RedHanded - Episode 175 - Annie Le & Room G22

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

Annie had it all; she was happily engaged, she was studying for her doctorate at Yale and she had huge ambitions for herself, that seemed well within reach. So when one day she vanished from her lab on campus, no one could believe it. But within days the true horrors of what had happened to Annie surfaced... 20% of all merch (plus new colour sweatshirts and hoodies!) for 72 hours using promo code 'BLACKFRIDAY' Merch: www.redhandedshop.com References: www.redhandedpodcast.com   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti.

And welcome to Red Handed for the 174th time. Cannot believe it. Won't believe it. Don't believe it. I'm just going to start making up numbers in the episode numbers just to not scare myself. Episode pie. Absolutely. We had an interview with somebody on Friday and They were like, how many episodes have you guys done? And we told them, they were like, in three years, that's a lot. And I was like, we know. We've done them. We were there. And that's not counting bonus episodes.

And speaking of bonus episodes, actually. Oh! That was so slick. Do I win Segway of the episode? You always win Segway. It drives me mad. No, you've had some good ones. In those 173, there's some good ones that you've definitely done.

Shoehorning. Shoehorning badly is where I win. I win the shoehorn of the year, the wooden shoehorn. Love it. A prize each. That's the world we live in, guys. Everyone gets a medal. But no.

Speaking of bonus episodes, if you are a Patreon, I hope you haven't neglected to listen to this month, which would be November 2020's bonus episode for $10 and up patrons. It is on the case of Sidney Loof. A lot of you got in touch on Patreon and asked us to cover that case, so we did. It's something else. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but the guy accused of it cuts his own throat in the doc. There you go. You want to hear the story of how that led to that particular incident?

Go over patreon.com slash redhanded, $10 and up. You get a bonus episode every single month. It's a good'un. And we've also got another good'un coming out for you this week, which is our monthly in the news episode where we talk about more sort of topical cases that aren't sort of fully formed enough for us to create an entire episode on. So this month's in the news, we talk about the Korean Zodiac Killer, who you may or may not have heard of. It's a very interesting

story. A Russian sausage king who was killed with a crossbow, a cannibal from Colorado, and also a true crime fanatic from Dudley who took things far too far when he horribly killed a woman in his flat. So yeah, there's a lot going on. So come listen to that. Well, there you go. Absolutely. And if you're like, maybe I just want to do $5, you could do that. And then you can come hang out with us under the duvet immediately after this. That's all I've got. So yeah, do all of those things. And your ears will be filled with more than 170 something hours of Red Handed. Yeah. And a really good time to listen to red-handed is when you're at work

precisely because let's face it everyone hates being there all the time absolutely and now work is just your house as well exactly work your house your car and I think everyone in some sort of work environment oh good segue oh she wins the golden shoehorn it was so subtle i missed it and i've got the fucking notes in front of my face subtle oh congratulations me every last one of us i think has envisioned the slow and painful death of a co-worker maybe even a boss what's yours oh mate you know what mine was i know you know what mine was. Oh God, yes. There were several incidents where I was like, maybe, maybe I could just kill him and no one would notice. But I didn't.

I just quit my job and became a true crime podcaster instead. I think the one where I actually had like a plan to end somebody's life. That's it. That's when you know you're in the danger zone, when they're like, oh, that's a troubling thing you've just said. But do you have a plan? Yeah, I could just push them off the fly tower and then they would die. You worked in a very accident-prone environment too.

You could have covered it up, I reckon. Oh, yeah. Theatres. Accidents happen all the time in theatres. I would have got away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids. That's your line when the police turn up. Accidents happen here all the time. Accidents, ghosts, all sorts.

Phantoms of the opera. Yeah, well, apparently the theatre I worked at is the least haunted theatre in the West End, which is very disappointing. That's the worst title to have. Yep. The least haunted. Yeah, I know. But I can also, I think I've said this on the show before, but I can understand why theatres get reputations for being haunted.

Because you know how Macbeth is unlucky, but it's actually just because most of it's in the dark and everyone's got a sword. So like accidents happen. Oh, really? But do you know why you shouldn't whistle in a theater that's a good one i didn't know you shouldn't but i won't ever do it now why so it's bad luck but it's actually because the the flymen who are the people who control the scenery going up and down used to communicate to each other by whistling so if you whistled on, you might accidentally get like a piece of scenery on your head and die. Ugh.

Like in a fucking Roadrunner cartoon. Literally that, yeah. Where just like a piano falls on your head. There are some very creative ways you can die in a theatre. It was a fun place

and definitely envisioned lots of co-worker deaths. But you do have to wonder, even though I did have several plans involving great heights and big spikes, what would it take for you to actually worker deaths but you do have to wonder even though I did have several plans involving great heights and big spikes what would it take for you to actually kill someone that you worked with this is depressing guys and I know we're all quite depressed anyway but uh you're welcome

because I put I did some maths because we all know how much I love it. We spend almost all of our adult lives at work. If you work 40 hours a week, which is average for 45 years, for example, between the ages of 21 and 66, which is currently the retirement age in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, in Scotland, they get four months less. Of course they do. Isn't that outrageous? Of course they do.

Those bloody Scots. No, I'm just joking, Scotland. Please don't leave. Please don't leave us. Scotland, honestly, if you want to go, we understand. I understand, but please don't go. It's not you. It's me. You can go. We know we treat you so badly. We know we're awful. But we need you. Please don't go.

We need your oil, Scotland. Okay, so, right. Let's talk about annual leave, everyone's favourite. The minimum legal requirement in the UK, people in America, prepare to lose your minds. The legal minimum for days off in the UK is 28 days. You legally have to take 28 days holiday. Someone in America just died listening to that. I heard the jaws shattering across the floor across the Atlantic. I was on holiday in America once and my friends who I was staying with were like,

how have you got this much time off work? And I was like, it's the law. I can't help you, America. I'm literally here for a week. That's it. My friend who used to work in London, she got a job and moved to New York but it was like a direct transfer so within that company. So when she

went, she negotiated to keep her UK holidays when she was living in New York. Oh, smart. And she was like a direct transfer. So within that company. So when she went, she negotiated to keep her UK holidays when she was living in New York. Oh, smart. And she was like, it sounded like a great idea. And yeah, like I've gone and seen stuff, but like it's shit because I have no one to hang out with because they all get 10 days. And that's like including Christmas.

That's fucking awful. So saying that, how many days holiday did we take this year? Fucking nothing. Nothing. I think we took our birthdays off. Took our birthdays off. That's it. Only one day. We'll take some time off in December maybe. We don't know. Maybe we'll go for a long walk

in December. Can't wait. Can't fucking wait. Anyway, so in our fictional career let's round up our 28 days to 30 days because we're feeling generous and assume that you take four weeks off every year for your holidays. That still means that over your lifetime, over our lifetimes, we spend roughly 9.8 years consecutively at work. Wow. So it makes sense that if you spend nine years somewhere, someone's going to get on your nerves occasionally. You're going to get pissed off. It's going to happen. You're right. I mean, if you spend, I don't know, 30 years married and then most people who were murdered are murdered by their spouses, at least a third of those people who are at work then must get murdered by somebody they work with. That's just maths.

