Raymond Clark's Ex Girlfriend Says Man Accused of Killing Annie Le Had Anger Issues

Jessica Del Rocco says the man accused of killing Annie Le was "controlling."

ByABC News via logo
September 17, 2009, 12:28 PM

Sept. 23 2009 — -- A former girlfriend of the lab technician accused of killing Yale graduate student Annie Le said today that she, too, feared Raymond Clark and was relieved when their relationship ended several years ago.

"This is going to bring back everything I went through six years ago," Jessica Del Rocco told "Good Morning America" in what she said would be her only interview on the subject of Raymond Clark. "He would get very angry often. He would frighten me. He would get physical."

Del Rocco was 16 years old when she and Raymond Clark dated. She backed the widely held belief among the people who knew Clark that he was a contradictory personality -- outgoing and well-liked but also dark and controlling.

In the beginning of the relationship, Del Rocco said Clark seemed to be the perfect boyfriend.

"He was very popular. He was, you know, a very nice guy. Everybody loved him. He was a good student. He was a great baseball player," she said. "He was perfect -- he was charming, he was sweet, took me out.

"About three months into everything he started to get a little controlling," she said, adding that he began dictating what she wore and how she spoke. "It's, 'Don't go here and don't be friends with these boys, and these girls are OK. You're talking too much or you're not talking loud enough.'"

In the end, she said, it caused such a big fight "it wasn't even worth it."

As the relationship progressed, so did his control, Del Rocco said, saying that if things weren't going his way, "he'd make them go his way."

"There were times he did frighten me," she said, saying that sometimes things got physical, which she said the police have asked her not to talk about. "He'd get this little look in his eye. Sometimes it was better to do what he said just to avoid the fight."

The body of Yale pharmacology student Annie Le was found Sept. 13, shoved into a wall in the basement of the on-campus laboratory where she worked. The discovery was made on the day Le was supposed to have been married.

Clark was arrested last Thursday and ordered held on $3 million bail. He was sent to a maximum security prison to await trial. He is next due in court Oct. 6.

"My heart goes out to the Le family," Del Rocco said. "I feel terrible."

Del Rocco said she wanted to warn other girls who may find themselves in a similar situation.

"If you're in a relationship where there's somebody that's trying to control your every move... that's just a starting point for things to escalate into things much more worse," she said. "If any girl feels uncomfortable in a relationship that they're in, I know how hard it is, they need to dig deep ... take a stand and realize you don't deserve to be treated like that. You deserve to be treated better."