Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past two weeks, you’ve probably heard about the tragic story of Yale grad student, who disappeared and was later found murdered on what was to be her wedding day. I’ve been following the story pretty closely — it’s hard not to follow it, with all the intense media coverage it’s been getting. Perhaps because it happened at an Ivy League school, perhaps because Annie Le was seemingly both smart and attractive, the news continue to buzz about the case, nearly a week after the arrest of the alleged murderer Raymond Clark, despite the fact that there has been few updates since.

Watching the whole saga surrounding Annie Le’s untimely death has been upsetting and heartbreaking… I am not alone when when I say that my heart goes out to Annie’s family and her fiancé. A pharmacology major and soon to be wed to her college sweetheart, she had such a bright future ahead of her, and it was all cut short by the hands of a brutal killer.

Despite all the coverage, though, there are so many questions still left unanswered. If lab technician Raymond Clark really is the murderer (which it looks like he is, with the overwhelming evidence that points to him), what was his motive? In the early stages of the investigation, when he was just a “person of interest,” there were numerous theories circulating the Internet, from speculations that he and Le were involved with each other to others hinting that he had an Asian fetish (apparently he was in an Asian Awareness Club in high school) that got taken too far. Upon his arrest, however, the police made it clear that there was no romantic relationship between the victim and the suspect, but not alluding to any other possible motive, only stating that the murder is categorized as “workplace violence.” Clark may have suffered from “relative deprivation,” a mindset of professional jealousy that created “when you are measuring your own self worth against others and you come out on the bottom,” as stated by criminologist Jack Levin. Other speculations say that he experienced an incident of “Intermittent Explosive Disorder,” where he lost total control of his temper. People have also guessed at possibilities that Clark was angered by possible mistreatment of the lab mice, based on reports that Clark was a “control freak” that viewed the Yale laboratory as his territory as well as the fact that he had sent Le text messages and emails about the cleanliness of their cages. These are all just theories and there is no way in which we can know for sure unless there is a confession, and even then, there is no telling if it would be the complete truth. As in many cases, the motive is only known to the suspect, and therefore we may never know.

Another aspect of this heinous crime that perplexes me is the manner in which the investigation was conducted. I’m not usually one to question the police, especially after experiencing firsthand the aftermath of one of the worst tragedies to hit a university — the Virginia Tech police acted quickly and effectively after the shooting two and a half years ago, and I have nothing but respect for them. But in this case, the New Haven police let the suspect remain within the lab building, where he moved among them in an apparent effort to cover his tracks, such as trying to hide lab cleaning equipment that was later discovered to contain blood spatters. Investigators noticed Clark’s suspicious behavior early on, and despite the fact that he even failed a polygraph test, they allowed him to have his key card to go in and out of the buildings freely. It seems to me like they allowed him ample opportunity to hide and destroy vital evidence. And how do you go for five days of searching the lab before finding the body? Reportedly she was stuffed behind a wall, but still… there’s only so much you can scour a building while the victim sits right under your noses. I understand the need for investigations to be thorough yet cautious, but it seemed like this one moved particularly slow.

So many questions still haunt this case. Raymond Clark’s court date is set for October 6th… hoping that there will be some answers soon so that we can get some closure to this tragedy.