Clark Agrees to 44-year Sentence in Le Murder

Animal lab technician Raymond Clark III Thursday pleaded guilty to trying to sexually assault Yale graduate student Annie Le, then strangling her to death and stuffing her body in a wall.

Clark pleaded guilty to the crime in an appearance at Superior Court on Church Street at 11:30 a.m. As part of a plea bargain, he is to receive a 44-year jail sentence, prosecutor David Strollo announced.

His guilty pleas—to murder and attempted sexual assault—averted what could have been a protracted, grisly and painful process: a court trial in the murder.

It also added a new wrinkle to the case: the attempted sexual assault charge, which the state had not previously disclosed.

The state accused Clark of strangling Annie Le, a 24-year-old pharmacology graduate student, to death. On what would have been her wedding day, her body was found stashed in the walls of a Yale animal research building on Amistad Street. Police arrested Clark, who cleaned mouse cages in that building, on Sept. 17, 2009, and charged him with the murder.

“Guilty,” Clark, who’s 26, quietly said twice Thursday morning in Judge Roland Fasano’s courtroom.

Dressed in a blue button-down shirt and black pants, Clark stood with hands clenched into fists, his knuckles resting on the defense table. His handcuffs had been removed at his lawyer’s request.

As Strollo recited a long narrative detailing the evidence the state was prepared to present to a jury, Clark glanced around the room, occasionally looking over at the prosecutor.

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