Annie Le Edit

The podcast "Murder, Murder on the Wall" discusses the start of Season 2 and reminisces about back-to-school shopping experiences. The hosts delve into the darker side of school-related tragedies, including recent school shootings and the Idaho Four case. They explore the fascination with true crime stories like the Idaho Four and prepare to cover the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Lay. The chilling recount of the events at the off-campus house where four students were brutally murdered by an intruder is also discussed. The hosts reflect on the impact of these tragedies on school safety and society. Hello, out there beauties. Welcome back to Murder, Murder on the Wall, where Season 2 is well under way. We are so excited to be back with all of you. Yep. Today, we're going to do things a little differently. In Season 2, so we can do whatever. Yeah, we can. Season 2, glow up. Instead of our regular scintillating personal news segment, Kelly and I are going back to school, which, once upon a time, meant ordering new shit from J.Crew, from the catalog. I remember. Yeah. A new Rolex sweater, maybe, which, by the way, they just relaunched those. Maybe a bodysuit. Ooh. An overall. Yes. It was the 90s, and my mom would actually call 1-800-J.Crew, or whatever their phone number was, with her credit card, on a landline. In New York. Maybe it was a cordless phone, but maybe not. Maybe not. Online shopping was just a gleam in Jeff Bezos' eyes. Oh, yeah. We would go to Target, though, to buy school supplies. Yeah. Which, I guess, that still probably happens, right? Honey, mine was the 80s, so, okay, keep going. I didn't even order stuff this year. No. Because, every single year, folders and notebooks and pens and pencils and all the shit, how many dry erase markers can I possibly buy? It comes home. Wow. That's impressive. Not all of it. Some of it comes home. Okay. With them. And so, I was just like, screw it. So, I just sent everything back. To school. Back to school. Back and forth. How did the pens like last year? We don't know. Okay. How was your going back to school? What was it like for you? I didn't have J.Crew, but I did have J.C. Penney. Oh, nice. That's nice. Yep. A catalog. A catalog. Of course, I went to school in the South, but all of my clothes were fall clothes. So, of course, when you start school in August, like you do in the South, it's still hot, but I really wanted to wear all my new clothes. Yeah. So, I really spent the first part of every grade sweating my ass off. Let me tell you, I sweat every September because I want to wear a fucking corduroy. You know what? If I'm going to, yeah, if I want to wear my big boots, it's happening. Even if it's 95 degrees. Absolutely. So, and I don't think I knew that there was a target or it hadn't been invented yet. We're not just talking about back to school because it's September. We're actually going to go back to school. And lately, with everything in the news, the Minnesota school shooting that happened right before the first day of school, at least here in New York City, the shooting at Evergreen High School on the same day that, yes, I will say it, Charlie Kirk was assassinated, it feels a lot heavier. I mean, school used to be the place you tried to learn algebra, and you skipped gym, and maybe you went to the smoking pad. Not the place you worried about violence or becoming a headline. But these continued tragedies inside America's schools have given us pause, and we're going to cover a couple of cases that happened on campuses where young people should be safe, but tragically were not. One very fresh and recent, and one that should never be forgotten. Back to school has gotten way too dark, and sadly, that's where we're going today. I'm also going through the college application process with one of my kids right now. So, I just thought because maybe I'm not anxious enough, I would give myself a full-on panic attack by telling these stories. Okay. So, here we go. So, this summer, I went to the Cape with my family, which is our tradition, unless we go to Martha's Vineyard, which is basically the same difference. And when we go to the Cape, we stay on the bay side, and there's like this little beach where, like, when it's low tide, you can just walk out for miles onto the sandbar. Is this a good thing? Yes. It's really cool. I don't go to the ocean enough. No, you don't. Every late afternoon and early evening, I would trot out there with my book, my beach chair, and sit there and read. I think I read three books on vacation, okay, over the course of a week. You didn't even listen to them. You actually sat down and read. I did. I did. Amazing. So, one of the books that I read while I was out on the Cape was James Patterson and Vicki Ward's The Idaho for an American Tragedy, about the horrific murders of four University of Idaho students, Kaylee Gonzalvez, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, and Zanna Carnodle. I don't actually really know why I chose this book, to be honest. I wasn't, until this point, following this case super closely. I knew about it, of course, like in the discourse. You can't open a newspaper or listen to a podcast without hearing about it. I'm also not a James Patterson person. I mean, hey, no shame if you are. It's just not my thing. Right. But it did get me thinking, because James Patterson is a blockbuster author. Yeah. He is the dude that writes the books that become Sandra Bullock and Angelina Jolie movies. I think he even has a novel coming out that he co-wrote with Reese Witherspoon. What? Yeah. It's coming out in a couple weeks, I think. I don't know. All right. The point is, James Patterson is not an author or an arser. He's James. No, he's not. Yeah, you're right. He is not an author who needs to regurgitate the news cycle in order to create a name for himself with the true crime world. But he did. And so it made me wonder, what is it about this case that has so many people invested to the point where there's multiple streaming documentaries, countless podcasts, like so many Reddit communities with hundreds of thousands of members? I don't even know how many books at this point, including this one by James Patterson. So Kelly and I are going to attempt to get to the bottom of the Idaho Four obsession before we get into our full coverage of the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Lay. We're not going to cover the whole story of the Idaho Four, because there's plenty of do that and do it well. But what we're going to try to do is work through some of the why this has hit such a nerve with people. I can tell you that since the gag order has been lifted on this case and so many just awful, unimaginable details have been released out into the ether, I'm invested too. Every time you think it can't get worse, it's insane. Like I said, I have a kid going to college next year, and I simply can't