 |
Annie Le's body was found in an area where she and Raymond Clark III both worked. |
Memorial honors Yale student
Researcher remembered for her passion
HUNTINGTON, N.Y. - A slain Yale University graduate student whose body was discovered on the day she was to be married was remembered last night at her fiancé’s synagogue as a bright, vivacious, ambitious dynamo whose death cheated those who loved her, as well as those who never had a chance to meet her.
“Instead of celebrating a wedding, we are memorializing a life,’’ said Lauren Widawsky, the younger sister of Jonathan Widawsky, the fiancé of Annie Le.
In an hourlong service attended by about 300 people at Temple Beth El, clergy, friends, and relatives lamented the loss of Le, 24. She and Widawsky were to be married Sept. 13 by the synagogue’s cantor at a catering hall on Long Island.
That was the day her body was found stuffed behind the wall in the basement of a Yale research building where she worked. A technician who worked in the lab has been charged with murder in her death.
Last night, a large portrait of Le smiled out at the congregation, who heard stories about her academic success, sense of humor, ambition, and perhaps most important, her love for her fiancé.
“What girl would ever let Jonathan cut her hair?’’ Lauren Widawsky asked. Le did.
Later, Lauren fought back tears as she spoke directly to Le in the form of a letter: “We all miss you, we love you, and you will be in our hearts forever.’’
Janet Widawsky recalled her future daughter-in-law cherishing the plans for her upcoming wedding, as well as her life with Jonathan, also 24. She said Le was an animal lover who once rescued a group of abandoned kittens on Long Island.
“Annie was a passionate young scientist who wanted to save the world,’’ she said, “a life cut too short.’’
Le was a doctoral pharmacology student who worked on a team that experimented on mice as part of research into enzymes that could have implications for the treatment of cancer, diabetes, and muscular dystrophy.
Investigators returned to the campus research building in New Haven yesterday to examine evidence, said Officer Joseph Avery, a police spokesman.
A former high school girlfriend of the lab technician who has been charged said yesterday that he was extremely controlling, telling her what clothes she could wear, where she could go, and what friends she could see.
Jessica Delrocco said on ABC’s “Good Morning America’’ that Raymond Clark III would get very angry and physical with her, to the point she was frightened. She declined to elaborate on any physical confrontations.
One of Clark’s lawyers, public defender Beth Merkin, declined to comment yesterday.
An animal lab technician at Yale since 2004, Clark cleaned floors and mouse cages. Some of Clark’s co-workers have described him as rigidly enforcing the rules in the lab where research mice were caged.
Le’s funeral will be Saturday in El Dorado Hills, Calif., near her hometown of Placerville.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.