Yeah, that is maths welcome to that was maths with sarisi and that's number one fuck i missed it oh not on the ball today so speaking of workplace aggression uh sometimes it turns into workplace violence and there are apparently four types of workplace violence which seems like overkill but here we go uh criminal intent is the first one. And so that's things like robbery, terrorism, they all sort of fall under that umbrella. And then we've got customer client violence, got personal relationship violence. And that means when the offender is not related to the company in any way, but does have a personal relationship with the person they

offend against. And then we've got the fourth type of workplace violence, which is what we're concerning ourselves with today, and that is worker-on-worker violence, which is something I am not sure I have ever actually seen. Like violence. No. Like a fight. No.

It's not fisticuffs sort of situation though i've definitely seen like worker on worker emotional warfare oh yes like that is something i have been a part of myself and worker on worker emotional abuse i've witnessed that yes but here's a fun fact it's just something i learned over the course of some point this year do you know where the phrase and this isn't a phrase that we would ever really use in the UK if somebody in the UK who was British said this to me I'd be like why are you saying that that's really weird but the phrase going postal where that comes from oh it rings the faintest of dangly bells but I can't remember so if you don't know what the phrase going postal means, it basically means losing your shit, like going crazy, just becoming very aggressive, etc.

And actually, this phrase apparently originated in the USA in the 1990s after several incidents from 1986 onwards in which individuals working for the United States Postal Service shot and killed fellow workers and also members of the public. Like working in the US Postal Service was apparently so stressful and shit that they just brought guns in and shot each other and members of the public. And that's why we now say, or not we, Americans now say, going postal. Wow. I know.

Right? There you go. So worker-on-worker violence has been reported to actually be steadily on the rise. One study, in fact, that we dug up, which is admittedly a little outdated, showed that between 1992 and 1993, so this is after the whole going postal incidents, 2.2 million workers in the US were victims of a physical attack. That is a lot of people. 2.2 million. And also that 6.3 million were threatened and that 16.1 million were harassed. So if you put together all the people

who were physically attacked or at least threatened, that's the whole population of London that something really shitty happened to at work in the US. So yeah, not an insignificant number. So the term workplace violence isn't one, like Hannah said, that we had necessarily come across before or even thought that much about. I just think it's like the fact that it's violence is more important than that it's at work. Yeah, like why would you categorize it that way? That's an interesting vertical to start categorising things in. I don't know. Like, if there was a mass shooting in a shopping centre,

would you call it workplace violence? If it was someone who worked there who shot a bunch of other people who worked there, or would you just call it a mass killing? It doesn't even have to be someone who works there. Someone walking into a shopping centre and shooting everyone is still classed as type 1 workplace violence. That is not the right phrase. No, it's weird, isn't it?

I don't like that. So, some people call the case that we're going to talk about today an instance of workplace violence. Which kind of implies there was nothing more to it. But obviously, as you can tell by my tone, we don't necessarily agree. So when a postgraduate student goes missing, are we just dealing with a case of workplace violence? The short answer to that weird sentence is obviously no. And the long answer is this episode of Red Handed Original that we are about to pour into your brain via your auditory canals where it will remain for the rest of your natural lives. And you can think about it in those nearly 10 years while you're at work. So given recent events on the world stage and the impending

exit of what's it Hitler, we are doing an American case and we're jumping straight into the Ivy League. Our equivalent to the Ivy League in the UK is called the Russell Group and the Russell Group are the top universities in the UK and they were decided in a hotel on Russell Square and that's why it's called the Russell Group. Are you serious? Yeah, that's why.

That is ludicrous. Why? I thought that it was a man named Russell who decided. Nope. Nope. And the real fucking travesty is that SOAS on Russell Square, not Russell Group. Is it not? Nope. Nope. Oh. But I don't know. It's all much hype, man. I went to Birmingham and that's a Russell Group uni, but I was like, it's all right. It's just fine. No one's invited me back to be like a fucking alumni anything. So like, I don't give a shit.

I wish I'd gone to Manchester. I wanted to ask you about this the other day. There's a Tamil poet statue outside Soas. How is that? Yeah, he's called like Timur, something like Timur. I don't know. We like him. I'll send you a picture.

Oh, yeah, I do. There's a Zen garden. We've also got the Brunei Gallery, paid for entirely by the Sultan of Brunei. So, us is a cool place. See, we didn't have any of that. We didn't have any of that. But you have Russell Group. You've got the prestige.

My department, economics, we didn't even have a fucking building. We were like the bloody nomads of the university. Like, one lecture in fucking biology, one lecture in finance, no economics building. When I asked why not, they said, listen, no one in the UK has won a Nobel Prize in economics for quite some time. That's why. No buildings for you. You need to earn them. Well, we're not going to now and we don't even have a fucking building. Oh, that's really funny.

Anyway, Ivy League is the equivalent of Russell Group. And the term Ivy League isn't as clear as, well, the origins of it aren't as clear as the Russell Group origins. The most popular theory is that the top four universities in the olden days, so that's Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth, were referred to as the Ivy League, as in Roman numerals for four, because there's four of them. And then over time, it became the Ivy League. People contest that. it's one of those things that's quite like apocryphal and no one really knows but that's what I found I want that

to be true because I like that me too and this next bit is going to be incredibly boring for Americans because you already know but I learned some new stuff so shut up and take it currently there are eight Ivy League universities but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are the best universities in the United States. MIT is currently ranked the best university in the world and Stanford is second best in the world and neither of those are Ivy League schools. What? That's crazy. Okay, right. Just adding confusion to my brain. Despite all of the things I've just said, the first two universities that you will think about when you think about the Ivy League are bitter rivals Harvard and Yale. When you apply to university in the USA, you can apply to both Harvard and Yale and actually as

many Ivy League schools as you want. Unlike in the UK, where you have to pick between Oxford or Cambridge, you're not allowed to apply to both of them because it really is that petty over here. God, I didn't know that. Yeah, you've got to pick. Okay, so Harvard, the University of Harvard is in Cambridge, confusingly enough, which is just down the river from downtown Boston. I always thought it was in Boston, but it's not. Apparently, Cambridge is a separate thing to Boston.

I've been to Harvard. I stayed there. It's very nice. Oh, I mean, you'd hope so. Yeah, my friend who was there accidentally left her window open for the entirety of winter break. So her mattress was frozen solid when we got there. Oh my God. I like sat on her bed and I was like, what is going on here?

Am I sitting on your laptop or whatever? And then we took all the sheets off and know that her mattress was just frozen solid. That's crazy. It'd be cold in Massachusetts. Oh yeah fucking snowmageddon or whatever. I remember our company my old company has worked for trying to constantly run events in Boston in December. Like why do we keep doing this? There is just snowstorms every single fucking year. Not the right time to be there. No. Yale on the other hand is not in Massachusetts. It's in New Haven, Connecticut.

And Yale and New Haven are what we're going to talk about today. We're going to leave Cambridge and Boston behind. New Haven, like any city, has its rougher areas. It was hit hard by the crack epidemic in the 90s, and since then it has recorded steadily dropping crime rates, allegedly. Between 2007 and 2008, New Haven reported 2,690 violent crimes per every 100,000 residents, which is comparable to other major cities in Connecticut like Hartford or Bridgeport. But these numbers are double the average US city of similar size.

I tried to find out what the specific homicide rate was in New Haven or is currently, but I couldn't quite manage it. Although I did find a map of all of the shootings that happened in 2019, of which there were 73. Yeah, a lot. So in short, New Haven, Connecticut is not the safest place in the world. And I asked one of our on the ground American correspondents about New Haven and she reported the following. New Haven sucks. It's dangerous. But Yale is lovely and beautiful. And I asked her about whether people would not apply to Yale or not go because specifically it's in New Haven. And she said, if you've got into Harvard, Yale and Stanford, then New Haven would probably factor into your decision. But if you get into Yale and nowhere else, you're going to go and just deal with New Haven.