fathom. Except, there we are. Wow. Things have changed. Yes, they have. Unless you have been living under a rock, and I don't think either one of us would blame you if you decided that was the better plan, you probably already know about the Idaho Four, but here's a little recap. On the night of November 12th, 2022, four college students went out, and they did college student things. Let's say six college students, because the victims in this case include two young women who survived by chance. So, the six students, they went to games, they went to bars, they went to parties, they drank, maybe they did other things, they got food very, very late, because maybe they don't do intermittent fasting the way that we do. I don't know. They can probably sleep until noon, and look, all six of them were under the influence of something, and that's not the point. It seems like from what is out there in terms of piecing all of their nights together in the news, they had a grand old, very normal college kid time that night. Right? A hundred percent. So, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Gonzalez had been best friends since they were kids, and Santa Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were this cute, perfect college couple who were, by all accounts, very serious about one another. And then Bethany Funk, Funky? I don't know how to say her last name. I think it's Funk. It's Funk? Okay. And Dylan Mortenson also lived in the off-campus house that was right in the middle of the party action. So, even though it was a private house, it was tucked among all the fraternity and sorority houses that were just steps away. Okay? So, the girls all lived together. Right. So, the night winds down. They all return to this house in the wee hours, and Santa brings Ethan over because he slept over there a lot, and, you know, that's what happens in college. Ethan actually lived nearby in a frat house with his brother. So, Ethan was a triplet, which is super bad. Anyway, so they order food, they listen to music, they play some beer pong, or maybe they drink another White Claw. I don't know. About a White Claw. Sure. Like, again, totally normal college partying fuckery. Yeah. Okay? And I was this girl. Of course you were. I know this girl. I have had this exact same night, except I don't think White Claw was in that exact house. Yeah. So, Kaylee and Madison fall asleep upstairs, and Ethan crashes in Santa's room. Dylan and Bethany each crash in their respective rooms, and it seems like everyone is in various stages of going to bed, or getting ready to go to bed, except Zanna, who is still up, messing around on TikTok, and eating, probably in the living room, on the same floor as her bedroom. Shortly after 4 a.m., an intruder easily gets inside of the house, and this just gives me chills. Oh, I'm just covered. Covered. Through a sliding glass door, and he climbs upstairs, and he brutally murders Madison and Kaylee by stabbing them many, many times with a cave bar knife. And then he encounters Zanna, who probably heard this, because she's still awake, and Zanna tries to run away from him, and then tries to fight him off, and he does the same thing to Zanna, and then to Ethan, who is already asleep in Zanna's bed. He brutally murders them with this cave bar knife. And there have been so many details released about these events, the logistics, the layout of the house, how and where the intruder went, and in what order, and you can find all of this on the web, and I'm happy to link to it, but I'm not going to get into the specifics here. Nope. The two surviving roommates, Dylan and Bethany, are in their respective rooms. They've heard this commotion. They're texting each other, and they're also texting Madison and Kaylee and Zanna, and they're trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Whether or not whatever had happened was just like a byproduct of living in a party house, right? It's not like maybe some rando had just passed out in one of their beds, or had shown up unannounced, and it's 4.15 a.m., so go home, asshole. Sure. Who knows? And I believe that neither one of them in a million years thought that what actually had happened was what happened, right? It's not like they sat there and thought to themselves, hmm, I bet there's a six-up in the house murdering my friends right now, you know? No. Of course not. They did not. So, you know, they did what I would do, or what you would do. They tried to rationalize, and they tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, like anyone and everyone else would have done. Yeah. Right? So, Dylan actually opened her door several times while these brutal attacks were happening, and again, trying to assess what the fuck was going on. And how could you? You're just waking up. You can't. It's dark. She's probably still under the influence of something, and she had the wherewithal to know that something was off, and she called out to all of her roommates. And Dylan witnessed and heard things that night that, while she didn't know what was happening in the moment, it probably led to where we are today with this case, which is with this asshole murderer behind bars forever. So, I do want to say that Dylan, even though she probably doesn't feel like it, I think personally that she's a hero in this story. Yeah. It's entirely possible that without her eyewitness account that gave the investigators the springboard they needed, I think this case could have been in a very different place. I absolutely agree, and I am just covered in goosebumps right now. This is such a hard thing to talk about. I know. I know. So, long story, slightly less long, the authorities are called to the house the next day where they encounter a horrific murder scene that probably not one of them ever in their wildest dreams ever imagined they would encounter, especially in Moscow, Idaho, which, you know, wasn't exactly crime ridden. Nope. Madison, Kaylee, Zanna, and Ethan all are dead from unsurvivable stab wounds, and there are so many stab wounds. It's the kind of crime that should be unimaginable in the safe context of college with lots of people around. So, moving on. Six weeks in an incredible cross-state and FBI investigation later, authorities arrest and charge 27-year-old Washington State criminology graduate student Brian Koberger across the country in Pennsylvania at his parents' home in the Poconos. He fit the description provided by Dylan, who actually caught a glimpse of him before he left the home, and importantly, he stupidly left behind the knife sheath that did, in fact, have his exact DNA profile on it, probably because he touched it without wearing gloves at some point. What a dumbass. He didn't learn anything in criminology school. No. No. Thank God. But it took three very long and, I'm sure, incredibly painful years for the families of the victims before July of this year when Brian Koberger accepted a guilty