(Updated) A day after playing softball in New Haven and attending the Hebron Fair, the suspect in the murder of a Yale graduate student noticed the seven cops following him around. They wanted him to.
That word comes from Lt. John Velleca, head of New Haven police’s narcotics unit.
Chief James Lewis assigned Velleca’s crew to follow around Raymond Clark III (pictured) starting Saturday night — and never let him out of their sight.
That was when it became clear that the case of Annie Le, the 24 year-old pharmacology student strangled to death last week inside a Yale medical building, was becoming a criminal case, not a missing person case.
It was also clear by that time that Raymond Clark III was the prime suspect, Chief James Lewis said in an interview in his office Thursday morning following a press conference announcing Clark’s arrest. Now prison guards are watching Clark as he sits in a maximum security prison.
Lewis’s department was preparing to take over the investigation from the FBI. That happened the following day, when Le’s remains were found inside a basement wall.
So Lewis assigned the narcotics unit to follow Clark’s every move while investigators plowed through tapes from 70 security cameras and what would become 300 pieces of physical evidence.
Why the narc unit?
“That’s what they do” — follow suspects around, Lewis said. “They do that every night, working narcotics cases. They have the right kind of vehicles for it.” The department recently revamped the unit under Velleca’s command. (Read about that here.)
At First, Covert
Velleca (pictured) had one supervisor and six detectives on Clark’s tail at all times. They worked in 12-hour rotations, Velleca said in an interview Thursday.
On Saturday night Clark, a 24 year-old Yale lab technician, was staying at his family’s home in Cromwell, according to Velleca.
At first the detectives laid low. They didn’t want Clark to see them. Typically the unit will do that in the earlier stages of an investigation.
So that first Sunday Clark was busy — “life as usual,” as one of the detectives put it.
Clark traveled to New Haven to play softball in East Shore Park, Velleca said. “We had detectives in the crowd. He’s actually pretty good.”
Next Clark traveled to Higganum to visit relatives, according to Velleca. That night, he hung out at the Hebron Fair. Then he returned to Cromwell.
By Monday, “he became a stronger suspect. We switched to overt surveillance,” Velleca said.
Now detectives made a point of parking right in front of Clark’s window. They would get out of the car and walk around. They had their badges visible.
Their main mission was to make sure Clark didn’t flee. They also had a second goal at this point, Velleca said: To see if Clark wanted to come talk to them.
They couldn’t approach Clark. In an FBI interview, he had clammed up and cited his right to avoid self-incrimination. He got a lawyer. So detectives couldn’t legally interview him.
But if he chose to go up to a cop and start talking, that’s legally OK, Velleca said.
That never happened.
“Whenever they would go in” the apartment and see the cops, “they would draw the shades and turn the lights off,” Velleca said. Clark said not a word to them. He made no gestures or any attempts to flee.
Clark’s busy life shut down. He drove to his apartment in Middletown, returned to the Cromwell home, then he didn’t leave.
Until the cops came to get him around 10 p.m. Tuesday. They had a search warrant to collect his DNA. He was taken to a state lab to give fingernail and hair samples.
Around 3 a.m. Wednesday he returned to Cromwell — not to the family home, but to a Super 8 motel. Clark and his parents would stay there to wait out the inevitable journey through a media gauntlet to court, and on to a possible murder trial.
That journey began Thursday morning, when cops arrested Clark and brought him to New Haven to be arraigned.
Past Independent coverage of the Annie Le murder:
Thursday, Sept. 17
• Cops Arrest Lab Tech In Annie Le Murder
• Suspect Arraigned (live blog)
Wednesday, Sept. 16:
• Ex-Girlfriend “Shocked” About Annie Le Target
• Cops Stake Out Annie Le Target’s Motel
• Annie Le Case: It’s Coming Down To The DNA
• Annie Le Was Strangled
Tuesday, Sept. 15:
• City, Yale Learned From Jovin In Annie Le Case
• Suspect In Annie Le Case Has Fiancee
• NBC Producer Trampled At Annie Le “Briefing”
• Cops Take DNA From Annie Le Target
• Was That Annie Le’s Killer?
Monday, Sept. 14:
• Body Identified As Annie Le
• “Serious” Suspect In Annie Le Case
• You Can Get In The Wall With A “Butter Knife”
Sunday, Sept. 13:
• Remains Of Annie Le Believed Found; “A Time For Compassion,” Levin Says
• Annie Le Hunt Extends To Hartford
Saturday, Sept. 12
• Focus In Annie Le Probe Less On “State Lines”
Friday, Sept. 11
• City Cops Join Search For Annie Le; $10,000 Reward Posted