So, yeah, don't come for me for researching and talking to an actual American. However, whatever our correspondent says, the FBI and other state bodies are quick to remind us that just because more crime is reported in New Haven doesn't necessarily mean that it is more dangerous. But I think they're in the business of promoting safe cities. It's such a like, well, I know you are, but what am I kind of argument? Like, it's just silly. Yeah, I mean, it definitely doesn't mean it's not more dangerous. Yeah. I think that Yale are probably quite aware that in some cases, New Haven is the reason people choose not to attend their university. So it's obviously in their interest to promote safety. When we obviously get onto the case, we're going to talk about everything you find, every documentary you watch is full of either Yale faculty or New Haven police or the FBI being like,

New Haven is fine. Yale is completely safe. Yeah, they got that sweet, sweet PR money, man. They know. They know. So another interesting and frankly shocking American college fact is that in the United States, university fees differ from institution to institution. That's surprising because here all universities essentially cost the same. But in the US, that is drastically not the case. For example, to attend Yale, it costs almost $76,000 a year. That's about £50,000. That's a lot of money. To get an undergraduate degree, you need to go to four years in America. So that makes $304,000. That's about £273,000. Fuck me. Oh, I just I can't that is such an astronomical amount of money for a four year undergrad. And we've talked about this before and like how student

debt is like crushing poor America, not poor, like as in poor and also unfortunate Americans who have to go through that system. It's just it's so unfair, guys. Like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Because I had no idea that it crushed your credit score the way that it does. I mean, my God. So just like for comparison's sake, let's compare how much that costs to go to Yale with how much it would cost you to go to, say, the University of Connecticut. Apparently, that costs about $34,000-ish per year. So as you can see, that is like half the price of going to Yale. And apparently, that goes up to like $53,000-ish if you're like from out of state, which again is crazy.

So like there's differential even on a state-by-state basis. Only for like university of. Ivy League schools don't do that. Oh, okay. Interesting. So yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot of money. So for reference,

attending literally any university in the UK for a UK citizen costs about £28,000, which is just over $37,000. And granted that is only for a three-year course versus a four-year course, but you get the idea. It's still significantly fucking less. Oh, for sure. And that's now.

That's now because it's tripled. Yeah. When we went to uni, I paid £3,000 a year. Yeah, I snuck in just under. I was the last year before the triple fees. Yeah, my brother, £ 9,000 a year. Outrageous. And like people that are like two or three years older than me

paid a thousand pounds. So it tripled and then it tripled again. That's wild. And if you're Scottish, it's free. Yes, that's the other thing about Scotland. Free university. You're better than us. You are better than us, Scotland. I'm

not. It doesn't hurt me to admit that. And Scottish guys, love ya. Love ya. Basically, the point we're trying to make is that here in the UK, not counting Scotland, Oxford or Cambridge and literally even the worst university in the country have exactly the same fees. So in summary, if you are smart enough to get into an Ivy League school in the US, it is going to fucking cost you. What we're not saying is we're not saying that, like, it doesn't matter how smart you are, you just have to be rich. Obviously, you have to be smart to go to Ivy League schools unless you're a legacy.

But you have to be super smart and super rich. Yes, exactly. And very few people are both of those things. And also, like we do know before everyone kicks off, we do know that there are scholarships available in the US. Lots and lots of them actually, way more than here. And also the most expensive schools generally do have like more of those scholarship programs and grants, etc. So basically, you have to be super smart and super talented yeah at something else or super smart and super rich those are your only choices you have to outsmart all of the other smartest

people in the country if you don't have the money you have to be double smart and then there was that whole university exam scandal with all those celebrities that like lied for their kids to get in that was wild like we don't have time to get into that. Maybe we'll talk about that in Under the Duvet, but that was a whole thing. Apparently kids will get really, really good at random shit like archery. They'll just be like Olympic level archers so they can get a free ride at college.

One of the girls I met at Harvard, Olympic skier, and quit as soon as she got into Harvard. She was like, I don't need to do this shit anymore. I'm here, I got a free ride. I bet. But like, I think again, you've got to have parents or a community that is very savvy to that and be able to get you to that level, which also wouldn't be cheap or free. Oh, totally. Not everyone's got skiing training money.

Precisely. So anyway, that's the point that we wanted to make. Point made. Point made. I can't wait for all of the emails we shall receive. Right, sorry, I'm sitting on an ice block because I hurt my hip this morning and now it's like stuck to my skin. Okay, graphic from Hannah. It's my butt skin. You didn't need to know that,

but now you all know. Delightful. I'm so glad I know. It's fine, I've peeled it off. Right, so Yale itself. Let's get into that. The campus is reported, as we said, to be extremely safe. There are cameras everywhere

and there's even university police present around the clock. But that doesn't stop crime. For example, in this case you read about everywhere. In December 1998, 21-year-old student Suzanne Jovin was stabbed 17 times about two miles from campus and her death remains unsolved. And this case is often used as an example of Yale students being at risk, but it didn't actually happen on campus, unlike our case today, which happened in Yale's extremely hallowed grounds. Postgraduate student Annie Lay was running experiments on mice in Yale's extremely hallowed grounds. Postgraduate student Annie Lay was running experiments on

mice in Yale's medical research department when she disappeared a week before she was supposed to get married. Annie was born absolutely nowhere near New Haven in San Jose, California in 1985. She was a part of a big Vietnamese-American family and she was an exceptionally natural overachiever. She was valedictorian of her high school class, which I think means highest scoring, best, golden shoehorn, diamante, I don't know. Why are Americans so obsessed with Latin? I don't get it. I don't know.

It baffles me. It's like all the demon memes. Why did the devil just decide on Latin? It wasn't even the first language, so what what he was just mute until latin came along he's got an aramaic translator that's what i mean apparently when you google it when you just google what is the oldest language it comes up as tamil now i know that is refuted by some scholars and people but i was like that's really interesting i only found that out this year um so i was like that's cool i can't read all right i can only speak. So I was like, that's cool. I can't read or write. I can only speak it. But I was like, that's still quite cool. Top five oldest.

I'll take that. Oh, my God. And I didn't talk to you about this, but like, you know, Kamala Harris is half Indian. Yes. Her mom is actually from a village really, really near to where my family are from. So we're from the same state. She's half Tamil. And there, when Biden and her won the rituals that these people were doing, it was hysterical.

I mean, there was just so much milk being poured on deities. That's how we like to do. Just roll around in some milk. Why not? Why not? Feed the hungry. Fuck that. Pour it on that stone statue. It's thirsty. And all praise Kamala Harris. That is so jokes.

Oh, us Hindus. Well, not me, but you know them. Happy Diwali, by the way. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, mum tried to make some sweets and we only ended up with five of them surviving. And then my brother ate like three of them.

So we had to eat the other two cut up into pieces between me, mum and dad so happy diwali delightful also really enjoy that your brother's gonna edit this and be like fuck you oh yeah fuck hi anyway uh happy diwali to all of us what's the little timmy phrase i don't know know. Merry Christmas, one and all. Everyone. Happy Diwali, one and all. Every last one of us. Anyway. Oh, did you see on the news?

