Possible Murder Motives#2

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

Ray was in the WRONG JOB, then.

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.

Yes, I would be offended, too, if this were my line of work and the press were running with a negative description of it.

As far as the Chief was concerned, I'm certain he was only speaking in a condescending way about it to rile Clark. Naturally, the press would repeat and elaborate on this. A disservice to lab techs that sprung from a more specific intent.
 
Thank you. Now, did you see my last post? Wow! I'm wondering if, just assuming here, Raymond actually was an animal lover. Maybe he saw a colony that was rapidly enlarging and the habitat was dirty, etc. Maybe he didn't mind the ethics with working with research animals b/c he knows most are genetically engineered but he still "needed" to follow protocol simply b/c he thought they shoud be treated humane. Just say that maybe he confronted Annie (among other investigators or researchers) about keeping the cages clean & stuff wasn't his job with regarding the pregnant mice (or whatever) but he did it anyway b/c he thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe, just for the sake of saying maybe, he got really angry after coming back from his weekend and seeing that somebody may have disregarded his warnings yet again. Maybe he did this stuff pro bono and was tired of not getting his "dues". This is all hypothetical. If he was so anal, if he was so obsessive, if he held solid symptoms of ocd, then I can definitely see how he'd obsess over this. Of course I may think it's trivial b/c I'm not a scientist. I have been in the medical field, though. I have visited the Body Farm before it was even popular. I do know how valuable these techs can be to a research student. You should see how crazed some of the techs get that deal with larvae! And that ain't no joke! I wonder if this is his reason for confronting her?

All in all, it really doesn't matter b/c he still did something horrible and she's no longer alive b/c of his actions...allegedly.

Most of the people who work in this area are animal lovers, they just don't suffer from Bambi complex. It was his job to make sure the proper care was taken of the animals. I flip my wig when I see something I don't like in my rooms!
I don't think it was about the mice, in the sense that he was defending them or anything like that. I think it was about him. I think maybe the problem wasn't that he reprimanded people about things- they are supposed to do that- I think the problem might have been his tone of voice and demeanor. I think he was stressed, she was stressed- it's just all so tragic.
 
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.

ETA, sorry all.

Also check out Haleigh's rumors thread:

Private Forums, then - "The Parking Lot"


(parital directions are only partially helpful)
 
Apologies in advance for the long post.... I know there has been speculation about what may have set RC off down the deep end. We now know from the autopsy that the ME indicated she was struck first before strangled.

Here's a possibility. Just think if you were Annie, and you're in an isolated room with a guy who is taller, bigger, stronger and heavier than you. You're having a debate about cage cleanliness, and this bigger person is clearly becoming more angry and intimidating and needing to prove his point as "Lord of the Lab" (term, courtesy of tv's JVM).

So what would you do? You'd turn around and.... leave.

I know it has been reported that Annie was feisty, but we also know she was also very smart. It probably became clear to her that this debate was getting her nowhere. No matter the angle she approached this issue, it was clear he was just NOT going to acquiesce or compromise on the issue.

I would bet that at that at some point she recognized this and turned around to leave and THIS was the action that set RC off. He could no longer press his case with her, and be right; it was interpreted by him as a sign of rejection towards him (his ideas, possible fixations, job status etc), and probably made him feel lower than low. So when she turned around to leave, this action blew his top off like hot lava in a volcano.

So then what did he do?? He lashed out and struck her. And once he struck her, there was no turning back. After all, she could call the police, file a complaint, and then his job would probably be done for.

(He may have been unionized. In some unionized jobs, there typically has to be a series of mishaps before someone can be dismissed. However, striking another employee is one thing that cuts through all the red tape. From my experience as an employer, even an unionized employee can lose their job in an instant for striking a fellow employee.)

So then he was enraged, and seeing red, and all this was directed towards her. And then he couldn't let her go, because his livelihood--the only job he knew since high school--would be kaput.

If the strike didn't disable her, then she probably kept trying to get away. And so he kept strangling her until he killed her. In his crazed mind, there was no other choice.

Again, so sorry for the long post. All this to say that I'm betting Annie attempted to leave the escalating situation, and wondering if this was the slight (in RC's mind) that set him off.
 
That's an interesting theory, MWright, and things may have played out that way. I definitely don't think he planned to kill her. Confront her, yes, but not kill her. Her dismissal of him or appearing to scorn him may be the very thing that set him off. Once the physical interaction started, I bet the situation spun out of control very quickly. Her life was brought to a sudden, violent end, and with that, his life as he knew it was over as well.

