Possible Murder Motives#2

Do they charge for it? I believe we have that too, but it's a "special service" and is on the expensive side.

I think Yale may have closed the site to the public.

They did close the site to the public. I took snapshots last week, anyway. The link I just supplied is the cached link...did it not work for you? It should work.

See post #49.
 
Sounds like Clark's job wasn't exactly stress-free?

I totally agree. Our animal techs work very hard and aren't paid very much. Politics, being what they are, our techs are 1 hour short of being fulltime, so they don't get benefits.

Perhaps Clark was extremely stressed, feeling under appreciated and Annie was just the straw that broke the camels back.
 
I doubt this was the motive, but given that Clark clearly has some mental health issues and wore religious jewelry, perhaps a motive such as the one in the case in the link below is possible. It also involved murder and dismemberment.

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_59715.asp

I don't know whether to thank you or slap you for that link. I started reading it so of course I had to finish reading it. Now I'm afraid to go to bed b/c I just grounded my son for the weekend - I no doubt think he's planning my demise as I type this...:biggrin:
 
I doubt this was the motive, but given that Clark clearly has some mental health issues and wore religious jewelry, perhaps a motive such as the one in the case in the link below is possible. It also involved murder and dismemberment.

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_59715.asp

I actually lived in Chattanooga when that happened. Very sad. It was a shock to most people.

At this point, I think anything is possible and am not ruling out anything as a motive. There may not even be a real motive. He may have just snapped. We may never know, though I hope we do soon.
 
I don't know whether to thank you or slap you for that link. I started reading it so of course I had to finish reading it. Now I'm afraid to go to bed b/c I just grounded my son for the weekend - I no doubt think he's planning my demise as I type this...:biggrin:

:)

Trust me. He'll be fine as long as you don't check under his mattress and find his deck of cards, bottle of whiskey, Playboy magazine, box of cookies, and the other goodies guys stash under there for the days they're grounded. ;-) :dance:
 
I actually lived in Chattanooga when that happened. Very sad. It was a shock to most people.

At this point, I think anything is possible and am not ruling out anything as a motive. There may not even be a real motive. He may have just snapped. We may never know, though I hope we do soon.

Yeah. He probably just snapped. Man, what a waste of two lives over a sudden snap, if that's what happened. In addition to her parents, I really feel badly for his too.
 
Why did he target and snap on Annie though? Sure a sad situation. Sure havent heard much at all about her Fiance (did I spell that right?) He is probably so devistated and probably wants to personnally take matters in his own hands regarding the suspect
 
Why did he target and snap on Annie though? Sure a sad situation. Sure havent heard much at all about her Fiance (did I spell that right?) He is probably so devistated and probably wants to personnally take matters in his own hands regarding the suspect

Didn't he go to Columbia Law? I thought I read he was going to be a lawyer. Hopefully he'll work for the prosecutors office and help keep criminals like this off the streets.
 
Didn't he go to Columbia Law? I thought I read he was going to be a lawyer. Hopefully he'll work for the prosecutors office and help keep criminals like this off the streets.

That would be THE most ironic thing in the whole world....
 
Very interesting info and theorizing from Labrat and Jersey*Girl! It's easy to imagine a clash between two very overworked and stressed people reaching a flashpoint.

Another slightly different way to look at it is if RC was part of Rodent Services, and the arrangement was executed as it's spelled out in the Rodent Services job description Jersey*Girl provided, then wouldn't RC have fewer reasons to find Annie negligent? It seems to me that his responsibilities would've been more extensive than they've been characterized thus far, and hers less. Thus less justification for him to find fault with her.


Some random thoughts -- not sure what they indicate:

Tonight on TV I heard someone suggest the types of scratches (particularly the chest and back scratches) on RC's body may indicate he was straddling her.

Someone here on WS provided a description of the process/consequences of strangulation and in it, it was said that if enough pressure was applied to the neck that not only air but blood flow would be impaired and a victim could begin to lose consciousness in 10 seconds. Annie obviously put up a fierce fight that lasted much longer so I wonder if RC was holding her by the neck, for some of the time at least, merely to help control her movements (just as straddling would do)?

Gruesome to imagine.
 
I'm leaning toward a motive just like you described, Jersey*Girl. Maybe RC was unhappy about a LOT of things in his life, some of which he couldn't directly confront or maybe even consciously acknowledge, but this one thing -- IF it happened that way, and we don't yet know -- is something he could point to and say, "Hey, this is wrong and I'm really mad about it!"

In a seriously unstable person, this level of misdirected anger can result in all sorts of bad stuff.

Click on the Wiki link as an addendum to the quoted paragraph above.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection[/ame]


Also, I think the fact that he went back to work while Annie was dead and hidden just feet away says a great deal about his state of mind. My bet is that this was all about the mice to him. He "saved" them from her. In his view, she didn't care about them but he did. They were only specimen to her, but to him - the "true" animal lover - they were his friends and companions, and she was killing them with every injection. For this reason, I could see him blocking out the act itself and justifying it rather easily in his own warped way. Going to work was simply him doing his duty - maintaining and protecting his mice.

It's quite amazing what the mind can rationalize to protect itself.
 