I don't know why I found it so funny. There was someone, like, zoomed in to BBC News to explain what Diwali is. And he's, like, lighting candles in his house and like explaining. And I don't know why I found it so hysterically funny. Because it is hysterical. It's hysterical. Fucking BBC, shut up. And then there was Rishi Sunak lighting some fucking diva lamp outside of number 10.

And we were watching it at home and we were like, not one single lamp lit up in our house, obviously, because we are so lazy. But I was like, look, that's why they've done this so they've sent him out there i mean like look rishi go tell him not to fucking get together over diwali because they're all gonna get sick and die that's it go light the lamp and then tell him don't get together please don't get together that's it if you don't know who rishi sunak is he he is our Chancellor of the Exchequer. Anyway, that's it. Let's carry on. He writes checks to make things better. Furloughs until March.

Anyway, this isn't a fucking Tory propaganda show. I'm never... If you keep doing that, I am never going to pull myself back from the brink. Okay, I'm going to stop speaking now. Okay, let's get back to Annie and her valedictorianisms. In her yearbook, Annie was voted most likely to be the next Einstein and the best of the best. Did you have that in your yearbook?

No, we didn't have a yearbook. My school was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Look, just do your exams and then leave before we have to turn the heating off. That was my yearbook. Though I do like classic Asian achievements. Next Einstein, best of the best. She's like, cool, sick. Speaking very briefly of Kamala Harris again, did you see that meme that was like Indian parents, Kamala Harris goes home and tells them she's VP and they're like, only VP? That's not even a joke. That is it.

I know. I wanted to say it earlier, but I didn't think I'd, it's just not for me to say, is it? No, it's true. It's true. So at the same time, Annie was smashing literally everyone else in her year at SAT exams. Annie also found the time to apply for as many scholarships as she possibly could. I think it was over a hundred applications she did. Good girl. And she managed to be awarded a whopping $160,000 for her undergraduate degree, which she decided to do in cell developmental biology with a minor in medical anthropology, good girl, at the University of Rochester, which can be found in upstate New York. Also not Ivy League. Annie was just 4 foot 11 and 90 pounds with shoulder length, brown hair and brown eyes.

And Annie may have been physically small, but she was a scientific heavyweight. During her undergrad, she conducted a summer project at the National Institute of Health on bone tissue engineering using stem cells from mice. And she also fucked around with researching on parasitic wasps. Cash! Maybe she made the murder hornets accidentally. I don know that's a lie don't listen to me um basically what we're saying is annie was hardcore and she was also cool she's not the kind of like quiet bookish type that you might expect and that is no shade on the quiet bookish type because uh that was me until probably about age 16 but no no, Annie wasn't like that. Annie was cool. She was outgoing. She was friendly. She was well-liked. And there are loads and loads of pictures of her at parties.

She's not just sort of like, you know, all work and no play makes Annie a dull girl. Like, she's on it. Yeah, fancy dress parties too. She's dressed as Wilma Flintstone. Love it. I've got so much time for Annie. So while playing with wasps at Rochester, Annie met a guy called Jonathan Wadowski and they fell in love. Annie would even start writing things like, quote, lucky I'm in love with my best friend on Facebook. Which like, nice, but give it a rest, Annie. Come on. I know. Shut up, all of you who are fucking at it. The worst is when people post pictures of themselves with their partners and they say this one. I can't stand it. I can't stand it. Oh, just go away all of you eternally and just

leave me alone. Oh, and if you would like to hear more empty handed stories, you can do so on basically every other episode of Under the Duvet because there are so many of them. So it feels like everyone around Annie was sure that she was destined for great things. And depending on who you speak to, they say that she was keen on either curing cancer or diabetes. How true this is, we're not really sure. It's always easier for people to say, you know, all of the world changing things that someone would have done when they disappear and they don't actually get to do them. But, major cynicism aside, people really do seem to think that Annie was destined to make her mark

on the scientific and medical community. After her undergrad, Annie went off to Yale to study for a doctorate in pharmacology. And Jonathan, her lover, went off to columbia in new york city and yes yale and columbia are not a million miles away like it's only about a two and a half hour train journey which to be honest here is like that's fucking that's like liverpool or some shit but in the u.s you know that's fucking nothing that's just the other side side of London. So it is a pain in the ass, certainly, but not an impossible journey. But it did mean that Annie and Jonathan did not live together during their postgraduate studies.

But that didn't seem to stop them. They spent weekends together and watched baseball games together over Skype when they couldn't physically be in the same room, which everyone in the documentaries thought was really touching and they make such a big deal out of, and it's like how sad that that's literally just our lives now. Wouldn't even fucking give it a second thought, would you? No.

Hannah and I did a quiz together on Saturday night online. So we were just streaming each other on one device and then watching the quiz on the other. That's how we spent Saturday night, everyone. And we didn't win. Maybe, maybe, maybe it will only be two more weekends. Maybe. I hope so.

Maybe, maybe. Who knows? Right. Annie and Jonathan were in constant contact by text and by phone as well, and their baseball-based dates kept their relationship strong. So strong, Annie and Jonathan decided that they were going to get married. They opted to have their ceremony on Long Island, where Jonathan's family were from.

They booked a church in Huntington Village, which is on the water and just super wedding-y. If you had to pick Long Island wedding, that's what it looks like. So the perfect spot for young lovers Annie and Jonathan to tie the knot. But as you might have already guessed, things did not quite turn out that way. And things started to not quite turn out on the 8th of September 2009, when Annie's roommate reported her missing at about 9pm. Annie had made no contact, saying that she was running late or

not coming home, and this really wasn't like her. Initially, this was not taken particularly serious by the New Haven Police Department. They assumed that Annie had just gone off to New York City to see her fiancé and forgotten to let her roommates know. And although we have been chatting some shit about New Haven, people getting abducted from the Yale campus itself is basically unheard of, so no one was shitting their pants over this just yet. Nevertheless, a report was filed because Annie's roommate was sure that something had to be wrong. And ironically enough, weeks before she went missing, Annie had written an article about campus safety for Yale's medical school magazine. It ended, quote,

In short, New Haven is a city, and all cities have their perils. But with street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic. Now, obviously, just because someone writes an article about being street smart doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually street smart. It probably means they're definitely not. Like in The Simpsons when Marge is like, I'm a cool mom. No, you're right. You're right. But it did make the police department think, having read this article or found this article,

that it was unlikely that Annie wouldn't have let somebody know that she was going to be out late. Because, you know, it's probably one of her top tips in this magazine article that she writes. So why would she not follow her own guidance? So they knew that Annie was aware of the dangers and therefore pretty unlikely to take any risks. But as the hours ticked by and still no one had heard from her, not even her fiancé Jonathan in New York City, I think they could tell that something was wrong. Because Annie was certainly a type A personality.

She was a postgraduate student doing some serious science. She was expected to change the world. She was also maintaining a long-distance relationship. And on top of that, she was getting married in a week. Not only does that show that she is like a pretty thorough person, it also shows that she doesn't really seem to have any motive to vanish. She's got a lot going on. So apparently Annie was very particular about what the wedding had to be. She was even making her own veil. Serious type A personality going on here. And so given all of this and the rest of her traits,

I can imagine that she wouldn't just disappear. Like I can imagine that assumption being a very reasonable one to make. Essentially, Annie was just under a phenomenal amount of pressure and that made the police department wonder. Perhaps, maybe she doesn't have a motive to run away because she should be happy, but maybe she was just under so much pressure that they had like some sort of runaway bride situation on their hands. Annie certainly seemed to be desperately in love with Jonathan.

