James Bui's memories of his niece, Annie Le, used to make him smile.
Holding Annie in his arms when she was a baby, rocking her to sleep. The time 10-year-old Annie proudly beat him at Scrabble with the word "czar." The way she would roll around on the floor laughing during play.
These days, Bui tries to let those memories go.
"Almost two years have passed and the mere mentioning of my niece's name tears me up inside," Bui said in a statement read by another relative Friday during a somber hearing in Superior Court where his niece's killer, Raymond Clark III, was sentenced to 44 years in prison. Clark was an animal lab technician in a Yale University science building where Le did research.
One after another, relatives of Le addressed the court with wrenching declarations about their loss and the senseless crime that brought it about.
Ryan Nguyen, Le's younger cousin who called Le his sister because they grew up in the same home in California, said that two years ago his family was excited about Le's upcoming wedding.
"That would have been a perfect picture of all of us together, sharing and celebrating the happiest moment of my sister's life," Nguyen said in a statement read in court. "But, instead, on the flight home from New Haven, I remember how empty and painful it was for me to know that my sister's coffin would be flying home on that very same day."
Truong Van Bui, another uncle, tearfully talked about his niece's final moments before the she was beaten, sexually assaulted, strangled and stuffed inside a wall of a Yale University research building in September 2009.
"There have been numerous times I can't close my eyes without thinking about Annie's last thinking and moments," Bui said. "It has been all too painful to imagine the suffering and the desperation of her thoughts and feelings at the moment of her tragedy."
Bui recalled the horrifying phone call he received on Sept. 9, 2009, just days before Annie was to marry her college sweetheart, Jonathan Widawsky, in a wedding on Long Island, N.Y. - saying Annie was missing.
Still, he held on to the belief that she was OK. On Sept. 11, he and his wife traveled from California to New York anyway, determined to believe that the wedding would still take place. Police discovered her body on Sept. 13, the day she planned to get married. A distraught Widawsky attended Friday's hearing but did not speak.
"Annie's death was not just a random act of workplace violence," Bui said. "It was a deliberate choice of an evil act against another human being."
Just how deliberate Clark intended it to be is not known. Clark's father, Raymond Clark Jr., told the court his son still "does not understand how this could have happened."
For his part, Clark offered no explanation Friday, even when given the chance to speak. Yet he appeared to be moved by what he heard at the hearing. Clark would either drop his head, tilt his face to the ceiling with shut eyes, or turn to watch Le's relatives as they spoke. He dabbed his puffy, red eyes with a crumpled tissue.
At one point, he gave those eyes a more defining wipe as he stood and faced Judge Roland D. Fasano.
"I am truly sorry I took Annie away from her friends, her family and most of all her fiance," Clark said through tears. "I have always tried to do the right thing and stay out of trouble but I failed. I took a life and continued to lie about it while Annie's friends, family and fiance sat and waited."
He apologized for killing Le, lying about it, and devastating family members on both sides.
"Annie was and will always be a wonderful person, by far a better person than I will ever be in my life."
Moments later, Fasano sentenced Clark to prison for 44 years for a crime the judge called "mind numbing."
"Closure is not a likely scenario," Fasano said.
The 44-year prison sentence was part of a plea agreement worked out by prosecutors and defense attorneys. Prosecutor John Waddock said the length of the sentence initially was not "entirely satisfactory" to either side. But Le's family eventually realized, he said, that 4 1/2 decades in prison would mean Clark would forfeit many of life's important milestones and instead would be trapped behind bars.
Clark, 26, of Middletown, will get out of prison in 2053, Waddock said. Clark will not be eligible for parole.
Le's mother, Vivian Van Le, was the first relative at Friday's hearing to talk about Le, 24, a third-year doctoral student in pharmacology from Placerville, Calif. Her daughter spent long hours in the science lab researching new treatments for chronic diseases.
Vivan Van Le said she will never understand why Clark took away her only daughter. Le was raised by her uncle, Robert Nguyen.
"I will never hug Annie again," she said, standing just a few feet from Clark. "The world will never know what she had to offer. I will never see her walking down the aisle. I will never hold my grandchildren."
"Society lost a great woman," she said. "My family lost a beautiful soul."
Clark pleaded guilty to charges of murder and criminal attempt to commit first-degree sexual assault in March and averted a trial as part of the plea deal. Clark's guilty plea to the charge of criminal attempt to commit sexual assault was entered under the Alford doctrine, meaning that Clark does not admit guilt but concedes that there is probably enough evidence to convict him at trial.
Clark was originally charged with murder and felony murder. Each charge carries a punishment of 25 to 60 years in prison.
Le's roommate reported her missing on Sept. 8, 2009. For days, local and state investigators and the FBI searched the basement of the Yale Animal Research Center, a research building at the Yale School of Medicine complex where Le was last seen alive. Clark worked at the center and Le did research there.