I agree with something Jersey*Girl was saying on another thread about how this guy looks in his booking photo and at the arraignment: utterly spent. He looks like there's not one bit of life left in him. There's so little left that I don't even know if he would have the wherewithal to kill himself.
 
I have envisioned her turning to leave, too, and him grabbing her arm or maybe her hair. Hair was found (what was it...on his clothing? At the scene?).

If he gripped her, she would've struggled to get free, which would've made him tighten his grip, at which point I can see her trying to strike him to get him to let go. One thing leads to another....
 
(He may have been unionized.

Snipped for space and clarity of my answer to this sentence in MWright's post.

I think he was in a Union.

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/09/yale_union_chie_1.php

...Laura Smith, president of UNITE HERE Local 34, spoke on Yale’s campus Thursday afternoon, hours after her union member Raymond Clark III was charged with strangling Yale grad student Annie Le to death and stashing her body in a basement wall...
 
OK – I finally had to register. As a former QA/QC/compliance sort with a whole lot of IACUC and regulatory agency liaison experience, may I offer a few observations?

First and foremost, LabRat is an incredible source of responsible info. Kudos!

It’s entirely feasible that RC got the job 4+ yrs ago based on his high school grades and a claim that he had worked on a farm. That’s qualification enough for an entry-level animal husbandry position. However, that would only allow entry-level responsibility. To work at Yale or most any other legitimate animal facility, he would have necessarily been placed on a career track.

As a high school graduate it would have taken him a minimum one year of lab animal experience to even qualify to take the AALAS (American Association of Laboratory Animal Science) test for ALAT (1st level) certification. Another ½ year to reach LAT (Lab Animal Technician) level. And at least another ½ year to reach the highest level (LATG). That’s very fast track. Theoretically a HS graduate can achieve the top level in 2 years, but in my experience reality is more like 3-5+ years.

These certification tests require extensive study. No animal husbandry/tech job I know of gives allowance for “book-study” on the job. It must be done outside the 40+ hr work week. Often a “benefit” of having an animal husbandry/tech job in a reputable academic or contract lab is that they will reimburse your educational expenses once you have passed each level of certification. But you are required to fund yourself and do the study on your own. Sure, you get reimbursed, but only after you have proven yourself and can present documentation (which is often delayed for various weird administrative reasons.). Oh – and you will also typically get a decent pay raise when you have new credentials at each level.

My thoroughly unsubstantiated timeline guesstimate is that RC was quite possibly studiously in the midst of achieving the highest level of certification. Or perhaps he had just recently qualified and passed his LATG certification. At that level, a lab animal tech is compelled to learn every single quirk and applicable mandate of the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations), NIH OLAW (Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare) Guidelines, USDA requirements AND the overlaying DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) licensing requirements.

Remarkably, nearly every dedicated lab animal guy/gal I’ve known gets through this process eventually and ends up making a very decent income as a highly qualified technician. It’s a close-knit community: they really must have a savvy supervisor and/or mentors who help them keep balance and pace themselves. During the process, the supervisor/mentor knows the student needs to exercise their increasing knowledge of rules and liabilities. At this stage of their career, lab animal techs find themselves on the Safety Committee where they get a lot of say-so and actual physical work to ensure systems are in compliance. They get put in charge of mandatory fire extinguisher checks and learn how to deal cooperatively with the outside vendors who provide the testing. They get grunt work like making sure the stacked cages have wheels that work. They are charged with drawing appropriately randomized samples of lab animal food and learn how to label, document and send it to independent labs to verify the label claimed nutritional value matches real values. They are taught how to report (and follow up) any and every discrepancy.

This diatribe should in no way be considered apologetic for RC. Rather, I hope to introduce a broader outlook and possible preview of his defense. I am appalled and horrified by this crime. If he killed Annie Le in a fit of uncontrolled anger, that action is anathema to every code by which lab animal technicians live their lives…. And practice their profession.
 
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.

My thoughts exactly-plus he still thought there could be a chance he would get away with it if he acted normal
 
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.

wow! you are taking things that all derived from circumstance -- what was at hand, what was available -- and ascribing motive and reason to them. that is causally backwards!

How about the choked or strangled her because that is the simplest, cleanest, easiest quietest and perhaps only method if you are a athletic powerful man in a semi public space with a 90 lb woman committing an unplanned murder.

How about he stuck her in an access opening because that was the only place where her body could be hidden considering the idiocy of already killing her in a moderately trafficked laboratory with security cameras at the entrances!

Really my goodness, it is not as if this guy had her trust and driven her to a remote place and had the choice of stabbing, beheading, choking, shooting or poisoning her! Then you could speculate or ascribe meaning to the mechanism of killing.
 
