Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
COMPUTERIZED SWIPE CARDS LEAD TO ACCUSED YALE MURDERER
September 21, 2009
The tragic death of Yale graduate student Annie Le, just before her wedding day, caught the attention of the nation. Now it appears that investigators had a bead on her possible murderer from the very beginning. Bloomberg reported that the man charged with her murder, Raymond Clark, entered a lab room using a computerized swipe card shortly after Le had entered. Her card was never used again.
Clark also swiped into the area where Le's body was found behind a wall, bones broken and body crushed in order to fit her into a wall opening approximately the size of a computer screen. She had been strangled. Clark, 24, was a laboratory worker who cleaned mouse cages. Thus far, authorities believe this is an instance of workplace violence, which has been on the upswing.
According to The New York Post, Clark accidentally tripped a fire alarm, possibly with his or Le's swipe card. Authorities also pored over 700 hours of videotape, spotting Clark after the building's evacuation, holding his head in his hands. His subsequent stuttering, nervous interview and his attempts to clean the lab (which proved to have blood splatters) further aroused suspicion. The Post reported that Clark had issues with Le about the way she kept her lab and her mice, feeling that she wasn't sufficiently clean.
Interesting how the very nature of electronic evidence has altered – computerized swipe cards and videotapes are now routinely a source of evidence – and can result in the swift apprehension of a murder suspect.
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