Police found Le's body on Sept. 13, the day Le was to be married. The state medical examiner said that Le died of traumatic asphyxiation because of neck compression. The search for Le, speculation that she was a "runaway bride," the incident's ties to Yale and the subsequent arrest of Clark attracted widespread media attention.
Court records show that investigators based their arrest of Clark on DNA evidence, a combination of computer records of security cards that showed Clark's movements at the lab on Sept. 8, the day Le was last seen alive, and his attempts to clean up the crime scene.
Le's family has raised questions about the school's handling of Le's disappearance and the investigation of her death. Vivian Van Le's attorneys have said the family is considering legal action, possibly against Yale.
On Friday, one of the attorneys, Joseph Tacopina, said his office has conducted its own investigation of security at the research facility and the way in which Le's disappearance was handled. So far, Tacopina said, the results of their probe "show some changes need to be made" but stopped short of giving specifics.
"We are going to do this through the legal process," Tacopina said, but he would not say who or what would be targeted with a lawsuit.
"We made a commitment to Vivian," Tacopina said. "This is something we are going to follow through on until she feels a sense of justice for Annie."
According to court records, Le entered the research center the morning of Sept. 8, 2009. Clark, who tended the animals there, wasn't far behind. Clark, wearing blue jeans, white shoes and a dark-colored jacket with white stripes, entered the lab where Le was working and remained there for 46 minutes. He signed in as "RC," using a green-ink pen, records state.
Clark was busy at the lab that day, according to key-card activity that shows a person's movement in, out and throughout the center, a state-of-the-art secure building on Amistad Street.
From 10:40 a.m. that morning until 3:45 p.m., Clark went in and out of the lab room where Le was working and another room down the hall 55 times, according to the court documents.
When he left the building that day, Clark was seen wearing different clothes from the ones he entered wearing. Le, however, was never heard from again.
When they found her body, Le's bra was pushed up toward her head. Her panties were pulled down to her feet. Her partially decomposed body was upside down, covered in insulation. She was wearing surgical gloves with her left thumb exposed. Detectives found three key items inside the hiding space: a green-ink pen, a bloodstained lab coat, and a sock similar to the one found in the hallway drop ceiling.
On Sept. 15, police searched Clark's Middletown apartment and took samples from him in an effort to obtain his DNA.
According to Clark's arrest warrant affidavit, police got the match they needed to make an arrest. On the green-ink pen, investigators found a bloodstain that contained Le's DNA, and they found Clark's DNA on the pen cap. A stain on the sock found above the ceiling tile contains "a mixture of Raymond Clark's DNA and the victim's DNA," the affidavit states.
Holding Annie in his arms when she was a baby, rocking her to sleep. The time 10-year-old Annie proudly beat him at Scrabble with the word "czar." The way she would roll around on the floor laughing during play.
These days, Bui tries to let those memories go.
"Almost two years have passed and the mere mentioning of my niece's name tears me up inside," Bui said in a statement read by another relative Friday during a somber hearing in Superior Court where his niece's killer, Raymond Clark III, was sentenced to 44 years in prison. Clark was an animal lab technician in a Yale University science building where Le did research.
One after another, relatives of Le addressed the court with wrenching declarations about their loss and the senseless crime that brought it about.
Ryan Nguyen, Le's younger cousin who called Le his sister because they grew up in the same home in California, said that two years ago his family was excited about Le's upcoming wedding.
"That would have been a perfect picture of all of us together, sharing and celebrating the happiest moment of my sister's life," Nguyen said in a statement read in court. "But, instead, on the flight home from New Haven, I remember how empty and painful it was for me to know that my sister's coffin would be flying home on that very same day."
Truong Van Bui, another uncle, tearfully talked about his niece's final moments before the she was beaten, sexually assaulted, strangled and stuffed inside a wall of a Yale University research building in September 2009.
"There have been numerous times I can't close my eyes without thinking about Annie's last thinking and moments," Bui said. "It has been all too painful to imagine the suffering and the desperation of her thoughts and feelings at the moment of her tragedy."
Bui recalled the horrifying phone call he received on Sept. 9, 2009, just days before Annie was to marry her college sweetheart, Jonathan Widawsky, in a wedding on Long Island, N.Y. - saying Annie was missing.
Still, he held on to the belief that she was OK. On Sept. 11, he and his wife traveled from California to New York anyway, determined to believe that the wedding would still take place. Police discovered her body on Sept. 13, the day she planned to get married. A distraught Widawsky attended Friday's hearing but did not speak.
"Annie's death was not just a random act of workplace violence," Bui said. "It was a deliberate choice of an evil act against another human being."
Just how deliberate Clark intended it to be is not known. Clark's father, Raymond Clark Jr., told the court his son still "does not understand how this could have happened."
For his part, Clark offered no explanation Friday, even when given the chance to speak. Yet he appeared to be moved by what he heard at the hearing. Clark would either drop his head, tilt his face to the ceiling with shut eyes, or turn to watch Le's relatives as they spoke. He dabbed his puffy, red eyes with a crumpled tissue.