plea in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table. And this is where I think the case really starts to reach James Patterson levels of notoriety in our culture. And here we go. So, basically, there was a gag order on the details of this case while the prosecution and the defense played hot potato with a side of discovery. A loaded baked potato. But little bits of information had been released over the year leading up to Koberger's guilty plea, including the release of the 911 call made by Dylan and Bethany. And then, slowly, the details of the indictment that was put together from hundreds of pages of reports and statements from the investigators. And now, here we are in now time. So, over the last couple of months, we've also seen body cam footage from when the authorities arrived at the scene and spoke with Dylan, Bethany, and their friends who were with them and they were outside of their house. We've seen crime scene photos, some of which have been successfully blurred, other images less so. We know Brian Koberger's digital footprint, his reputation, and so many stories about him as a woman hating TA at Washington State. We know all about his past and what sounds like a fairly normal childhood. We know about his selfie habits seen inside his actual phone. What has happened is that the public is now privy to essentially all of the same information that the authorities saw, heard, and found. And I think we are all trying to figure out what the hell we're supposed to do with this because when you see it, you cannot unsee it. Nope. And for me, it's these very sensitive personal details that were part of the body cam footage that really got to me. Seeing the footage of Kaylee's dog being led away from the house by a responding officer, the dog was found hiding under a desk, heartbreaking. I mean, it's all heartbreaking. Ethan's brother, Hunter, one of the triplets, walking up to the group of students and being told that his brother probably was not alive. And I guess it's just watching this like you feel like you're freaking there. No one knowing anything, really, except that all of them knew something really, really bad had happened and something was very, very wrong and that Zanna and Ethan had not survived whatever it was that had happened. Obviously, Kaylee and Hudson, too. Yeah. But then it's what we're all so deeply and, I think, instinctively afraid of. But we hold on to the facts that tell us that the chances of it happening are so remote that a complete stranger, a monster, will come into our room in the middle of the night and get us. Nightmares. Nightmares. This nightmare has actually happened to four innocent kids who probably remind us of ourselves or, if you're a parent, they probably remind you of your own kids. And it's like things like this only happen in movies or works of fiction by James Patterson. Exactly. Except now all of this material is out there and it's accessible to everyone. I think it's having this direct access to a mountain of evidence and information that shows piece by piece exactly how this very horrible nightmare happened and unfolded. I think that can become a very terrifying reality. And that has the public, and now myself included, so invested. And, of course, we've also heard victim impact statements now from each of their families. And some members of their families have been very vocal in the press, making these people who we didn't know before November of 2022 all the more real and familiar. And that makes it even more tragic. But even having access to all of this tangible information isn't ever going to answer the question of why, which is the other piece is that it's just never going to make sense. I mean, we have the files and the photos and the videos and the background. We have everything right there. But none of it will ever answer the question. And everyone, I think, is just trying to wrap their heads around that. It's really hard to do that. I've heard a lot of theories. He's an incel, one of those guys. He's a vegan. And he stalked Madison at the restaurant where she and Zanna worked, which is like one of the only few vegan restaurants in the area. He was obsessed with her, so he decided to kill her. And, whoa, whoops, there's more people in the house than he was counting on. So they became collateral damage. That's one theory. One theory. Even though he had staked out the house many times before and likely knew the comings and the goings of the people who lived there and the people who partied there. So it just doesn't really make sense that someone who clearly spent a lot of time and energy meticulously planning this out could have miscalculated the who and the what and the where so badly. Make it make sense, right? It just doesn't. It does not. None of it does. I'm not sure we're ever going to make sense of this one. And I definitely don't see Brian Kober giving a jailhouse confession to Deborah Roberts or Keith Morrison anytime soon. And even if he did, is there any reason at all to believe anything he says? And maybe we don't need to hear from this fuckface ever again. Maybe we don't. I think there's also the very cold, hard, and real possibility that maybe he didn't really know very much about any of these kids at all. Right. Maybe he did not have a specific fixation on Madison. And maybe she did not represent all of the women who ever rejected him. Maybe it was just as simple as Brian Koberger is a sick fuck who needed to kill other people. And that's what he did on that terrible November night. And Madison, Kaylee, Zanna, and Ethan were just targets to him without some deeper meaning or link. I think, and this is just my opinion, that Brian Koberger probably fits into that same kind of vile bucket as Joseph DeAngelo, who is the Golden State Killer. The Golden State Killer did not know or really give a shit about any of his victims other than to target them and plan their murders. There was nothing specific about it. Right. And I think that if the confluence of Dylan's eyewitness account, the stupidity of him leaving DNA evidence at the scene, and the digital footprint that closed in on him and only him hadn't happened, I think that night he started how he meant to go on. That's really what I think. He would have continued to do this. Because at the end of the day, this was nothing but a sick bastard. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. So let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to tell you another story about the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Ray in 2009. Different states, different years, but hauntingly similar. Lives full of promise, taken in the very place they should have been safest. All right. So we're going to cross the country and do some time travel. We're going to head to New Haven, Connecticut. That's in time to 2009 for another sad story. 