A Yale University lab technician has appeared in court charged with murdering a graduate student whose body was found stuffed in a cable duct on what would have been her wedding day.

Raymond Clark III was arrested earlier today at a hotel in Connecticut, about 25 miles north of the animal research labs where he worked and murder victim Annie Le studied.

Officers came for him this morning at the Super 8 hotel in Cromwell, where Mr Clark took a room yesterday as the police net closed in. Bail has been set at $3 million.

As he arrived in court for his hearing, police said that the case appeared to be one of workplace violence.

ABC News reported that detectives had found texts exchanged between Miss Le and Mr Clark arranging to meet on the day she disappeared. Mr Clark texted her early that morning to ask for a meeting to discuss the cleanliness of the cages of the research mice.

The television news channel also reported that Mr Clark had deep scratch wounds on his chest, arms and back that suggested a violent struggle. Police had found a pair of bloody surgical gloves.

The Hartford Courant newspaper said that Mr Clark's Yale swipe card suggested that he was the last person to see Miss Le alive, entering the lab where she was last seen.

Miss Le, 24, described as bright, charming and in a fever of excitement about her forthcoming wedding, was last seen nine days ago as she arrived at the medical labs on Amistad Street in New Haven where she was studying for a doctorate in pharmacology.

CCTV cameras recorded her entering the building, but she never left it. After a five day manhunt, in which detectives combed through the university rubbish and pored over the blueprints of the labs to see if there was any possible hiding place, officers found her body at 5pm on Sunday, stuffed into a gap in the wall in the lab basement.

They also found bloodied clothing which may have belonged to the killer stuffed into a ceiling space.

Miss Le had been due to marry her college sweetheart, Columbia University graduate student Jonathan Widawsky, on the day her body was found. The Connecticut state medical examiner said that she had been forcibly asphyxiated, though no detail was released on exactly how.

The investigation has centered on Mr Clark, the only person publicly named by New Haven police in the case. Authorities have carried out four search warrants this week, taking DNA from his hair, fingernails and saliva to compare with more than 250 pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene and from the apartment in Middletown, Connecticut, that he shared with his fiancee.

Released by police early yesterday, Clark moved out and went to the hotel where he remained under constant police survellance.

At 8am police moved in, shutting the road outside the hotel and blocking the drive and the rear access to the hotel as they made the arrest, which passed off without incident.

James Lewis, the New Haven Police Chief, said that there were no other suspects. He dismissed rumours that there had been any romantic relationship between Miss Le and Mr Clark.

“It is important to note that this is not about urban crime, university crime, domestic crime but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country,” Lewis said.

He would not rule out the possibility of additional charges.

Mr Clark’s attorney, David Dworski, was not immediately available for comment after the arrest. He has previously said his client is “committed to proceeding appropriately; with police.

Clark’s job as an animal services technician at Yale put him in contact with Le, who worked for a Yale laboratory that conducted experiments on mice. She was part of a research team headed by her faculty adviser, Anton Bennett, that focused on enzyme research that could have implications in cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy.

Members of the team have declined to comment on the case or their work.

As a technician at Yale, Mr Clark helped clean the cages of research animals, mostly mice, used in experiments in labs around the campus. His job also sometimes involved helping with paperwork. Mr Clark, his fiancee, his sister and his brother-in-law all work for Yale as animal lab technicians.

Yale University President Richard C Levin said in a statement: "Mr. Clark has been a lab technician at Yale since December 2004. His supervisor reports that nothing in the history of his employment at the university gave an indication that his involvement in such a crime might be possible.

"This incident could have happened in any city, in any university, or in any workplace. It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures."

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