At one point, he gave those eyes a more defining wipe as he stood and faced Judge Roland D. Fasano.
"I am truly sorry I took Annie away from her friends, her family and most of all her fiance," Clark said through tears. "I have always tried to do the right thing and stay out of trouble but I failed. I took a life and continued to lie about it while Annie's friends, family and fiance sat and waited."
He apologized for killing Le, lying about it, and devastating family members on both sides.
"Annie was and will always be a wonderful person, by far a better person than I will ever be in my life."
Moments later, Fasano sentenced Clark to prison for 44 years for a crime the judge called "mind numbing."
"Closure is not a likely scenario," Fasano said.
The 44-year prison sentence was part of a plea agreement worked out by prosecutors and defense attorneys. Prosecutor John Waddock said the length of the sentence initially was not "entirely satisfactory" to either side. But Le's family eventually realized, he said, that 4 1/2 decades in prison would mean Clark would forfeit many of life's important milestones and instead would be trapped behind bars.
Clark, 26, of Middletown, will get out of prison in 2053, Waddock said. Clark will not be eligible for parole.
Le's mother, Vivian Van Le, was the first relative at Friday's hearing to talk about Le, 24, a third-year doctoral student in pharmacology from Placerville, Calif. Her daughter spent long hours in the science lab researching new treatments for chronic diseases.
"I will never hug Annie again," she said, standing just a few feet from Clark. "The world will never know what she had to offer. I will never see her walking down the aisle. I will never hold my grandchildren."
"Society lost a great woman," she said. "My family lost a beautiful soul."
Clark pleaded guilty to charges of murder and criminal attempt to commit first-degree sexual assault in March and averted a trial as part of the plea deal. Clark's guilty plea to the charge of criminal attempt to commit sexual assault was entered under the Alford doctrine, meaning that Clark does not admit guilt but concedes that there is probably enough evidence to convict him at trial.
Clark was originally charged with murder and felony murder. Each charge carries a punishment of 25 to 60 years in prison.
Le's roommate reported her missing on Sept. 8, 2009. For days, local and state investigators and the FBI searched the basement of the Yale Animal Research Center, a research building at the Yale School of Medicine complex where Le was last seen alive. Clark worked at the center and Le did research there.
Police found Le's body on Sept. 13, the day Le was to be married. The state medical examiner said that Le died of traumatic asphyxiation because of neck compression. The search for Le, speculation that she was a "runaway bride," the incident's ties to Yale and the subsequent arrest of Clark attracted widespread media attention.
Court records show that investigators based their arrest of Clark on DNA evidence, a combination of computer records of security cards that showed Clark's movements at the lab on Sept. 8, the day Le was last seen alive, and his attempts to clean up the crime scene.
Le's family has raised questions about the school's handling of Le's disappearance and the investigation of her death. Vivian Van Le's attorneys have said the family is considering legal action, possibly against Yale.
On Friday, one of the attorneys, Joseph Tacopina, said his office has conducted its own investigation of security at the research facility and the way in which Le's disappearance was handled. So far, Tacopina said, the results of their probe "show some changes need to be made" but stopped short of giving specifics.
"We are going to do this through the legal process," Tacopina said, but he would not say who or what would be targeted with a lawsuit.
"We made a commitment to Vivian," Tacopina said. "This is something we are going to follow through on until she feels a sense of justice for Annie."
According to court records, Le entered the research center the morning of Sept. 8, 2009. Clark, who tended the animals there, wasn't far behind. Clark, wearing blue jeans, white shoes and a dark-colored jacket with white stripes, entered the lab where Le was working and remained there for 46 minutes. He signed in as "RC," using a green-ink pen, records state.
Clark was busy at the lab that day, according to key-card activity that shows a person's movement in, out and throughout the center, a state-of-the-art secure building on Amistad Street.
From 10:40 a.m. that morning until 3:45 p.m., Clark went in and out of the lab room where Le was working and another room down the hall 55 times, according to the court documents.
When he left the building that day, Clark was seen wearing different clothes from the ones he entered wearing. Le, however, was never heard from again.
When they found her body, Le's bra was pushed up toward her head. Her panties were pulled down to her feet. Her partially decomposed body was upside down, covered in insulation. She was wearing surgical gloves with her left thumb exposed. Detectives found three key items inside the hiding space: a green-ink pen, a bloodstained lab coat, and a sock similar to the one found in the hallway drop ceiling.
On Sept. 15, police searched Clark's Middletown apartment and took samples from him in an effort to obtain his DNA.
According to Clark's arrest warrant affidavit, police got the match they needed to make an arrest. On the green-ink pen, investigators found a bloodstain that contained Le's DNA, and they found Clark's DNA on the pen cap. A stain on the sock found above the ceiling tile contains "a mixture of Raymond Clark's DNA and the victim's DNA," the affidavit states.