Of Mice and Murder: Sleep now Annie
Thursday, 01 October 2009 00:45
Monette Adeva Maglaya
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(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)
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"Forcertain is death for the born and certain is the birth for the dead; Therefore over the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve." — Bhagavad Gita
Sleep now Annie Le. The interest in the riveting case of 24-year old Annie Le, the slain third year Yale doctoral/medical student of Vietnamese descent, in the basement of a 2-year old state-of-the-art research facility in New Haven, Connecticut is winding down and disappearing from the news radar. Le was seen on video entering the research building on Tuesday, September 08, 2009, 5 days before her wedding, but never leaving.
The grief over the untimely loss of a promising, brilliant, young woman will overwhelm and linger for a long time particularly for her immediate family and friends. But more so for Jonathan. Sorrow weighs heavily like a black cloud upon
Le’s long-time sweetheart, best friend and bridegroom-to-be, Jonathan Widawsky. Also 24 years old, Widawsky is a doctoral student in Physics at Columbia with whom Annie was to be married in elaborate ceremonies, with 160 guests in attendance, at the North Shore Ritz Country Club in Long Island on Sunday, September 13. It was the same day her bruised, mangled body was discovered by Max, a German Shepherd cadaver dog, stuffed and crammed to fit in a tiny crevice in a basement wall that housed utility wires. Annie had been dead six days. Overwhelming forensic evidence, more than 300 in all, based on matching DNA samples, electronic swipe cards and video tapes, uncovered in the days that followed, by the police and FBI point the finger to a 24-year old lab technician, Raymond Clark, who did janitorial duties cleaning mice cages and basement floors. Autopsy reports indicate Clark, a muscular 5’ 9" 190 pounder had allegedly hit and strangled the 4’ 11", 90 pound Le as she fought back fiercely for her life, scratching him with her fingernails on his chest, arms and back and getting his DNA on her and on her clothes. News stories suggest Le’s blood is on Clark’s clothes found hidden behind a ceiling tile as well as on his work boots which bore his name. The point of the violently tragic and fatal altercation was work-related, according to the police, not romantic in nature. I shake my head in disbelief. All these mountain of grief in the fabric of many lives because of mice and their droppings? I think not. At this point, we can only guess at the reasons why, because Clark clammed up and refuses to talk. The larger issue is about ego and self-image. The mice were there simply as props.
Clark, whom coworkers called a "control freak" and who always made a big deal with scientists and doctoral students about cleanliness protocols considered the basement and the mice and its cages his domain where he rules with near-absolute authority, never mind that as a custodial worker, he was the lowest man on the totem pole of a research facility. Could it be that the diminutive Le had the temerity and gumption to put him in his place, deflate his ego, bring him down several notches to the point where he flew into a rage, saw black and strangled her? We will never know for certain. But with the preponderance and nature of overwhelming evidence, prosecutors do not need to establish motive to get a conviction.