She seemed pumped about having the most perfect wedding in the world. But not only is it very stressful to plan a wedding, given the fact that I'm watching several of my friends do so right now, people also lie. Have you watched Crashing? No. It's what Phoebe Waller-Bridge did for TV before she did Fleabag. Oh, no, no, I haven't even heard of it.

It's about a property guardianship, and it's this group of people that live in a hospital, like an old hospital. Anyway, there's a scene in it where this boyfriend and girlfriend who are sort of on the rocks but not really admitting it, the girlfriend is really drunk and she's quite straight-laced so it's rare for her to get wasted and she turns to her boyfriend in bed and she's like,

I think I've been pretending. And he's like, what do you mean? And she was like, I think I've been pretending to be in love with you. And then she falls asleep and wakes up and doesn't remember that she said it oh god and I think like that is such a like maybe this is just my like single cynicism and bitterness but sometimes I look at couples and I'm like you're making that up you can't really think that they're that great do you know what I mean yeah for sure for sure but um then also who am I to talk

I'll just stay here with my witch hat on so I can I could understand an argument in which everything had just got a little bit too much for Annie maybe she had been making the whole thing up and maybe it got too much and she left and perhaps she would even turn back up again after her cold feet had thawed. But she didn't and after 24 hours had passed and no one had heard from her everyone was sufficiently worried enough to start taking Annie's disappearance a little bit more seriously. The New Haven Police Department started to piece together Annie's last day in the recordable world and we say recordable because the Yale campus has about 3,000 CCTV cameras. And in the documentaries, you can find on this case, police bang on about these cameras a lot. I think it's probably compensation for it being in New Haven, but

well, I don't know. Something else worth pointing out about the documentaries that you'll find out there is that no one who was actually close to Annie appears in them. There's a lady who was supposed to do her hair for the wedding. Her name's Deborah and there's another lady called Jennifer and I'm not using their surnames because I'm not going to be particularly nice about them, especially Deborah. As far as I can tell, she didn't really know Annie. She was hired to do her hair for the wedding and that's about it. If I go missing and the only person who has anything to say about me is my hairdresser that I hired, I'm staying missing. No. I just am.

I won't allow it. This is madness. So I think this Deborah person is just inserting herself into this narrative and she has absolutely no business being in it and she's just hamming up her relationship with Annie to get on TV. I don't think she knew her at all. Jennifer seems like she was a little bit more involved in Annie's actual life. It does seem like her and Annie were actually friends but we only have Jennifer's side of the story and Jennifer is in absolutely everything about this case. She gives interviews to everyone, she's in every YouTube clip which kind of makes me wonder how reliable she is.

Annie's own family and her fiance don't appear in anything you can't find an interview with them anywhere the only thing i can find of her family saying anything is a statement given by her uncle that's sentencing like her parents her fiance say nothing maybe they just wanted to stay out of it maybe they felt weird about someone potentially profiting off annie's disappearance which i completely understand however that makes me more suspicious of jennifer because i mean if you're really her friend you're going against her family's wishes to appear in these documentaries and that doesn't sit right with me so i don't really know she claims that annie rang her before the wedding in a bit of a panic and asked jenn she thought that herself and Jonathan were too young to get married and Jennifer assured Annie that she was making the right decision or so she says. Anyway now I'm done being a bitch let's retrace Annie's steps with the New Haven Police Department because there are so many bloody cameras on Yale's campus it took days to piece

all of this footage together. So here's what you need to know. On the 8th of September, Annie left her apartment, 188 Lawrence Street, and took a Yale transit bus to her office, which was in the Sterling Hall of Medicine. I was initially surprised that Yale have their own buses, but to be honest, if I was paying those tuition fees, I would expect a golden plated griffin called Clarence to fly me directly to my lectures and take my notes for me. If I'm paying $300,000 I want that shit downloaded into my brain. And Clarence should also drop little snacks into

my mouth as well like so much should be happening. It must come with Reese's Pieces. Exactly please. Uh though did you know the University of Birmingham I went, is the only university to have its own train station? If I do know that, it's because you've told me. Probably. That's not information that I would have had myself. I think I've been to Birmingham twice in my entire life and one of those was with you. Yeah, I mean, there's not much else going on. But we did have a little train station on campus and it was called University.

That was cool. That's very nice so anyway that day that annie went missing she was wearing a brown skirt with a green top and a brown beaded necklace her clothes are clearly visible on the cctv footage annie hangs out in her office for a bit and then she heads over to 10 amistad street the animal research facility where the mice lived that she had been conducting her experiments on. Now this building is not as well covered CCTV wise as the rest of the campus. There are cameras at the entrances and exits and in some corridors but not in the labs themselves.

The building is also quite difficult to see into, I guess for obvious animal killing reasons. That doesn't mean, however, that people's movements aren't traceable. As an additional security measure, people who are allowed access to the animal testing facility have key cards. Having watched Outbreak, the very, very dated film on Netflix, yes, there should be a lot more security from people being able to take animals out of animal testing facilities because he took a monkey out and it fucking ended the world. Anyway, spoilers. Yeah, and if

it would just make life a lot easier for Pinky and the Brain though, wouldn't it? If they could just walk straight out. This is true. This is also true. That's a fresh reference. And by that I mean we've never talked about them before on the show for all of our cartoon chat. Pinky and the Brain. The same thing we do every night pinky so anyway so key cards are required for entry into the building and into all of the individual labs now I don't know if you had to

swipe to like get into the toilet that could be quite embarrassing I I don't know. Yeah, like if there's a record of like how long you've spent in the toilet your entire career. That's quite the statistic. Though I feel like the rise of like snooping software by corporations on their employees is fucking apparently through the roof during COVID. I watched a little documentary about it and I feel like, yes, if some employers could, they would like time how long you went to the toilet, according to the CEOs they interviewed in this place. So anyway, Annie gets to the facility and swipes in at nine minutes past 10 in the morning and she never came out again. After entering the building, she then swiped into her own lab, where her own mice lived, at 10.11am.

Annie's lab is called G13, and it's quite near the entrance of the building. Then there is a flurry of activity on Annie's keycard. She moves between her lab and a storage room called G22 11 times. The 11th time she enters G22 is the last activity on her keycard. If she left the building or even that room after that, she did not use her own keycard to do so. This made the New Haven police extremely nervous. There'd not been a murder on campus for quite some years, but the disappearance of Annie Lay was starting to look quite a lot like foul play. But they still hung on to the runaway bride theory for a little bit

longer. They thought maybe Annie was having an affair with someone and had run off into the sunset with a secret lover. What a weird theory to like make your priority. Where's that come from? Oh she's in such a happy relationship she must have run off with someone but it's like oh she's a young woman she's an idiot she's probably run off she's getting married in five days it must be something to do with that weird and if annie was having an affair she was only speaking to this person in real life because a thorough search of her phone and email records came up with absolutely fuck all. Yeah, like all affairs in this century happen, we only communicate in person. Yeah, yeah, face to face only.