2009 was a year of some real ups and downs. We were in an economic recession. We were very, very rich in miracles. Thanks to Captain Sully who landed that plane on the Hudson River. You remember that? Of course I did. I just had a baby. I was doing nothing but watching TV. That's right. Right here. Michael Jackson died. Bitcoin was born. Barack Obama became the first and possibly the last, heartbreakingly so, black president of the US. I mean, let's hope not, but who knows right now. And the movie Avatar came out. It did? I went on the ride at Disney World and I'm all set. You understand it? You got the plot? I'm good. So anyhow, in February of 2009, the New Haven police chief, James Perotti, sat down for an interview with a graduate student at the Yale School of Medicine's Combined Program of Biomedical and Biological Sciences. I totally went there. Wow. Student was writing an article about campus safety for one of the medical school graduate student publications, Bee Magazine. Anyway, there was a lot of good advice imparted in said article. According to the Yale Daily News, among Perotti's pointers were, listen, listen everyone, pay attention to where you are. It's good to know where you are always. Avoid portraying yourself as a potential victim, so don't go out onto the street and fall over. Don't do that. Don't fall down and be vulnerable because the PAC will recognize you as a weak person. What does that even mean? Well, I think it means like you're sashing down the street like you can't mess with me. But he says another one of his pointers is walk with a purpose. Well, that's it. It all goes together. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, the actual article, like maybe it did make a lot of sense. It probably did. The actual article does not appear to live online anymore, so I had to pull nuggets from the Yale Daily News, another publication. And they shared how the article ended. In short, New Haven is a city and all cities have their perils. But with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic. Okay. This article was timely. 2009 turned out to be a pretty rough year in the media for New Haven and Yale specifically. But it wasn't due to actual crime. The data shows that in 2009, crime was at a 20-year low in New Haven. Oh, okay. But they were battling an image problem. Despite the presence of Yale University, one of the top IVs in the country, in the world ever to exist, New Haven is a city that is emblematic of Connecticut. This is a state that has two very different sides. Sure does. When I think of Connecticut, I think of like Fairfield and Litchfield counties. I think of the pastoral countryside and shiny mansions. Cute little main streets. Antiquing. And I probably want to go to this shop that I'm obsessed with called Plain Blue. Oh. I'm so obsessed with their Instagram and I've never been. So true. Yeah. I think of Greenwich, which, by the way, we covered the Martha Moxley case in episode 14. But I think the southern and eastern parts of the state of Connecticut are very different. They are less effete. They are more working class. They are less Land Rovers. There's more Rams. And to be a student at Yale, I think in 2009, there was probably a reason to revisit safety precautions by publishing an article. And so that's just what Annie Lay did. She wrote this piece for Bee Magazine in February. Little did Annie know that by September of that same year, she herself would be a victim of a gruesome crime. So let's talk about Annie. Annie Lay was born in San Jose, California, in 1985. Her mother, Vivian Van Lay, and her father, Hoang Lay, immigrated to the U.S. and had Annie and her brother, Chris. And they divorced when Annie and Chris were quite little. But they had a very close, extended Vietnamese-American family in California. Annie and Chris were actually raised by their aunt and uncle in Placerville, California, which is like 45, like the nearest big city in Sacramento. And that's 45 miles away. So it was this very peaceful, rural, nature-leaden. Oh, sure. Yes. And Annie and Chris considered their aunt and uncle to be guardian parents. And that's what they called them. And they grew up alongside their cousins, who were basically their siblings. And I think they had a really tight relationship, the five of them. I'm not entirely sure why Annie and Chris didn't live with their actual parents. I'm just drawing on what I read about their upbringing. And I get the sense that maybe Vivian and her ex-husband did not want them ping-ponging between two homes. Sure. That makes sense. And maybe it was this practical decision. And I think maybe this is a big cultural difference. But a lot of large, extended families from other countries just kind of look at family a little differently. Yes. I think that's true. I don't know. By all accounts and descriptions, it sounds like Annie was amazing. Aw. She was awesome. She was everything that you would want in a daughter, in a sister, in a friend. In fact, according to an article in the L.A. Times, quote, Shana McDonald, a high school classmate, remembered the studious lay as shy on the outside but goofy on the inside. She always teased me that I didn't have a butt, said McDonald, Annie gave her a birthday antidote, a pair of satin panties with shoulder pads sewn in. Oh, my God, that's hilarious. That is a friend. That is a friend. Annie was valedictorian of her high school shots. Sure. And she was voted most likely to be the next Einstein, so I guess she was a real dum-dum. A dodo. And she volunteered all the time at the Marshall Medical Center in Eldorado County. So I guess in exchange for washing out bottles and cleaning up bedpans, what she did was she would sit with a pathologist and look at things like on a microscope, through the microscope in her free time. Yeah. Yeah. There's that. Okay. So I'm sure you can only imagine what it must have been like when college application time rolled around in Annie's house. Apparently, she applied to 102 schools. Geez. Yeah. What? I mean, who does that? I guess Annie did. Not me? No, not you. I wouldn't let you. Right now, I'm doing 12 with my kid, and that might alone do me in. Yeah. 12 is a lot. I will tell you who does that. Someone who is very fucking smart and gets nearly $200,000 in scholarship money thrown at her. That's who. Okay. Makes sense. Annie Lay. So Annie Lay, star student, medical volunteer, and booty seamstress. Well, she be-bopped on over to the East Coast, where she enrolled on a full ride at the one and only University of Rochester, which is a high-ranking private university in Rochester, New York, otherwise known as ra-cha-cha my hometown. Yes. Okay. Go Yellow Jackets. And I know for a fact that it's not cheap to go there, and to get a full ride anywhere these days is, you know, nothing short of a miracle. Ra-cha-cha. All right. So let's just stop right there and let me describe Annie, because literally every article that I read about her says the same thing. She was 