Annie Le Update: Cops Asked for DNA of Suspect Raymond Clark's Fiancee
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (CBS/AP) Detectives investigating the murder of Annie Le, the Yale University graduate student who went missing three days before her wedding, asked for a DNA sample from their main suspect's fiancee, according to a search warrant unsealed Monday.
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The search warrant said that the police wanted the DNA of Raymond Clark's fiancee Jennifer Hromadka through a saliva test to determine if she was involved in the murder and/or cover-up of Le's death.
Le's body was found Sept.13, 2009, her planned wedding day, stuffed behind a wall in one of the student locker rooms in the Yale Animal Research Center, where she did research. Her roommate reported her missing on Sept. 8, 2009 when Le didn't return to her dorm after work.
Police say Clark's DNA was found on a pen under Le's body and DNA from both him and Le was found on a bloody sock. Clark worked in the same lab where she was last seen, and his ID card was recorded entering and leaving the building around the time Le was killed, according to other search warrants released in December.
Clark and Hromadka were seen leaving a coffee shop in a car in which "blood-like stains" were found hours after Le was killed, according to search warrant affidavits unsealed in December.
Clark and Hromadka are engaged and she still supports him and visits him regularly in jail, according to ABC News.
Investigators searched the couple's Middletown apartment on Sept. 16. During their search, they found a lanyard with a name tag bearing Hromadka's name. Investigators analyzed the DNA on the lanyard and compared it with DNA found on a pen cap and a sock discovered near Le's body.
Hromadka did not work in the same building as Le, but the search warrant, unsealed Monday, stated that it was not uncommon for employees assigned to the building where the body was found to access the building by following behind other employees without using their own cards.
"Obtaining buccal swabs from Jennifer Hromadka will either prove or disprove whether or not Jennifer Hromadka is the single source of said DNA profile obtained from the lanyard, the sock and the pen," the warrant says. "Obtaining a confirmatory DNA sample from the source of the DNA found in these items will help investigators prove or disprove any involvement Jennifer Hromadka may have had in the murder of Annie Le."
Hromadka's attorney, Robert Berke, said Monday authorities have not provided him with the test results. He said there have been no communications in recent months between investigators and him, and police have not tried to interview Hromadka recently, after she turned them down early in the case.
Berke has said he had been told Hromadka was not a suspect.
Autopsy results show Le was strangled, but the motive remains unclear.
Clark, 24, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
MEDIA
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