Police released a Yale University animal research technician on Wednesday after collecting DNA samples and questioning him in the killing of a graduate student who worked in the same lab.
Raymond Clark III was taken into custody Tuesday night at his apartment in Middletown, Conn., and was released into the custody of his attorney about 3 a.m. Wednesday, New Haven police said.
Police left the apartment Wednesday morning after searching the scene for hours overnight looking for evidence in the killing of Annie Le.
Clark has been described as a person of interest, not a suspect, in Le’s death. Her body was found stuffed behind a wall in the laboratory Sunday, which was to have been her wedding day.
Overnight, state police officers sorted through items on a card table set up outside the apartment’s door.
A tow truck took away a red Ford Mustang neighbors say was used by Clark.
A resident of the complex, Rick Tarallo said he, his wife and 6-month-old daughter live in a unit next to Clark and his fiancee, Jennifer Hromodka.
He said the couple was “really quiet” and lived with an older man, whom he speculated was one of their fathers.
“He seemed like a good guy,” Tarallo said of Clark. “They didn’t strike me as someone who would try to kill somebody.”
Tarallo said he was anxious about a murder suspect living next door.
Police started tearing down the yellow crime scene as daylight broke about 6:45 a.m. At that point there had been no sign of Clark’s return to his apartment, and neighbors said they hadn’t seen Hromodka in the area for days.
Dawn Brooks, a 36-year-old high school Spanish teacher, said she heard loud noises, including knocking sounds, when police served the search warrant on Clark’s apartment Tuesday night. She said doesn’t know Clark, but said he and his girlfriend were “pretty quiet people.”
She said it was “scary” that he would be released after the DNA testing.
Investigators are hoping to figure out within days whether Clark can be ruled out as the killer.
New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said police were hoping to compare DNA taken from Clark’s hair, fingernails and saliva to more than 150 pieces of evidence collected from the crime scene. That evidence may also be compared at a state lab with DNA samples given voluntarily from other people with access to the crime scene.
“We’re going to narrow this down,” Lewis said. “We’re going to do this as quickly as we can.”
Police have collected more than 700 hours of videotape and sifted through computer records documenting who entered what parts of the research building where Le was found dead.
Le worked for a Yale laboratory that conducted experiments on mice, and investigators found her body stuffed in the basement wall of a facility that housed research animals.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.