Click on the Wiki link as an addendum to the quoted paragraph above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection


Also, I think the fact that he went back to work while Annie was dead and hidden just feet away says a great deal about his state of mind. My bet is that this was all about the mice to him. He "saved" them from her. In his view, she didn't care about them but he did. They were only specimen to her, but to him - the "true" animal lover - they were his friends and companions, and she was killing them with every injection. For this reason, I could see him blocking out the act itself and justifying it rather easily in his own warped way. Going to work was simply him doing his duty - maintaining and protecting his mice.

It's quite amazing what the mind can rationalize to protect itself.

Great comment - projection is certainly a possibility. Here's what I was thinking. Clark strangled Annie - that's a very personal way of ending a person's life. Clark literally controlled Annie's last few minutes of breathing; he alone, decided if she could take one more breath. If Clark placed Annie within the wall and pipes - she was completely blockaded...no more movement for spunky Annie; more control. Seeing that Clark went back to the basement where her body was placed and showed no obvious distress, to me, that is a display of pathology of the worst kind. Some say it would be an extreme manifestation of projection, and others say it's a blurring of reality and fantasy. IMO Clark could very well have lived his controlled life by relying on fantasy such as *advertiser censored*, violent *advertiser censored* - only this time he acted on the fantasy. just a thought and the assumption is he put Annie's body in half within the wall and pipes.
 
Great comment - projection is certainly a possibility. Here's what I was thinking. Clark strangled Annie - that's a very personal way of ending a person's life. Clark literally controlled Annie's last few minutes of breathing; he alone, decided if she could take one more breath. If Clark placed Annie within the wall and pipes - she was completely blockaded...no more movement for spunky Annie; more control. Seeing that Clark went back to the basement where her body was placed and showed no obvious distress, to me, that is a display of pathology of the worst kind. Some say it would be an extreme manifestation of projection, and others say it's a blurring of reality and fantasy. IMO Clark could very well have lived his controlled life by relying on fantasy such as *advertiser censored*, violent *advertiser censored* - only this time he acted on the fantasy. just a thought and the assumption is he put Annie's body in half within the wall and pipes.

Hmmm interesting. I was thinking more that his actions (hiding her, going back to work, cleaning up the crime scene) were more about his denial. I think he was trying to block what he did from his mind. He was obviously distraught about it (according to the video surveillance he held his hands in his hands as he walked out of the building after the fire alarm). I wonder if his going on through life as if nothing happened (e.g., the sunday baseball game) was about putting all this behind him, not necessarily the M.O. of an accomplished or planful murderer.
 
Yes, $77 an hour. I'm suggesting Raymond did some of this pro bono b/c he felt obligated to, maybe just maybe. Maybe the mice Annie was dealing with were "his" mice/responsibility. She was at Yale seeking 2 higher degrees and getting married in a week. I can easily see how she could have been a day late getting to the mice...not that she ignored them altogether, just maybe slipped her mind for a few. Maybe it was Raymond's responsibility to document some of this and he threatened her with something or other...idk. Maybe she said something back to him and an argument ensued. I mean, think about it Labrat. I always thought if certain protocol wasn;t followed, a person could get fined or something, possibly lose something (grant maybe or something). If a researcher doesn't follow protocol to the "t", aren't they taken off for awhile? idk. All I'm suggesting is hypothetically this could have been the triggering factor for his motive. Even though alot of us think it's trivial, nobody truly knows the environment he worked in with the exception of the very people that worked in his department. His supervisor could have been riding his "arse" about certain things and maybe Raymond was sick of it so started making everyone else adhere to protocol. If he was this nice guy like his friends said on Larry King last night, the type that would give the shirt off his back to somebody, then maybe he did alot of things that simply weren't in his job description. Maybe he was taken advantage of...not by Annie in specific but maybe a multitude of people. Maybe he was sick of it and it helped to become the triggering factor in Annie's demise. Poor Annie probably had no idea what she was walking into. He was probably stewing and stewing and stewing.

I am relieved to hear it's $77 an hour. I was thinking about it all the way home and if I found out it was included in regular cage charges, I would be consumed with envy right now- LOL. He would not do it "pro bono" - he would do it and her lab would be billed for the service, but I could see where it could lead to resentment on his part, especially if it happened often. It would be in addition to his regular workload which from what I've seen was probably pretty heavy. I suspect if you pay for the service it is a different person altogether who does only that. A room tech would only do it on an emergency basis. I vaguely remember something like $50 per cage.
I don't think overcrowding alone would get you taken off a protocol. What would happen is if you kept it up- your PI would get phone calls about you and extra bills and probably tell you to knock it off and you'd be embarrassed (or scared, depending on the PI- LOL)

Room techs are always getting ridden by their supervisors- it's a lot of work to be accomplished in a day. There are all sorts of things that crop up, like disposal of empty cages- people working in a room are usually expected to take their empty cages to the dirty room. Sometimes a student will just leave them in big pile on the floor of the room, and the room tech has to clean it up. That used to infuriate me when I was in a shared room and I didn't even have to clean it up. I'd just be mad I had to look at it!

I think what makes it difficult for room techs is that they have a lot of responsibility, but no control.

It's really annoying me that the press is belittling his work. It's not an easy job and is actually extremely important to the success of the research.
I can't help but think of all the animal techs out there seeing their jobs talked about that way. It really is too bad.
 
quick FYI - WS-ers: If you've been following Haleigh's case you might want to check out the Haleigh threads tonight. Misty's brother in custody. Draining ponds in Satsuma.
 

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