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.
Denial? how about the simple rational instinct to cover a crime?

His actions after the crime were like every unprofessional killer -- a mix of rational and irrational acts. hiding the body was one of the more rational acts.

If he had a passport and lots and lots cash it would be rational to flee. but perhaps he read a runaway bride speculation in the papers, and irrationally hoped that investigators might think she had skipped town.

hope in hopeless situations does strange things.
 
perhaps he read a runaway bride speculation in the papers, and irrationally hoped that investigators might think she had skipped town.

hope in hopeless situations does strange things.

Probably this combined with the fact that he hoped that his attempts to cover his trail (cleaning up, hiding the body) would allow him to get away with it long enough for intense search to blow over, so he could find a more permanent solution.
 
OK – I finally had to register. As a former QA/QC/compliance sort with a whole lot of IACUC and regulatory agency liaison experience, may I offer a few observations?

First and foremost, LabRat is an incredible source of responsible info. Kudos!

It’s entirely feasible that RC got the job 4+ yrs ago based on his high school grades and a claim that he had worked on a farm. That’s qualification enough for an entry-level animal husbandry position. However, that would only allow entry-level responsibility. To work at Yale or most any other legitimate animal facility, he would have necessarily been placed on a career track.

As a high school graduate it would have taken him a minimum one year of lab animal experience to even qualify to take the AALAS (American Association of Laboratory Animal Science) test for ALAT (1st level) certification. Another ½ year to reach LAT (Lab Animal Technician) level. And at least another ½ year to reach the highest level (LATG). That’s very fast track. Theoretically a HS graduate can achieve the top level in 2 years, but in my experience reality is more like 3-5+ years.

These certification tests require extensive study. No animal husbandry/tech job I know of gives allowance for “book-study” on the job. It must be done outside the 40+ hr work week. Often a “benefit” of having an animal husbandry/tech job in a reputable academic or contract lab is that they will reimburse your educational expenses once you have passed each level of certification. But you are required to fund yourself and do the study on your own. Sure, you get reimbursed, but only after you have proven yourself and can present documentation (which is often delayed for various weird administrative reasons.). Oh – and you will also typically get a decent pay raise when you have new credentials at each level.

My thoroughly unsubstantiated timeline guesstimate is that RC was quite possibly studiously in the midst of achieving the highest level of certification. Or perhaps he had just recently qualified and passed his LATG certification. At that level, a lab animal tech is compelled to learn every single quirk and applicable mandate of the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations), NIH OLAW (Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare) Guidelines, USDA requirements AND the overlaying DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) licensing requirements.

Remarkably, nearly every dedicated lab animal guy/gal I’ve known gets through this process eventually and ends up making a very decent income as a highly qualified technician. It’s a close-knit community: they really must have a savvy supervisor and/or mentors who help them keep balance and pace themselves. During the process, the supervisor/mentor knows the student needs to exercise their increasing knowledge of rules and liabilities. At this stage of their career, lab animal techs find themselves on the Safety Committee where they get a lot of say-so and actual physical work to ensure systems are in compliance. They get put in charge of mandatory fire extinguisher checks and learn how to deal cooperatively with the outside vendors who provide the testing. They get grunt work like making sure the stacked cages have wheels that work. They are charged with drawing appropriately randomized samples of lab animal food and learn how to label, document and send it to independent labs to verify the label claimed nutritional value matches real values. They are taught how to report (and follow up) any and every discrepancy.

This diatribe should in no way be considered apologetic for RC. Rather, I hope to introduce a broader outlook and possible preview of his defense. I am appalled and horrified by this crime. If he killed Annie Le in a fit of uncontrolled anger, that action is anathema to every code by which lab animal technicians live their lives…. And practice their profession.


QAQC:

I think that your input is important. Some think (and the police chief stated) that a lab animal tech does custodial work. I think that this misinterpretation is the grounds for the conflict between academics (grad-students, post-docs, faculty) and the animal caretakers.

The academics think that the animal caretakers are glorified cage cleaners. The animal caretakers actually have important responsibility and a certain amount of stress. I believe that this conflict is alive and well at Yale and causes a great deal of conflict between these two groups of people.

One article I read correctly describes the animal caretakers as "Police of the Research Labs". I think that Clark saw himself as a policeman and behaved very much as a new recuit who let the authority of his position go to his head. He felt all powerful, and Annie at the same time may have been very focused on her upcoming wedding. Her thoughts were probably more about getting out of there and less about how to placate an over-zealous lab cop. She may have said something that led Clark to erupt. He may have pushed her and she might have threatened to have him fired. The threat of losing everything he had worked for in an instant may have been enough for him to lose control.

