Lab Murder: The Brutal Slaying of Yale University Student Annie Le

Annie Le, a doctoral student was murdered in a lab at Yale University in 2009 and was a national story. Photo courtesy of New Haven Register.

Everyone who met her agreed Annie Le was outstanding. She was beautiful with a smile that would light up the room and an academic superstar while in high school and college. She was valedictorian of her graduating class at Union Mine High School in El Dorado, California, where she was voted “most likely to be the next Einstein. After receiving a $160,000 scholarship, she attended and graduated from the University of Rochester in New York with a major in cell developmental biology, with a minor in medical anthropology.

Annie was then accepted into a Yale graduate program that would have led to her doctorate in pharmacology. At 24-years old, Annie found herself earning her doctorate and attending Yale University, a prestigious Ivy League college in New Haven, Connecticut.

During her time in the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology, Annie was liked by everyone, or so they thought.

The disappearance

On September 8, 2009, five days away from her wedding day, Annie left her apartment and took Yale Transit to her office at Sterling Hall of Medicine on the Yale campus. At approximately 10:00 a.m. Annie walked to another campus building where her research lab was located on Amistad Street.