4'11", but she had a huge personality and could kick literal ass at anything and everything. She put her formidable mind to. So, yeah. Yep. They all say the same thing. I know. Every article. Everywhere. She was also really, really pretty. And guess what? Sometimes smart, pretty, nice girls win in life. And while she was at the U of R, Annie was winning. She sure was. So Annie. So Annie also met the love of her life at the University of Rochester. Jonathan Wydowski. Wydowski. Wydowski. Nice, long Islander who also sounds like he was a real low achiever. Yeah. Yeah. You play Jonathan. Okay. Don't worry. Not at all. My heart works for this guy. I mean, talk about people who don't deserve this shit. Right. I mean, Jonathan does, but these two, it's like they were going to contribute to something in the world, you know? Yeah. I mean, Jonathan is still with us and is, I'm sure, contributing to the world. But together, I feel like they would have really, really done impressive things. Yeah. And as if she wasn't achieving enough in her short life, while she was at the University of Rochester as an undergrad, Annie won not one, but two very prestigious NIH, which is the National Institute of Health Fellowships, where she spent her summers conducting research on bone tissue engineering. Oh. Didn't you do that this month? I did that many summers, I think. Right. I know. That's what I thought. So, after graduating in 2007, Annie and Jonathan, they got engaged and they headed to graduate school. So, like I said, Jonathan, that real... Oh, low. Yeah. Set in the bar low. Low achiever. Yeah. So, they went to Columbia University to study physics. Well, and Annie headed to Yale University to study pharmacology. So, I guess this was considered a long-distance relationship. I feel like everything that I read, they were like, they were in a long-distance relationship. No, it's not that long. No. And given how they were both so driven and how demanding, imagine, physics and pharmacology graduate programs would be, I feel like they probably saw each other as often as they would have if they lived in the same apartment. New Haven is like 80 miles from New York City. The fall of 2009 was Annie's third year into her graduate program in pharmacology. She would have completed her full Ph.D. in 2013, and the work she was doing in medical research had applications in the treatment of diabetes and certain cancers. Yeah. So, I mean, every time I think this cannot get more sad, it does. It sure does. Jonathan and Annie were set to marry that September, and I would imagine Annie was feeling the pressure. It's not easy being a bride and having to be an all-star biomedical grad student on top of it. I'm sure on Tuesday, September 8th, just five days before her wedding, Annie was probably locking shit down so she could actually enjoy her wedding. That morning, Annie woke up at her apartment that she shared with five housemates. I think she probably made herself a brown bag lunch. And then Annie took the Yale Transit, whatever that is, the bus or whatever. Yeah. And she walked to Sterling Hall at the Yale School of Medicine. Okay. At 10 a.m., Annie walked a short distance from Sterling Hall over to 10 Amistad Street, where her research lab was located. Okay. Now, I'm going to tell you about this whole research thing for a second, because this is really important. So, whatever research Annie was doing required her to perform testing on animals, which is controversial. I know this. I'm sure that a lot of you know that animal testing facilities are often targets for activist groups like PETA. Yeah. Okay? I'm sure there's others, but I can only think of PETA. I can only think of the red paint bombs taking out Anna Wintour's fur coat during fashion week. Remember that? How could we forget? We can't forget. Okay. Well, because of this, a lot of animal testing facilities have major security in place. And 10 Amistad was no different. In fact, this particular facility had just opened in 2007, so only two years before. So, that meant it was, like, state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, all the things. So, if you were on a biomedical path like Annie or me and Kelly, this was the place. This was it. This is where you wanted to be. Plus, you know, you're cocooned from the scary streets of New Haven, and you're within the hallowed halls of the one and only Yale Medical School and their latest and greatest research lab, right? What could go wrong? So, this facility housed over 4,000 mice and other animals. I don't know what other animals. I'm just going to pretend it was mice. There were others, but I don't know what. Okay. And animal testing facilities anywhere, they have strict policies and protocols. I think this particular lab at Yale had incredibly stringent standards, because any infraction by a researcher, that could mean weeks of disciplinary hearing or maybe even disciplinary action by the university. As such, 10 Amistad, they had a fleet of lab technicians to make sure everybody stayed in line. Yeah. I get it. According to an article in the New York Times, quote, these technicians are given a special order to serve as advocates for the animals and guardians of regulation about how they should be treated. And I find that very interesting. I didn't realize this until I started researching this case, and I don't know why it never occurred to me. But along with keeping everything clean and making sure the proper protocols are followed for the treatment of the animals and ensuring that everything is done in a humane manner, the lab technicians are also responsible for euthanizing sick animals as well. So every day, maybe multiple times a day, the lab technicians, they go around, and some of the animals have little tags on them, and that means they're sick or they're dying. So the technicians have to take them downstairs in this particular building and put them to sleep forever with a carbon dioxide machine. Okay. So apparently some of the lab technicians, and I would imagine the students too, get attached to these animals. So that makes sense, right? I realize that this research is important, and the logical part of my brain completely gets this. I don't need my mascara tested on a rabbit, but testing potential cancer treatments on animals is a necessary evil, right? Sure. And I know I'm oversimplifying here, and I also know this is a very nuanced issue. The emotional part of me, like, I have problems with this entire scenario, right? Like, every aspect of it. I feel bad for the lab technicians. I feel bad for the animals. I feel bad for, like, ugh. It's rough. Yale University recognized that, and they provided counseling and support for technicians and graduate students who had to deal with putting animals to death on a daily basis. According to that same New York Times article, which we will link to because it's actually very sad, but very fascinating. Yeah. I guess you