Carrier pigeons and smoke signals also accepted. The final nail in the runaway bride coffin was the discovery of Annie's wallet and phone in her office. Yeah, it's not something you leave behind really, is it? Not if you're off for a fucking saucy affair. No. The FBI set up shop on the Yale campus to help with the heavy lifting of the investigation,

and Special Agent James Lawton took the helm, and he started to conduct some interviews. And of course, when people go missing, especially close to a big event like a wedding day, the spouse of the disappeared is squarely in the crosshairs of the investigation. So Jonathan was brought in for questioning. He was entirely cooperative, although distraught, and he also had a cast-iron alibi. And he passed a polygraph test. Not that that should really mean anything, but this investigation certainly seems to put a lot

of stock in polygraph tests. Why? I do not know. More trawling through CCTV tapes revealed another key factor. At 12.40, there was a fire alarm in the animal research facility, which of course meant that everyone had to leave the building. And everyone did, except Annie. She's not visible on any of the cameras that cover all of the building's exits. And it was later discovered that this fire alarm was set off by a plume of steam escaping from a giant industrial dishwasher used to clean scientific equipment. It setting off the fire alarm was reasonably common,

but it didn't mean that it couldn't have been set off intentionally. So with it clear that Annie did not leave the building the day she went missing, or at least not visibly, and with Jonathan solidly clearing his name, suspicion fell on the people who were on Yale campus the day Annie vanished. The FBI, following this idea, interviewed the last person to see Annie. It was a lab technician. He said that he had seen Annie briefly at about 12.45, so that's after the fire alarm. This lab technician didn't know Annie particularly well and he said that their interaction had been business-like and friendly and then they'd both gone about their days. A lot of articles you come across

that cover this case will call this lab technician a custodian or what we'd call a caretaker in England English. That's not true at best and offensive at worst. Lab technicians are more like the science police and that's a particularly complicated job when animals are involved. If an animal has to be killed, the lab technicians have to do it. They have to gas them. If a cage is too full of mouse shit, the lab technicians have to clean it. If a dead animal has to be spotted and extracted from a cage,

the lab technicians have to deal clean it. If a dead animal has to be spotted and extracted from a cage, the lab technicians have to deal with it. If everything is not done by the scientists cleanly in accordance to protocol and animal rights standards, the lab technicians get the blame for it. It's a reasonably well-paid position, but it does feel pretty thankless. And I read in a lot of places that postgraduate students tend not to form relationships with lab technicians and they tend to view them as janitors. And that, I believe, wholeheartedly. I can completely see Ivy League postdoctorate students being like, pick up my shit, you cretin.

Yeah. The lab technician that was the last one to see Annie lay alive was called Ryan Clark III. And he'd got the job at Yale because his sister worked there and because he lied about having worked on a farm. Lab technicians are expected to have a familiarity with animals because obviously they have to do quite a lot of killing them. So the search the building continued and they don't really find much to begin with, which I thought was strange initially. But what we have to remember is that

the animal research facility could not be locked down like a normal crime scene. Experiments and doctorates were at risk, so students, scientists and lab technicians continued to move through the building as the investigation went on. No trace of Annie turned up though. A police dog called Max was even brought in to try and sniff her out but not much came of that either. The search was therefore extended to the bins at the back of the facility and even the dump that was 40 miles away in Hertford where all the lab waste was sent but still no sign of Annie. It seemed more and more certain that Annie was still in the lab somewhere. So they kept looking and when the investigators started to move ceiling tiles they made a discovery. A rubber glove and

a sock were hidden in the ceiling. Someone was hiding something. Then while searching G22, the last room Annie had used her keycard to access on the 8th of September, investigators managed to do an effective search three days after Annie went missing. The only reason I can think for it taking them quite so long is, like we said, the facility was still active. But it seems wild because, like, that's the fucking building she went missing in. You'd be like, we'll start everywhere else and then work our way back here. I think they just couldn't get the access. Yeah, yeah.

So one policeman, who counts himself as the real MVP, got on his hands and knees and went under the wheelie storage shelves. There he saw a bead on the floor. A bead that matched the brown necklace that Annie had been wearing the day that she went missing. Any doubt that something terrible happened to Annie fell from everybody's mind. This guy fucking loves himself so much. Like in, there's an, I think it's an Oxygen documentary, which you can find on Now TV in the UK here. He's like, and then I was like on my knees.

I was trying so hard. And then suddenly out of nowhere, this then I was like on my knees. I was trying so hard. And then suddenly out of nowhere, this bead, like it's so dramatic. Yeah. And then there's this other guy who's the FBI lead investigator. He's like, one day I was just looking at my daughter and I realized that my daughter was the same height and weight as Annie. And then I picked up my daughter and realized that someone could have picked Annie up and put her in the bin. Like, I can't. I can't. I can't. Oh my god. So after they found this bead, they then decide to, you know, spray some luminol about. And this revealed that there was blood on the walls of the room G22. Some of it was incredibly fine. A pattern consistent with,

like, aspirated blood. So the kind of blood that like you breathe out when you've suffered some sort of injury. In other words, the blood that comes out of someone's lungs. So it was looking more and more like a murder. They knew Annie was in the building. Now they just had to find her. And depending on who you believe, there are two versions of what happened next. The first one is that NWPD detective Ray Insalago, the same guy who had found the bead, went into the bathroom of the animal testing facility and thought that it smelled a bit funny. The second version of this story is that a sniffer dog, Max, alerted the humans to the funny smell. The funny smell was decomposition and it was sniffed on the 15th of September, the day Annie and Jonathan were supposed to be tying the knot. I was amazed that

this smell took so long to be perceived by humans or dogs but what we have to remember is that this building is an active animal research facility. It was home to hamsters, gerbils, cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, fish, monkeys and over 4,000 mice. So basically, it stank of shit all the time. Yeah. So the different smell, the decomposition smell, not the shit smell, was coming from a metal panel behind a toilet. As it was opened, one thing was clear. They had found Annie.

Her body had been crammed into a void in the wall behind the metal door. Initially, only her feet were visible under a pile of yellow insulation, but it was obvious that she had been shoved into the hole upside down, and the space she was occupying was about the size of two to three shoeboxes. Annie was tiny, she's 4'11", but she's not that tiny. Bones had been broken in order to fit her into that space. Annie was found partially clothed. Her underwear had been pulled down and her bra had been pushed up. Obviously that points to Annie being sexually assaulted either before or after she died, but it might not be as clear- as that, even though, according to some sources, semen was found in Annie's underwear. Hold on to that. I promise it will become much more confusing as we go on. A medical examiner ruled that Annie had died of asphyxiation and that her death was definitely a homicide. Inside the void was also a green pen. Annie was still in the

building, so her murderer had to be too. The FBI and the police went back to the key card records and had a look at the people who'd swiped into G22 on the 8th of September. And lo and behold, at 10.40, just after Annie's own card stopped being used, a lab technician swiped into G22. The very same lab technician that had said he'd spoken to Annie at 12.45. Raymond Clark III. Ray, as he was known, was cooperative with police, but was not above suspicion. Footage was found of him leaving the building

before the fire alarm on the 8th of September to go and sit on some steps in the park with his head in his hands. Clark had a bit of a reputation for being particularly annoyed with research students who didn't follow the rules, although there were never actually any complaints made against him. He didn't have a criminal record. If he did, he never would have got the job at Yale. He had grown up in Connecticut and at high school had been a member of something called the Asian Awareness Club. Are you aware of Asian people? Is that something? Maybe not as much as I should be because I'm not part of this club, clearly. Well, exactly. Maybe we should all be more be Asian aware. I don't know. He was also part of a community group that focused on homelessness

and he was good at baseball and American football. I think they mentioned the Asian Awareness Club thing because Annie is obviously Vietnamese. So I think they are making wiggly pointy finger noises about a possible Asian fetish is what they're saying with that. So Raymond isn't Asian. He's just a member of this club. No, he's a white man.