Nevertheless, my guess is that as his defense he will use his love for animals and her "cruel animal abuse". (Note, I do not believe she did anything wrong. I just think she will be painted as an animal abuser in order to garner some support for his crime)
 
Not to be argumentative, but we have animal techs who are not certified. So we shouldn't assume he was or wasn't.
 
Most of the people who work in this area are animal lovers, they just don't suffer from Bambi complex. It was his job to make sure the proper care was taken of the animals. I flip my wig when I see something I don't like in my rooms!
I don't think it was about the mice, in the sense that he was defending them or anything like that. I think it was about him. I think maybe the problem wasn't that he reprimanded people about things- they are supposed to do that- I think the problem might have been his tone of voice and demeanor. I think he was stressed, she was stressed- it's just all so tragic.

This is exactly what I think, have thought since the beginning. See why I kept focussing on Rodent Services now? The only thing I'm trying to get through now is if somebody helped in the cleanup, or helped in the aftermath...ie: change of clothes...or did he really just go home & change, or go buy some new clothes & change on his way back to work. Something just isn't sitting right with me. How does the mess of a murder get cleaned up in only a metter of hours? To further that, how does it go undetected for several days, especially knowing other people are in and out of that area? As I'm aware I'm probably wrong in this sense, it's just an idea that I haven't been able to get by yet.

Labrat, thank you. Hope you have a nice day!
 
QAQC:

I think that your input is important. Some think (and the police chief stated) that a lab animal tech does custodial work. I think that this misinterpretation is the grounds for the conflict between academics (grad-students, post-docs, faculty) and the animal caretakers.

The academics think that the animal caretakers are glorified cage cleaners. The animal caretakers actually have important responsibility and a certain amount of stress. I believe that this conflict is alive and well at Yale and causes a great deal of conflict between these two groups of people.

One article I read correctly describes the animal caretakers as "Police of the Research Labs".
I think that Clark saw himself as a policeman and behaved very much as a new recuit who let the authority of his position go to his head. He felt all powerful, and Annie at the same time may have been very focused on her upcoming wedding. Her thoughts were probably more about getting out of there and less about how to placate an over-zealous lab cop. She may have said something that led Clark to erupt. He may have pushed her and she might have threatened to have him fired. The threat of losing everything he had worked for in an instant may have been enough for him to lose control.

Nevertheless, my guess is that as his defense he will use his love for animals and her "cruel animal abuse". (Note, I do not believe she did anything wrong. I just think she will be painted as an animal abuser in order to garner some support for his crime)

Re: bold above - Excellent analogy!
 
wow! you are taking things that all derived from circumstance -- what was at hand, what was available -- and ascribing motive and reason to them. that is causally backwards!

How about the choked or strangled her because that is the simplest, cleanest, easiest quietest and perhaps only method if you are a athletic powerful man in a semi public space with a 90 lb woman committing an unplanned murder.

How about he stuck her in an access opening because that was the only place where her body could be hidden considering the idiocy of already killing her in a moderately trafficked laboratory with security cameras at the entrances!

Really my goodness, it is not as if this guy had her trust and driven her to a remote place and had the choice of stabbing, beheading, choking, shooting or poisoning her! Then you could speculate or ascribe meaning to the mechanism of killing.

My bold above. This is what I believe also. It explains why he was wandering around aimlessly, going into rooms he wasn't normally in before, etc. He probably stashed her in the best place possible for the area they worked in, which brings me to my next question: where was she hidden before she was placed in the wall? I know sometimes a lab may only be utilized by one person, but wouldn't it be brazen to keep her out in the open? As for motive, I'm going with an argument that started over the mice (clean cages or whatever) and it got out of hand...and that's putting it mildly but not meant to be taken as trivial.
 
This is exactly what I think, have thought since the beginning. See why I kept focussing on Rodent Services now? The only thing I'm trying to get through now is if somebody helped in the cleanup, or helped in the aftermath...ie: change of clothes...or did he really just go home & change, or go buy some new clothes & change on his way back to work. Something just isn't sitting right with me. How does the mess of a murder get cleaned up in only a metter of hours? To further that, how does it go undetected for several days, especially knowing other people are in and out of that area? As I'm aware I'm probably wrong in this sense, it's just an idea that I haven't been able to get by yet.

Labrat, thank you. Hope you have a nice day!

Thank you- you too! I'm so glad it's Saturday.

The change of clothes doesn't bother me. There would be a locker/shower room for the animal techs. If he kept extra clothes in the locker- for going to the gym for example, he would have no need to go home.

