so if you've been following the news you may have heard about the murder of annie le, a grad student in a life science/biology research lab where i used to go to grad school (Yale). the whole thing is pretty surreal for me considering i used to work in those labs and walk in those hallways.

from what ive been reading it seems the killer is an animal tech named Raymond who apparently got in some kind of dispute in an animal colony.

ive read up more on this raymond character and it seems like he was an honor student and a generally good guy who for some reason was working in a crappy position as a animal lab tech and had been for some time. he may/may not have been responsible for taking care of animals annie had been working on.

at first i thought this was some sort of jealously crime because she was getting married that week...but after considering the details i think i can put 2+2 together a different way, so to speak.

the science profession is a brutal, lonely one. a lot of the people ive worked with who are stuck on the lower end jobs in it and have been for a long time, are in general, not particularly happy about their position. it really can drive you insane, perhaps more so than any other job, if you do it long enough. and once you get to that point it probably wont take much to throw you over the edge.

if indeed raymond lost it over a lab work related dispute i think this whole thing speaks volumes over what can happen if we say the wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time.

anyways i thought id start a thread. id be interested in any thoughts you guys about the case in general as i find it kind of fascinating (in a non-morose way).

It is a weird case, as someone who has been through those halls as well (although not much time at Med School) it is strange. Very, very sad that she was found on day of her wedding. Just got a big email from the President of the University and sounds like new students, especially those at Med School are especially shaken by the whole thing. Additionally, wonder how the dynamic of fear could play out as New Haven is not the safest town out there.

This is pretty surreal for me, too. As an alumnus of the school in question (B.A in Magician's Studies, 2001; J.D., 2006), this brings me back to my early days as a Yalie, frolicking around in the crisp coolness of the New Haven autumn wearing nothing but a thong and my Andover windbreaker. The food, we Bulldogs frequently joshed, was so bad that it was almost worth killing someone over. But that was just playful Ivy joking, stuff you'd say as you strolled around the quad late at night while subconsciously dreaming up ways to re-re-re-remind your old high school friends that yes, I did get into Yale, and yes, it does cost a lot of money to go here. Witticisms and jokes like that are just part and parcel of the territory; they are what separates a place like New Haven from the lifelessness and banality of a Middlebury or a Tufts. Often--hourly, even--I fondly recall my first memory, on Day 2 of my existence, when my mom (M.B.A., Harvard) and dad (B.S.J.D.D.S.M.D.L.D.O., MIT), cooed over my precious head and whispered to each other simultaneously, "He's going to go Yale one day."

lol

rofl well played. This is the kind of post I wish I could make.

Don't we all.

not rly?

best istewart post ever.

I just don't get how/ why she was stuffed in between the walls, and why she was so hard to identify- she'd been dead less than a week.

This is a perfect post.

Well done.

I bow before thee istewart

lab tech or custodian? Do lab techs exchange numbers with researchers? I know custodians usually don't exchange numbers with PHD researchers. Why'd he have her number? Simply look at phone records will tell you if they had some kind of relationship.

It really blows my mind that her disappearance was such a big deal/huge media-circus, her body was in the building that she disappeared from, and it took investigators like a week and a half to find it. WTF?

I could see something like this happening if it was just some random missing persons report filed with the police department and nobody paid too much attention to it, but it's obvious that this investigation was a major priority. Makes the New Haven cops look seriously incompetent.

5 days imo

May she RIP.

Must have been a sad day for her fiance on their wedding day.

It is crazy to think that there is some psycho killer lurking among us as normal as they seem.

I currently work in a lab at Yale, and can say the whole event has been pretty messed up. Also i believe the body took so long to find as it was placed in a biomed waste disposal bag and tied tightly then stashed, which is why even the dogs struggled to detect it.

Sick thing is, strong rumours that there are going to be charges against someone for helping with body disposal.

I can tell you I keep a stronger eye on the degens in my lab since this!

Yeah, I heard this on the news today. It definitely seems like they've been hyping this thing up for longer than that. Still, if her body was in that building, the cops should have found it the first day they started investigating. It seemed like they knew for sure she disappeared from that particular building, and obviously they didn't do too thorough of a search.

who knows how big or complex the building is? if i recall they had to get out the blueprints and search every inch of the building. it's not like the guy just stuffed her in a closet.

I read his girlfriend and brother-in-law (or something like that) are also technicians, and they all missed work on the same day last week. Wouldn't be surprised if charges are brought against one or both of them too.

There's no way in hell I'm helping my sister's boyfriend dispose of a body, what the hell are these people thinking of?

Istewart shipped the items promptly and nicely. A++ would buy from again.

Its a very large place, and it is also connected to all of its neighbors by underground passages, which somewhat expanded the search area. I would imagine there are literally thousands of bags of trash that need careful searching as they are contaminated with all sorts of nasty stuff as well. But yeah, five days seems like a long time...

I agree though, helping dispose of the body, what the **** were they thinking?

They basically knew she was in there the whole time because she was never seen on video physically leaving the building. I guess the place was wired.

as only istewart can do, a perfect thread-killer