Fiancee Stands By Accused Yale Killer Ray Clark

Jennifer Hromadka gave DNA swabs to authorities investigating Annie Le's murder.

ByABC News
March 15, 2010, 11:48 AM

March 15, 2010 — -- The fiancee of accused Yale murderer Ray Clark is standing by her man, visiting him regularly in jail, even as she has become a subject of the homicide investigation.

A search warrant released today stated that detectives sought a DNA sample from Clark's fiancee Jennifer Hromadka because they had "probably cause" to believe her DNA would be found on bloody items stuffed in a wall along with the body of 24-year-old Yale researcher Annie Le.

The lawyer for Hromadka told ABCNews.com that she is still supporting Clark and that the results from the DNA tests ordered by the state prosecutor's office in November have still not been released.

"As far as I know, they are still together," said criminal lawyer Robert Berke. "And we are waiting, just like every one else, for results [of the DNA test]."

Berke said that Hromadka has been visiting Clark in prison but is not sure how recently she has been to see him.

Asked whether his client is concerned about the results of the DNA test, Berke said, "She is not worried."

It is not unusual, said Berke, for results of DNA comparisons to take months due to a backlog at the state's forensic laboratory.

According to a search warrant released today, DNA found on a lanyard that attached to Hromadka's university key card was found on a pen and a bloody sock found in the wall where Le's body was stuffed.

The search warrant claimed that because of the apparent DNA matches between Hromadka's lanyard and on the bloody socks, there was "probably cause that evidence of the crime of murder... will be found within the ... swab taken from Jennifer Hromadka."

But the results of the DNA tests, which were taken more than three months ago in November, are not revealed in the search warrant, and Hromadka has never been accused or charged in connection to Le's murder.

Late last year, New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said that he did not expect to make any more arrests after taking Clark into custody. "We've made the only arrest we expect to make," Lewis said at the time.

Since her fiancee's arrest, Hromadka has reportedly been visiting Clark weekly at a maximum security prison, the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, Conn., where he is being held on $3 million bail.

Messages left with the New Haven State Attorney's office and Hromadka's attorney, Robert Berke, were not immediately returned.

Berke told The Associated Press in December that he wasn't sure why his client's DNA was wanted and that he had been told that Hromadka was not a suspect.