The police in New Haven believe the apparent slaying of a Yale graduate student “doesn’t appear to be a random act,” a police spokesman said, suggesting that she had been singled out.
The spokesman, Officer Joe Avery, said the police had no suspects and no one in custody. “We’re not questioning anybody,” he said.
The police believe a body found in a laboratory building near the Yale Medical School on Sunday night was that of a Annie Le, a 24-year-old graduate student. She disappeared last week. Surveillance video showed her entering the building around 10 am on Tuesday. None of the cameras trained on the building showed her leaving.
The case raised new fears about security on the main Yale campus, where even Le had weighed in on personal safety. In February, she wrote an article for a student magazine with tips on how to avoid becoming a crime victim.
“I always take precautions,” said Megan Quattlebaum, 28, a third-year law student. “New Haven is a city. It has city problems.”
Le’s absence was first noticed on Tuesday, after her purse — with her identification, her cellphone and some money — was found in her office, in another Yale building a few blocks away. Investigators watched hours of video from dozens of cameras around the building and saw someone matching her description — a young woman in a bright green T-shirt and a brown skirt — going in.
The body was found on what was supposed to have been her wedding night. The discovery ended a six-day search for Le, whose disappearance began with speculation of a runaway bride but quickly gave way to near-certainty that a crime had been committed.
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