get desensitized to doing it after a certain amount of time. Maybe. I don't feel like I ever would. I don't think I could even start this job, but yeah. No, we're not cut out for that, even though we're on the biomedical path. Yeah. One of the major security features for keeping the riffraff out of Ken's homicide was the issuance and use of these security passes. So, unless you had a reason to be there, you did not get a security pass, okay? To get in and to get out, you have to swipe this special clearance card. Nope. You're in the FBI. You also have to swipe your card to enter each individual lab once you're inside, okay? So, that card, along with one million cameras that gives the data about who is entering and leaving the building, and what time, and where they were going within the building, right? So, Annie swiped her security card at 10, 11 a.m. to go into Omnicide. Right. Security footage shows her entering the building at this time. So, that's confirmed. So, nobody took her card and tried to pretend they were her. Nope. Nope. She went in. She swiped again to enter room G13. Now, this is an important note, too. Once you are inside of a specific lab, right? Right. Or room, you don't then have to swipe again to leave. Right. So, you only have to swipe again to leave the main building. The actual building, yeah. Okay. Okay. At least you didn't in 2009. Maybe things have changed. I don't know. So, Annie is at 10 Omnicide. She's doing her experiments in room G13. But Annie never swiped her card to exit the building. Interesting. And this is where things take a terrible turn. So, what happened to Annie Lay? Well, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, Kelly is going to tell us all about it. So, here we're back. And do you remember when Stacy told you that Annie Lay was engaged to marry? And the date was early September, because it was just a little bit ago. The date was September 13th, to be exact. And instead of Annie walking down the aisle, eating cake, and swilling cheap champagne, like she should have been doing, investigators found Annie Lay's body. They had been looking for her since her disappearance on September 8th. And that is six days, according to my finger math. I know. It's only five. I already fucked that up. September 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th. My finger math is wrong. Yes. That is five days. Five fingers. Okay, so here we are. On September 13th, 2009, after doing an extensive search all around the building, retracing her steps, all those card entries, and asking around, and throwing out theories about her hightailing it out of there with her cold feet, the thing that helped to find Annie was the distinct odor of decomposition. And according to many people who are familiar with that smell, it is never mistaken for a dead mouse behind the fridge, which we probably all smelled at one point or another. Investigators found Annie Lay's body shoved into a utility panel in the men's bathroom near G-22. It is a small square in the wall, about one foot by one foot. And for those of you who are measurement-challenged and finger-challenged like me, that is a very, very small opening. It did have a convenient door that looked like a breaker box door, except that this one was screwed shut. And this box, especially in big commercial buildings, is often referred to as a cable chase where all the cables go through. The autopsy later revealed that she had been strangled. And even though Annie Lay was small, only 90 pounds as we've gone over, she still had to be forced into this tiny space with all the stuff that actually belonged there. And that resulted in many broken bones that occurred post-mortem. And I can't imagine that doing that was an easy task. It's not like you're trying to get your drawer closed after laundry day when you realize you might have too many pairs of stretched-out underwear and bras. Is that just me? I don't know anything about that. So I think we need to figure out what in the name of small white mice is going on over here at Yale. Well, this is already figured out for us, and I'm going to tell you about the investigation in my own words. While still relying heavily on the facts as I know them to be or what other people already said they were. There you go. See? Yep. So let's cable chase this investigation. According to the official police report, Annie's housemate, Natalie Powers, contacted the police and she hadn't heard from Annie at all that day. And Annie hadn't returned to their house after her last class. And this was all very weird to Natalie. And it was weird enough and out of character enough that the police agreed pretty quickly to conduct a cursory search for Annie. And I think maybe it's because they called the Yale police, the campus police. Oh, they called the Yale police and not normal police? They called the Yale police first. So I'm sure they were like, yeah, we weren't doing anything. Let's go take a look. So they did a cursory search for Annie, which is maybe why they got around the whole, like, oh, let's give it some time. She'll probably come back. She's engaged. She has some cold feet. Yes, maybe she has some cold feet. So interestingly enough, September 8th was also the last day of her lab work before she left to get married and plan for the wedding. That was the last day she was going to even be there? Yes. God, I hate the irony in these cases. I know. It's pretty freaking awful. Terrible. So probably another reason why they were concerned. They're like, all right, she's supposed to be off now, right? Right. So Natalie was concerned enough. They started checking around for Annie. First they checked her office where they found her purse, her keys, and her cell phone. Odd. And they had the electronic record of her entry into G13 at 10 Amistad. And they obviously checked in with her fiancé, Jonathan, who was nearly 90 miles away in New York City. And he had not heard from Annie since 8 a.m. that morning. So this investigation is off and it is running. So let's go to the videotape. Arnold, not his real name, provided the security footage of the outside of the buildings. I know there were a lot of cameras. I don't know if there were actual cameras in the hallways, just on the outside of the buildings. Right. Okay. Right? So, which, you know, too bad. I'm sure that changed. Look at you split. So the CCTV showed that Annie left her office at 10 A.M. on the morning of the 8th and she entered the Amistad place where all the labs are. It is clear to police that Annie had not intended to be gone for very long. So the Yale police cordoned off the Amistad building with so many rolls of yellow crime tape and they got to work. Yale police or campus police, so they needed some help. And they called in the Connecticut police and the FBI, and that's no shade on campus police. But I'm sure this is not something they come across very often. So despite no indication of