Johns Hopkins Samurai

I wouldn't be much of a samurai if I didn't mention the stoppage of a would-be burglar by a Johns Hopkins student wielding a samurai sword. Many geeks (me included) own a sword as a reminder of their own undeniable bushido. After the frightening murder of Annie Le, the Johns Hopkins Samurai is a revenge of the nerds. The burglar had it coming!

But 's/he had it coming' is double-edged sword. I'm sure there were more than a few animal-rights activists who said exactly that about Annie Le, who did experiments with mice. The next attack on scientists may come from these nutjobs, who might be inspired to copycat. So if you work in a lab, it's worth taking a few extra precautions. Myself? I'm bringing my samurai sword to the lab.

When Scientists Murder

The evidence in the Annie Le murder case now points clearly at animal-care technician Raymond Clark. He met with Annie the day she died. He was in and out of the building 10 times that day, including after hours. He failed a lie-detector test. And he had defense wounds all over his body.

My reaction to all this is sadness. When I first heard about the murder, I was sure it was someone from outside the building. I was reluctant to believe that a researcher could kill a fellow scientist, sure enough to bet on it. I was wrong.

Science for me has a moral component, a character-building component. That's why I call this blog Samurai Scientist. But it also teaches us to avoid prejudice and to investigate carefully based on all the facts. In retrospect, there's no shortage of assholes and anti-socials in the scientific community. The guy who murdered a call girl off Craigslist was a doctor.

I don't know if this tragedy could have been prevented. Nobody thought Raymond was capable of murder. The bottom line is that people are not what they seem. You do not have all the data. What they show you is only what they want you to see. Tread carefully.

Yale student murdered in the lab

In a tragic end to a 5-day mystery, the body of missing pharmacology doctoral student Annie Le was found today in her lab building at Yale. It was supposed to be her wedding day. The case strikes a cord with me because Annie reminds me of many of the excellent students here in NorCal, where she also grew up.

According to police, the body “was found behind the wall in something called a chase, which is a space that carries utilities from one floor to another.” She was last seen on security camera entering the building Tuesday during daylight hours. Some bloody clothes found earlier in ceiling tiles did not match her attire and may belong to the murderer. It might be some creep from the New Haven ghetto, although the fact that the body was so cleverly hidden suggests some prior knowledge of the building.

Many campuses are in dangerous areas, where land is cheap. Our lab building (in a major research university) is routinely infiltrated by criminals, who wander the halls looking for laptops to swipe. After two laptops were stolen within a week, I e-mailed the campus police chief, whose force was spending 90% time waging war on tree-sitters. She ignored me. Only after I sent a campus newspaper reporter to the department and raised a ruckus among co-workers did we get any response. The building is now locked down after hours, but anyone can come in during the day and hang around. Not long ago, I ran into a suspicious person after hours, posing as a scientist. I confronted him, asked what he was doing, requested an ID, and told him to leave when he refused to produce one. On his way out I called the police and he was arrested as he fled the building. (Several of my colleagues have had similar confrontations, sometimes retrieving their laptops in exchange for letting the thieves go.)

If New Haven is anything like our campus, it is possible Annie ran into a similar situation but was not so lucky. The perpetrator may have cased the building all day and noticed the chase at some point, then returned to use it after the murder. He may have even visited the building before and stalked Annie. I hope police and administrators at universities everywhere take note of this case, as well as the largely-forgotten Virginia Tech massacre, and seriously reassess their security priorities. There are more dangerous things out there in this world than tree-sitters.