Cases Continued in Yale, Wesleyan Slayings

By LEANNE GENDREAU and MONICA BUCHANAN

Updated 6:36 PM EDT, Tue, Oct 20, 2009

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Three Connecticut college students have been slain since May and the suspects in two of those murders were in court on Tuesday.

As college students begin to mourn for Jasper Howard, a star UConn football player who was killed on campus on Sunday, the slayings at Yale and Wesleyan entered the next phase of the legal process.

Raymond Clark III, who has been charged with the murder of Annie Le, a 24-year-old Yale graduate student from Placerville, California, has not yet entered a plea. His defense team said Tuesday they want to continue reviewing documents.

Police found Le's body last month in the wall of a school lab where she did research and Clark was a lab tech. She was found on the day she was supposed to marry Jonathan Widawsky.

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Clark, who is being held in lieu of $3 million bail, is next due in court on Nov. 3 at 2 p.m. His attorneys have said publicly he will plead not guilty.

Media outlets are arguing that arrest and search warrants that have been sealed in this case should me made public. A judge sealed details about the arrest and investigation upon Clark's arrest, and his attorneys have argued those records should remain sealed or their client won't be able to get a fair trial with an untainted jury.

The judge Tuesday did not make a decision about unsealing documents.

The defense filed a motion to keep entire affidavits sealed and argued that releasing the documents would jeopardize Clark's right to a fair trial. The state agreed to continue sealing the arrest affidavits and search warrants.

Le's family also told the state attorney’s office that they want documents to stay sealed because they are concerned for their rights and well-being in this difficult time, as well as the devastating conditions surrounding daughters death.

Stephen Morgan appeared Tuesday morning in a Middletown courtroom for a pre-trial hearing. He is accused of killing Johanna Justin-Jinich, a Wesleyan university student, on May 6 inside a bookstore near campus. His case was continued to December 15.

Morgan has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

Justin-Jinich’s slaying put the college campus, as well as the city of Middletown, on alert as police searched for a suspect.