But he's a member of a club called Asian Awareness. Yep. And they made spring rolls apparently. It's their major contribution, yeah. That's very unusual. Yes. Maybe it's not unusual, I don't know, it sounds unusual to me. But when Annie went missing, Raymond lived with his girlfriend and their three cats in a first floor apartment in New Haven. His girlfriend allegedly reported that he had come home wearing different clothes than the ones that he had left in on the 8th of September. Who are these couples who are keeping such tabs on their other half? Like genuinely, I wouldn't fucking know. And also he works with animals. I'm sure he comes home in different clothes every day

because he's been shat on. Yep, this is also true. But at least she's saying it. At least she's not covering for him. I'll give her that. Yeah. She doesn't say anything else, though. Yeah, I mean, fair. She's like, that's all you get.

I know we said, obviously, he didn't have a criminal record or anything like that. But they did find one blight on Clark's records. A police report from 2003 lodged by an ex-girlfriend of his. This girlfriend came forward again and even went on Good Morning America to discuss how he had threatened her when they broke up because she broke up with him. She never pressed any charges though and it has been reported that blood and blood-like stains were found in Ray Clark's apartment and in his car. But it's never been released to the public whether these stains were connected to Annie or not. So we can only say it, we don't know more than that.

Similarly, the semen found on Annie's body, if it was found to be Clark's, again, this has not been made public knowledge. Officers refused to confirm or deny to the press whether Annie was sexually assaulted or not. But Raymond Clark's DNA was, of course, found in G22 and at the site where Annie's body was found. But, like, he does work there,

so it's not that unusual that his DNA is found in that room. No, we shed DNA all the time. It would be weirder if his DNA wasn't there. I read like some sort of like DNA problem where you're like, you are shedding DNA all the fucking time. If you even go near a room, your DNA is in it. So like it's not enough for me, this DNA evidence on this case, really. No, not on this case.

It's like anything that is forensic or anything that is related to any sort of criminal investigation. It is just like what is out of the ordinary his dna being there is not out of the ordinary it's just an investigative tool and it would probably only be more helpful when dna is taken from a site where a suspect is not supposed to be he is very much supposed to be there and obviously her body's found in the men's toilets as well so his dna being in the men's toilet at the place he works is not that unusual And on top of all of this, because you know, maybe you're like Wiggling your eyebrows in scepticism at all the DNA stuff

But there was also a report made by an officer called Sabrina Wood She had apparently been speaking to Clark in the facility When she noticed him turn a box of tissues away from her this box of tissues had blood on it and Raymond like moves it so that it's like the blood can't be seen by Sabrina but it's too late she's already seen it and she's already seen him now move it away so very suspect behavior is it I don't know it's an animal testing facility blood is fucking everywhere I I don't know. It's an animal testing facility. Blood is fucking everywhere. I just don't think it's enough. Yeah.

It's like, though, that time we went to, where did we go? Crete? And then we, like, dropped the rental car back. And I was just really tired. So I was just, like, sort of leaning near the car. The woman looked very suspiciously at me, made me move, and then basically thought I was trying to cover up a dent that was already there by leaning against the car. I just wasn wasn't i didn't know it was there

maybe that's what's happening here yeah i didn't possibly it's in like one article with and he moved a box of tissues i'm like come on like they're also people are working with scalpels and syringes all the time people are going to cut themselves i just don't think and also i've not seen a single piece of evidence that's like ann Annie's blood was found here. It's just like some blood. Yeah, never confirmed to be hers. And also something else that got up my nose was a couple of publications pointed out that Ray Clark had tattoos on his arms. Are we still doing this? Move on. Further suspicion was piled on this circumstantial balancing act when it was revealed that Ray Clark had scratches on his arms and on his chest. Homeboy's got three cats. Exactly. And maybe I am just gagging for a wrongful conviction here. It's something we've been thinking about a lot over the

past few weeks. But I don't know. So far, all they have is that Ray Clark III was the last person to see Annie. So he says his DNA is at his work and he snapped at people for not doing their job properly. Yeah. But we don't know what was actually found because a lot of it hasn't been made public. So maybe I'm just talking out of my arse, but I, and I'm just about to shoot a hole

in my own indignancy. The morning Annie went missing, Clark had been filling out his paperwork with a green pen. And by the afternoon, he was using a different coloured pen. And of course, a green pen was found with Annie's body. Circumstantial, yes. But if you put it on with everything else, difficult to ignore, I think. So the FBI and the police formed the following two theories.

Either Annie had not followed the cleanliness rules and Clark had become so enraged that he killed her, or Clark was in love with Annie and he couldn't handle the idea of her marrying someone else, so he killed her. One police lady in the documentary does a very dramatic retelling of this second theory, and she's really laying it on with a trowel. She's like, he couldn't bear the thought of her leaving to get married. But, like, she wasn't leaving.

Her and John were going to continue their doctorate studies. They weren't going to live together. He was going to stay in New York. She was going to stay in Connecticut. So literally the only thing that would be different is a ring on her finger. So I just don't believe it. No. And also this is just like where is any of the evidence to back up that he was in love with her

or that he was ever behaving in an inappropriate way towards her or anything like that. Like, I don't know. It isn't anywhere. That's the thing that's so infuriating about this case is that there's no motive. Like, none. No.

So while these theories are clearly not enough for us, they were enough for a thousand-page arrest warrant to be put together. But that report still remains sealed, even now. So we really don't have very much information on what the police actually found. And four days after Annie's body was found in the wall, Raymond Clark III was arrested

in a Super Motel 8 in Cromwell, Connecticut. He had been staying there with his dad, which makes me think that he knew what was coming. He was arrested and held on a $3 million bail. He was questioned again, failed a polygraph test, and got himself a lawyer. Him getting a lawyer is viewed pretty negatively

by some people who are interviewed, particularly in the documentaries. But, like, we've said this time and time and time again, it is so important that seeking representation is not seen as an indication of guilt, even though it so often is. This guy is literally a police officer and he's like, and as soon as he failed that polygraph test, he lawyered up in a second. I'm like, it's his right. Jesus. But this is the thing. The police, like, have a vested interest in pushing that narrative because they don't want you to get a lawyer because then they can fuck with you.

Always get a fucking lawyer, guys. Don't worry about how it makes you look. So when Clark was arraigned, he originally pleaded not guilty. But that did not last very long. He was presented with an enormously long affidavit and then he confessed to Annie's murder. This affidavit was again sealed, so frustratingly we do not know what it says. And because Clark subsequently changed his plea to guilty, nothing was presented at trial either.

So, like, we have no idea why he changes or what they showed him. But in exchange for his guilty plea, Clark was handed a 44-year prison sentence for the murder of Annie Lay. And he won't be released until 2053, when he'll be in his 70s. There was also another charge that was included, which is rarely mentioned when you read about this case. It's the charge of attempted sexual assault. If there is semen in Annie's underwear, how is that attempted? And if they could match it to him, why is it so vague?

Exactly. Doesn't make sense. No. For this additional charge, Clark pled the Alford Doctrine, which essentially means that he didn't agree with every element of the charge, but accepted that if he were tried for it, he would be found guilty. Technically, Alford pleas are guilty pleas, but they're only ever allowed as a part of a plea bargain. I need to know what they said to him.