her ever leaving the building, at least on her own two feet, they searched the whole campus. They searched labs and they searched a landfill where all the Yale garbage goes. Yale has to have its own dump. They can't be mixing with any, you know, non-IU league garbage with regular garbage. No, you cannot. So, you know, there they were. Separated. You got to look where you got to look, right? They didn't know. This was the beginning of the investigation. They had interviewed the friends, the family, the fiancé, of course, and everyone was cooperating. The groom-to-be who, you know, could have definitely started out as suspect numero uno, we already established that he was in New York on the 8th, so he was out. And they also concluded that based on interviews that she did not ditch and hide out in a laundry basket to be wheeled away to create a life of no husband or doing tests on animals. So it was a thing that she had maybe cold feet that was thought of for like hot seconds? Yeah, that was one of the theories. Cold feet, hot seconds? Cold feet, hot seconds. Okay. Yeah. How do I get out of here without being seen? Right. Okay. I'm tiny. Couldn't get into a laundry basket. Yeah. She didn't do that, sadly. No. So detectives and the FBI started tracking her movement based on all those key card entries. And she carded into the building and then her lab and then she carded no more. So police are focused solely on that area of the building. And there was a moment midday where if she was going to leave, it would have definitely been during a fire alarm that went off at 1 p.m. that day. And Arnold, not his real name, he pulled more footage of all the exits and there was no tiny Annie Lay in a bright green shirt and tan skirt amongst any of the hundreds of people in that footage. She had checked in but she never checked out. Just like Hotel California. I'm not trying to make light of this. It's so terrible. So we've already established everybody has to have a key card, like even a contractor. You're not going to get into a building if you're like, say, Larry the HVAC guy. You've got to have a card. And also people told cops that Larry the HVAC guy was kind of weird. So there's that. And he had carded into that room at the same time that Annie would have been there. I mean, who else might have also had a key card? Anyone? Yep, that is correct. Someone who might be looking after the mice and making sure they're okay and living in clean cages. Anyway, Raymond Clark was someone who did that. Raymond was a lab technician, which Stacy went into great detail about how important their job was. And he was very particular about his job. He took it very seriously. So we're going to flag this. All right. Put a pin there, beauty. Yep, put a big old pin. So on September 11th, three days after she was reported missing, now that's right. My finger math is right here. Okay. Right? I trust. Okay. The cops are really focused on the lab room. And guess what? They have found blood on items in the room. Blood on a box of wipes. And there was a lab coat with blood that was in a biohazard container scheduled to go out. They also find blood. Not necessarily unusual, I guess, in a lab. But this is apparently not usual blood. I feel like it is unusual in a lab, even if you're torturing animals. Yeah, I don't think they cut their heads off and wave them around. I don't think they do that. Thank God. Well, they also found some beads from her necklace on the floor and an HVAC vent. Also, you know those ugly dropped ceilings in places like this? You know, you can just push up a panel and see what's there. And it's usually not interesting just to build in guts. In one panel, there was an ankle sock with blood on it. Shut up. I will not. And how the heck did that fly up there? I didn't know this. Yep. There it was. It turned out there was even more blood smeared around, like there had been an attempt at a clean-up, even. Okay. And one wise agent said, Well, this is beginning to look a lot like murder. You smarties. So many smarties in this story. I mean, the FBI is so smart. Yeah. They're deducing away. They are. So now we're cooking with some lab gas, people. Good thing, too, because the campus and the town are getting nervous, and the press is all over this shit like white-on-mice. Oh, Kelly. Of course, they're still looking for Annie, but now they have to go to a couple of people who have some explaining to do. So they went right for good old HVAC Larry. He was in a fleabag motel on the outskirts of town. The coppers show up, and they ask to come in. Larry has a hard job, so that's why he had a big bottle of bourbon and an equally big bottle of Coke in his room. And they asked about Annie, and he says, Nah, don't pain no mind. I don't know, Larry. Anyway, so he says, Go ahead and search my room. Just be careful of the bedbugs. They searched his equipment and his van, but they came up empty, and they just said, Listen, stay put and don't leave town, mister. And he said, I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I don't know, Larry. I'm just saying. So, here's some nerdy breadcrumbs to follow. Okay. I'm so glad you shoehorned that in there. I did. I couldn't have. I couldn't have. When they go back over the footage, they realize that when Ray left the building at 10, he was wearing scrubs with a red drawstring. Okay. And when he left at 5 o'clock, his scrubs had a blue drawstring. Oh. I think what was happening... I did not know this. He sat down for four hours and threaded a new drawstring. That's what I would do. Yeah, totally. I mean, could it have changed because he had mouth poop on him and he needed new scrubs? I guess that's possible, too. I don't think any of those things are true. So, on Sunday, September 13th, as they were actively processing the crime scene, which is where everything was contained, that is when they smelled Annie. But they couldn't actually find Annie because they could smell the decomp, but they couldn't find her, and they brought in a bloodhound to pinpoint her location. It's just amazing to me that this could go on this long, and they know she's in the building. They know she never left the building, and they couldn't fucking find her for five days? They couldn't find her. For three days? Well, that's what I had made a little note about. Does this seem like it's taking a long time? Yeah, it seems like it's taking a long time. I think what they did was they sort of branched out. Like, first, they're looking to see if they can find Annie alive somewhere. Right. And then they started honing in, and considering where they found her, it wasn't until she started to decompose that they had an idea. This is just odd to me, because knowing that this lab was actually only built two years before, and, like, you would think that the plans to the building, they would have been pouring over those from minute one, because they knew she never left, or at least