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The hand-lettered sign, which graduate students put up outside 10 Amistad Street after the news came that Annie Le was missing, is heartbreaking today. "We hope you are okay,” they wrote—not knowing that she was already dead. The unfolding of this tragedy never permitted a simple, straightforward outpouring of grief. Emotions on campus rollercoastered with every new piece of information. With the first information on the disappearance, anxiety and hope competed, and people who hadn’t known Le speculated optimistically about her impending marriage: maybe she had merely gotten cold feet. Hope dwindled and fear mounted as bad news came in: bloody clothing found in a ceiling, police searches at a trash incinerator in Hartford. People talked about the case compulsively—"in classrooms, dorm rooms, around dining halls, and even in late-night pool games in butteries,” wrote Endre Hudy '11 in the Yale Daily News on September 23—seeking to absorb it and resolve it, since they couldn’t solve it. As Le’s death became a global news event, the glare of the TV news cameras added pressures of its own. Hudy wrote, "My parents told me they were ”extremely worried' about me after hearing on TV about Le’s murder—as the first item of the afternoon news.” On September 15, when police finally confirmed the identity of the "person of interest" whose name had already been mentioned in newspapers and on blogs, it served to heighten the effect Daily News editor Thomas Kaplan '10 described. "Only Yalies had access to that basement, and that seems to point to someone in our community being involved in this," he told CNN on September 13. "That's what is so frightening.” “The community was stunned, shocked, grieving," says Yale president Richard C. Levin '74PhD. "The family came first—the family and the fiance’s family. It was their tragedy above all. But there were a lot of people affected—the students, the pharmacology department, employees in the medical school, people who worked in the Amistad building. It was a frightening and difficult situation for all of them.” One cardiovascular researcher at the building, Rong Ju, told the New Haven Register, "It makes you lose your trust in people.” As with all griefs and fears, people struggled to cope with it, and some avoided it. The murder that was generating news coverage all over the country was never mentioned at a September 15 orientation for new Yale employees, except by one speaker who referred to "the unfortunate circumstances with the student here at the university.” The feeling of the campus was most strongly delivered by the September 14 candlelight vigil on Cross Campus. By the Yale Daily News estimate, more than 2,000 members of the Yale community were present, to mourn, sing "Amazing Grace," and hear President Levin express hope that "despite this horrendous trauma … our commitment, truth, openness, trust, and collaboration … will endure." Le’s friend Natalie Powers '13PhD eulogized her: "as good a human being as you'd ever hope to meet." At the end of the vigil, Jake Keyes '10 reported on the Yale Alumni Magazine news blog, "Even after the speakers had thanked the audience and offered their parting prayers, the crowd remained for several minutes, singing quietly, lighting candles, or closing their eyes in prayer.” But Le’s dean, Jon Butler of the Graduate School, put
the communal fears and sorrow in perspective in an e-mail to the magazine. "As
you meet the families, you get a small glimpse of how horrible this is. Any
reaction we might have can’t even begin to capture what they are enduring and
will for their lifetimes. What I do know is that it’s terrible beyond our
capacity to grasp.” |
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©1992–2012, Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Yale Alumni Magazine, P.O. Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905, USA. yam@yale.edu |
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