Body Found in Yale Wall Amid Search for Student

Investigators found a female body yesterday evening inside a wall in the basement of the research facility where missing Yale graduate student Annie Le, 24, was last seen Tuesday morning.

Officials could not confirm last night whether the remains belonged to Le, according to an e-mail Yale President Richard C. Levin sent to the community yesterday evening. An autopsy will be performed by the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, but police are assuming the body is Le’s, according to the Yale Daily News. The case has now been labeled a homicide investigation.

Just yesterday, investigators retrieved bloody clothes in the ceiling of the research facility a couple blocks from the Sterling Hall of Medicine, where Le’s lab is located. Officials have yet to establish a link between the find and Le’s disappearance, as she was wearing different clothes that morning.

According to the Yale Daily News, an unnamed source within the University’s police department said officials are currently analyzing the dried blood on the clothes, stating that it could be animal blood from experiments conducted in the research facility.

Surveillance tapes show that Le, a pharmacology doctoral student from Placerville, Calif. was last seen entering the building at around 10 a.m. on Tuesday. Roughly three hours later, an unexpected fire alarm sounded, and the research facility was quickly evacuated.

There is no record of Le leaving the building based on footage from some 75 security cameras stationed around the building, though Yale officials have said it could be difficult to pick out Le, who is 4-feet-11-inches, from the crowd during the evacuation. Her ID, money, credit cards, and purse were found in her office in the Sterling building.

Le was to be married yesterday to Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky at the North Ritz Club in Syosset, N.Y. The wedding was called off shortly after her disappearance, and Yale students prayed for Le’s safe return at The University Church earlier yesterday.

Le’s family and fiance are cooperating with the investigation, and more than 100 law enforcement officials from four different agencies including the New Haven Police Department, the Yale Police Department, the Connecticut State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are involved in the case.

Anyone with information pertaining to Le’s disappearance is asked to call the FBI tip line at 1-877-503-1950.

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.