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Police: Body found inside Yale lab building

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-14 10:46

NEW HAVEN, Conn.: Police in Connecticut on Sunday said they found what they believe is the body of a Yale University graduate student and bride-to-be hidden inside the wall of a university building where she was last seen five days before.

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New Haven Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard said officials presumed the body was that of doctoral student Annie Le, although they had not yet positively identified it. Le has been the focus of a massive police search since Tuesday.

In this undated photo released by Yale University shows Annie Le. [Agencies]

Le, 24, of Placerville, Calif., was to be married Sunday in Syosset, N.Y., on Long Island's north shore. New Haven police said they have contacted her family and have assumed control of the investigation, which is now being treated as a homicide.

State police found the body at around 5 pm Sunday in an area of the building that houses utility cables that run between floors.

Le was last seen Tuesday morning in the building. Surveillance video shows her arriving around 10 am, but police had been baffled since the investigation began because there was no video of Le leaving, despite some 75 surveillance cameras operating around the complex. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her office.

More than 100 local, state and federal police had been searching the building for days, using blueprints to uncover any place where evidence or Le's body could be hidden.

Connecticut State Police and the FBI investigate the CRRA Waste Processing Facility in Hartford, Conn., Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009. The FBI is searching the facility for evidence in the disappearance of Yale graduate student Annie Le. [Agencies]