The card swipes did show he was moving around a lot. Every animal room I've ever been in has it's own broom, mop, and mop bucket that permanently stays in the room. I don't think Yale would be different. It's a way to try to prevent the spread of disease- this way if something did break out, it would be contained in that room. Everything the animal tech needs to maintain the room is permanently in the room, including cleaning supplies.

Didn't the card swipe show he was in that room for an hour?
 
OK – I finally had to register. As a former QA/QC/compliance sort with a whole lot of IACUC and regulatory agency liaison experience, may I offer a few observations?

First and foremost, LabRat is an incredible source of responsible info. Kudos!

It’s entirely feasible that RC got the job 4+ yrs ago based on his high school grades and a claim that he had worked on a farm. That’s qualification enough for an entry-level animal husbandry position. However, that would only allow entry-level responsibility. To work at Yale or most any other legitimate animal facility, he would have necessarily been placed on a career track.

As a high school graduate it would have taken him a minimum one year of lab animal experience to even qualify to take the AALAS (American Association of Laboratory Animal Science) test for ALAT (1st level) certification. Another ½ year to reach LAT (Lab Animal Technician) level. And at least another ½ year to reach the highest level (LATG). That’s very fast track. Theoretically a HS graduate can achieve the top level in 2 years, but in my experience reality is more like 3-5+ years.

These certification tests require extensive study. No animal husbandry/tech job I know of gives allowance for “book-study” on the job. It must be done outside the 40+ hr work week. Often a “benefit” of having an animal husbandry/tech job in a reputable academic or contract lab is that they will reimburse your educational expenses once you have passed each level of certification. But you are required to fund yourself and do the study on your own. Sure, you get reimbursed, but only after you have proven yourself and can present documentation (which is often delayed for various weird administrative reasons.). Oh – and you will also typically get a decent pay raise when you have new credentials at each level.

My thoroughly unsubstantiated timeline guesstimate is that RC was quite possibly studiously in the midst of achieving the highest level of certification. Or perhaps he had just recently qualified and passed his LATG certification. At that level, a lab animal tech is compelled to learn every single quirk and applicable mandate of the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations), NIH OLAW (Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare) Guidelines, USDA requirements AND the overlaying DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) licensing requirements.

Remarkably, nearly every dedicated lab animal guy/gal I’ve known gets through this process eventually and ends up making a very decent income as a highly qualified technician. It’s a close-knit community: they really must have a savvy supervisor and/or mentors who help them keep balance and pace themselves. During the process, the supervisor/mentor knows the student needs to exercise their increasing knowledge of rules and liabilities. At this stage of their career, lab animal techs find themselves on the Safety Committee where they get a lot of say-so and actual physical work to ensure systems are in compliance. They get put in charge of mandatory fire extinguisher checks and learn how to deal cooperatively with the outside vendors who provide the testing. They get grunt work like making sure the stacked cages have wheels that work. They are charged with drawing appropriately randomized samples of lab animal food and learn how to label, document and send it to independent labs to verify the label claimed nutritional value matches real values. They are taught how to report (and follow up) any and every discrepancy.

This diatribe should in no way be considered apologetic for RC. Rather, I hope to introduce a broader outlook and possible preview of his defense. I am appalled and horrified by this crime. If he killed Annie Le in a fit of uncontrolled anger, that action is anathema to every code by which lab animal technicians live their lives…. And practice their profession.

Absolutely amazing! Welcome to Websleuths, QAQC-x, I'm sure glad you finally joined! To further add to this, I found the "union" payscale for Yale Animal Services. I didn't post it b/c I didn't feel it was important, don't think it was about his pay. I absolutely agree with you on Labrat..would like to add that the other people working in this field have provided much valuable info also. In regards to the belittling of "animal tech" on national television, I myself felt a pang of anger b/c I though that was kind of bunching everyone else that does that job as deemed menial. That's just simply not true. There's another poster on here named Joe that said the chief was only saying that b/c he probably feels hate or anger towards Raymond...the chief saw the dead body and all the evidence, therefore probably despises Raymond and that's why he was putting him down. He probably didn't mean it about everyone in the general sense. B/c I am so analytical, I may have looked too far into the chiefs choice of words. I just think he shouldn't have said that knowing full well Raymond has other members of his family that work there, in the same position, as well as the pther techs at Yale that he's obviously come in contact with during investigative questioning. It didn't sit well with me. I've been in contact with techs at several levels and never once did I feel above them...quite the contrary, I feel as though they were some of my best teachers! That's probably why I can't let go what the chief said.
 

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