Delrocco didn't return a message left Wednesday by the AP with a relative.
Le's funeral is set for Saturday in El Dorado Hills, Calif., near her hometown of Placerville. She was also to be remembered Wednesday at a memorial service at her fiance's synagogue in New York.
Photos: Who is Raymond Clark III?
Photos: Raymond Clark & Fiancée in Love
Photos: Yale Holds Vigil for Slain Student
Photos: Student Found Dead on Wedding Day
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