they suspected she never left of her own volition. Yeah. So, wouldn't they be... Well, they pushed up a drop ceiling and found a sob. They did. Yeah. You're right. Okay. But, obviously, because of this state-of-the-art building, the HVAC system, Larry did his job right. Thanks. Thank you. It is so airtight. The air system, even the bloodhound, a trained cadaver dog, had a little bit of a hard time finding her body, because the ventilation system was so good. That is wild. I know. Okay. So, they opened this really... When they opened this really bad... One-by-one box. ...hidey-hole. Yes. They found a lot of DNA, some blood, and, oddly, under Annie's body, there was a green pen. Hmm. That doesn't seem to belong there. No. Well, neither does Annie, but here we are. Right. So, it turns out that good old Ray used a green pen all day, every day, except this day. And then he switched to a different color. Stacy, I'm going to ask you, do you think he had to change his scrubs again after he shat himself, wondering if it was in there with Annie's? Yes. Oh, God. He couldn't find his pen? I think he was probably so freaked out he didn't even realize that he... I don't even know. It doesn't matter, but... It doesn't matter. ...here's a giant, big old breadcrumb, and I don't think it takes a Yale grad student of criminals and criming to figure out who could have done this. So, the heat was on Ray. We have a lot of evidence against Ray, including, remember key cards? I hope so, because we sure did talk about it. We did. We went on and on. So, he had used his card a total of 55 times that day to get into that area. What? 55. That is 54 too many. Oh, my God. Especially because on a normal day, it's about three times. So, what was he doing? Just going in and out, in and out, in and out? I guess. He was leaving, doing something, trying to figure things out? I mean, 55 times? Wow. Okay. I'm sorry. The jig is up, Ray. So, on September 17th, which is 10 fingers after Annie went missing, they arrested Raymond Clark for her murder. He was hiding out with his dad at a motel, and the cops walked in, and he immediately stood up, turned around, and he was handcuffed. Okay. And while he was in custody, they took his DNA sample to their forensic lab, which was conveniently across the street. And guess what? It is Yale. It is Yale. Yeah. They didn't mess around with his DNA. They needed it immediately. Right. So, his DNA was all freaking over that place. It was all over Annie, the gross hidey hole where he got those bruises, shoving her in there, the green pen, et cetera, et cetera. Well, here's a, I don't want to call it a fun fact, but it is interesting. There was another male's DNA on Annie, and, of course, the attorney for him was like, oh, wait a minute. Right. This girl's a wrench in the thing. So, the cops are like, oh, boy. Well, it belonged to a man who had died a year before. He was part of the building crew, and the climate control of this area meant that his DNA was preserved for almost two years on those cables when he was building. So, he was rubbing around on there, trying to put those cables. And I think that's crazy. In conclusion, Ray was in prison awaiting trial as he had pled not guilty. Okay. Yeah, I mean, whatever, dude. Listen, maybe he had some decent lawyer who was like, come on, you're never going to win this trial, and I don't want to be the one that put this, I don't want my reputation to be ruined. It's an open and shut the hidey hole case. So, they've got the goods on you and DNA, don't lie. So, Ray pleaded guilty to felony murder. Now, he took an Alford plea on the attempted sexual assault, and that means he doesn't agree that he did it, but thinks there's evidence for that. So, let me just backtrack a minute. That was also one of the theories, is that it was like he wanted to sexually assault her. But didn't mean to kill her? Well... What are you going to do after you sexually assault her? I know, but I don't think he actually did. There was just so much DNA all over her body. Got it. Is that, you know, in her under things. He just did an Alford plea for that. So, everyone always wants a motive, of course. And there are rumors, and you'll even see reports that they had a relationship. Really? I never saw that. That's crazy. I saw that in a couple little places, and I was like, that is categorically untrue. The theory is that he was just so meticulous and fastidious about his work, and about how things should go, and that he snapped. I don't know, over like a dirty mouse cage? He didn't think Annie was neat enough? I mean, apparently there was some back and forth text about you really got to keep your shit clean. Well, it doesn't even matter, because... It doesn't matter. She didn't deserve to be killed. But everyone always wants an answer. At his sentencing, he 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 am truly sorry I took Annie away from her friends, her family, and most of all, her fiance. 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, I bet a person that I will ever be in my life. I'm sorry I lied. I'm sorry I ruined lives, and I'm sorry for taking Annie Lay's life. But more importantly, here are the words from her mother, Vivian. She was about to start her life as a young bride. She told me many times how happy she was to start her family. I will never see her walking down the aisle. I will never hold my grandchildren. I will never see Annie's dreams come true. I will only see Annie in my dreams. That's so heartbreaking. I know. Ray was sentenced to 44 years for murder and 20 for attempted sexual assault to be served concurrently. He will be eligible for parole in 2053. Who knows what Annie could have done with her passion and her brilliant mind? And that is the super senseless and tragic murder of Annie Lay. What do you think of what he said, like the apology? You know, based on, like, how his reaction was when he left the fire alarm, this is clearly, like, a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. Was he sorry because he got caught and his life was over? Maybe. I guess, maybe. That's what they say. I will say when I heard this read on another podcast, I thought that it was actually one of the more sincere-sounding and, like, one of the more I'm actually taking responsibility-sounding statements that I've ever heard from a perp. You know what? That makes sense because I only read it, but it definitely sounds sincere. If you're not a sociopath or a psychopath, you're going to feel regret for doing something that's so senseless like this. Yes, I would agree. I mean, listen, I'm giving this dude no slack whatsoever. It is in contrast to a lot of these things that we hear and we see. Thanks, Kelly. Yeah, thank you. Good job. This was good job all around and good job on everything. When we come back, beauties, we're going to have some beauty. We're going to have some beauty. We're going to have some beauty.