Prosecutors block release of Yale student’s autopsy; police interview 150 people

Autopsy results withheld in Yale student’s killing

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — State prosecutors blocked the release Tuesday of autopsy results on a Yale graduate student whose body was found hidden in a wall in her lab building, reasoning that they could hinder their investigation, the Connecticut medical examiner said.

Officials with the state’s attorney’s office asked that the results be withheld “in order to facilitate the investigation” into the killing of 24-year-old Annie Le, Dr. Wayne Carver said. His office had already called the death a homicide but hadn’t reported the manner of Le’s death.

State’s Attorney Michael Dearington did not return a call seeking comment on why his office requested that the autopsy results be delayed.

Authorities continued to deny published reports that they had a suspect in custody, saying only that they have interviewed about 150 people but did not expect to make an arrest Tuesday.

Authorities were keeping watch on some of Le’s co-workers and have descended in large numbers on the home of a Yale animal research technician.

An official parked outside the Warfside Commons apartment complex in Middletown, about 20 miles away near Hartford, wouldn’t confirm whether police were there to investigate the Le killing, but public records show the technician lives in a first-floor apartment. A man answering the door Tuesday said the technician wasn’t at home and closed the door.

Neighbors said authorities in unmarked cars arrived Monday afternoon and frequently follow and pull over drivers in the complex. New Haven police would not comment on the efforts there.

Several news organizations have reported that police were interviewing a possible suspect who failed a polygraph test and has defensive wounds on his body. ABC News, WNBC-TV, The New Haven Register and the New Haven Independent cited anonymous sources in their reports. The Register and WNBC-TV identified the possible suspect as a lab technician.

Police are analyzing what they call “a large amount” of physical evidence but have not gone into detail.

At a meeting of medical school students and teachers Monday, Yale president Richard Levin said police have narrowed the number of potential suspects to a very small pool because building security systems recorded who entered the building and what times they entered, the Yale Daily News reported Tuesday. The appropriate people are being monitored, he said.

Yale spokesman Tom Conroy and Robert Alpern, dean of the medical school, did not return calls Tuesday.

The killing took place in a heavily secured building accessible only to students and university employees. It was the first killing at Yale in a decade.

Hundreds of students attended a Monday night prayer vigil where Le’s roommate, Natalie Powers, recalled her friend as tenacious, caring and “tougher than you’d think by just looking at her.”

“That this horrible tragedy happened at all is incomprehensible,” she said. “That it happened to her, I think is infinitely more so. It seems completely senseless.”

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 has helped detectives in their investigation.

She was remembered in her hometown of Placerville, Calif., for her brilliance and drive, a class valedictorian who was voted “Most Likely to be the Next Einstein.”

While in high school, Le worked alongside doctors at the Marshall Medical Center in Placerville to further her interest in pathology, the study of disease.

Dr. Gary Martin, director of operations for the hospital’s pathology department, called Le the best student he ever had in the volunteer program. She was particularly interested in cell structure and cell biology, he said.

Le was part of a research team headed by her faculty adviser, Anton Bennett. According to its Web site, the Bennett Laboratory was involved in enzyme research that could have implications in cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy. Bennett declined to comment Monday on the lab or Le’s involvement with it.

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

Her body was found in the basement in the wall chase — a deep recess where utilities and cables run between floors. The basement houses rodents, mostly mice, used for scientific testing by multiple Yale researchers, Alpern said.

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

Associated Press writers Dave Collins and Pat Eaton-Robb in New Haven, Conn.; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn.; Frank Eltman in Huntington, N.Y.; Juliet Williams in Placerville, Calif.; and AP news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.