What was worse than 44 years in prison? Yeah, I don't know. They only have circumstantial evidence. I don't know. Obviously, I don't know because I don't know what was in the arrest warrant and I don't know what's in the affidavit, but I don't know if he would have been convicted at trial. Because if the seaman was

his, it would have just been rape or sexual assault. It wouldn't have been attempted. That doesn't make sense. No, I don't get it. So if he didn't do it, he's agreeing to 44 years in prison. He'll be so old when he gets out. He'll be in his 70s.

What was worse than that? I don't understand. I don't know. The only thing I can think that? I don't understand. I don't know. The only thing I can think, and I don't even know if this necessarily makes total sense, but say they're saying it's attempted sexual assault because Annie was deceased when it happened. Like, I don't know what the charge for that would be. Probably more like defiling a corpse or something.

I don't know what the specific thing would be. But if they turn that round to be like it's attempted sexual assault and they use that because he doesn't want anybody to know that he, you know, committed necrophilia or did something like that. Was that enough of a like thing for him that he didn't want to be known publicly that he was willing to take this? I don't know. I have no idea. At his sentencing in front of more than 20 members of Annie's family, Ray Clark said, I take full responsibility for my actions. I alone am responsible for the death of Annie Lay and causing tremendous pain to all who loved and cared about Annie. I'm truly sorry. I took Annie away from her friends, her family, and most of all her fiance. And then he went on to say,

I've always tried to do the right thing and stay out of trouble, but I failed. I took a life and continued to lie about it while Annie's friends, family and fiancé sat and waited. I really never wanted to harm anyone or cause emotional pain to anyone. All I wanted was to be a good son, a good brother, a good fiancé. But again, I failed. I blame only myself and there are no excuses for what I have done. Annie was and will always be a wonderful person. By far a better person than I will ever be in my life. That doesn't really give much of a motive, does it?

Yeah, I mean, there's circumstantial evidence. You're right, like you said, but I'm struggling with a motive. But then I feel like they've not given up enough information about him or his and Annie's encounters from other independent sources for us to really know what that looked like I know I just feel like if he was that much of a maniac someone would have noticed there would be other reports rather than just like oh he was a bit too fastidious at his job so if he did do it I don't know what his motive is and I also don't know if he did do it, I don't know what his motive is. And I also don't

know if he didn't do it. I don't know what was said to him to make him confess. Was the affidavit really that convincing? If it is, why is it sealed? And without a not guilty plea, we're never going to know. What I need to know is who did that semen belong to? Why isn't it public knowledge? And I haven't found confirmation of this semen thing anywhere. So if it's such a slam dunk, why is it a secret? I don't know. And it's not just Hannah and I struggling to come up with a motive. No one has really come up with one. Annie's death has been labelled, like we said at the start, as a workplace violence incident, rather than anything more sinister. which, to be honest, feels incredibly reductive. The police and the FBI and Yale have been very careful to make sure everyone

knows that this could have happened at any university, and this was nothing to do with Yale, who always do the most precise background checks on all of their employees or security on campus. The lack of motive means that people have been desperately trying to diagnose Clark with every personality disorder under the sun. Erotomaniac delusion disorder, impulse disorder, anger disorder, bipolar, antisocial personality disorder, OCD, narcissism, the list goes on and on. One does have to wonder if he did have such a profound personality disorder or mental illness wouldn't someone have noticed? He's not sitting in an apartment on his own. He's got a girlfriend.

And, like, his dad is taking him to a motel. He's not this, like, and obviously not every, like, murder is the lone wolf, whatever. But, like, people knew him. People spent lives with him. And this is the thing. I think it's because in the vacuum of a good motive, they're trying to fill it with a personality disorder or some sort of mental illness to explain why they think he did it. But if that had been the case, then somebody would have noticed, like you said. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that was the case.

He may have just had a motive that we aren't aware of. And there isn't a sort of personality disorder or something at play involved in this because I think we often see that. People will be like, oh, well, he's a psychopath. And I'm like, what does that mean? Why does that mean that he definitely did it? You don't have to be a psychopath to fucking kill somebody.

The other problem we have with this case, apart from everything we need to know being hidden and sealed, is the overwhelming amount of fake news surrounding this case. The murder of a Yale student is always going to attract an enormous amount of press and quite a lot of people are pretty scornful about this. I read one article that was like, oh, three murders at a Midwestern university is worth one dead Yale student, which, yeah, there's something about that. People that ivy league students are worth more than normal people basically there's a lot of press and uh in this particular instance a lot of press

means a lot of bollocks one tabloid reported a manhunt that never happened they alleged that clark was trying to outrun the police which obviously he wasn't he was just in the hotel with his dad some papers report that annie was definitely sexually assaulted. Others report that she wasn't. And some papers make claims that we can't possibly prove. So we know that Annie was asphyxiated, but we don't know how or with what. There are too many details missing for this to be an open and shut case. And obviously we are saying this from the outside. Maybe if we read the affidavit would feel differently. So either Clark confessed because he did it without a motive that we can think of or he was coerced into confessing. We know that Annie is dead and

we know that Ray Clark is in prison for it. We know he pled guilty but I don't think I have enough information to decide whether he did it or not. Don't know if a green pen does it for me really. This is the thing and also like you know may point at key cards and be like he went in there no we just know that his key card was used to go in there doesn't necessarily mean it was him you know so yeah that is the case of annie lay hope you guys enjoyed it tell us your theories tell us what you think are you aware of this case because i'm just predicting people being like oh well they also found his bloodstained boots and blah, blah, blah. Yes, all of those things are true. But he kills animals for a living.

And there's no information whether we know that blood was Annie's or not. That's the point. Yeah. Which would have been completely testable. Yeah. Just saying that they found bloodstained boots or they found blood in his house without the further confirmation of saying that it was Annie's blood.

Why not go that stage further and just say it's Annie's if it is? Exactly. Because it's very testable, I kind of said. Hello, it's me, the fact check fairy. And this week I'm actually covering for the slight clarification fairy. Of course having blood on your boots and your clothes is suspicious. Of course it is. Of course labs are very clean places.

What the girls are not suggesting is that there's blood all over everywhere all the time. What the girls were suggesting is that it is possible that it is more likely to get blood on a box of tissues or your clothes at an animal testing facility than it is at say a garden centre or a Victorian spoon museum. Yes the general consensus on this case is that Ray Clark is absolutely guilty. And all the girls are doing in this episode is having a look at every possible angle, which is what we should do all the time. Do people kill people because they have motives that we don't understand or see? Yes, obviously. I've had a word with both of them,

and Hannah and Cerruti solemnly swear to try harder and be better. But definitely an interesting one, especially probably because there are so many holes in it. So yeah, that's that case. So let us know what you think. If you would like to hop on over now to patreon.com slash red handed, get yourself the RSS link, guys. I think so many of you who are patrons are not using the RSS link. I'm actually going to leave a link in the episode description below on how you can use that so essentially go over to patreon you get that link you put it into your podcast player then you can just listen to it there on apple podcasts or wherever you don't need to listen to our bonus patreon episodes on the platform you can just get

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Maglawin Lestibet IV de... Oh my God, Welsh. So much Welsh. What's happening? Langued... I don't... I'm sorry. I can't do it. Oh my God, Welsh. So much Welsh. What's happening? Clen. I don't. I'm sorry.

I can't do it. Sorry, Madge. Peggy Rusa. Runs with mooses. Shannon Anderson. Grace. Kaylee Gowan. Brittany Edmonds.

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Thank you guys so much and we will see you next week. Goodbye. See you next time bye Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding,

I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place

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