Private Mass pays tribute to slain Yale graduate student Annie Le

In a ceremony filled with tears and song, the people who loved Annie Le best said goodbye to her on Saturday.

The private Mass, held in the sloping foothills of the Sierra Nevada, not far from Le's hometown of Placerville, came nearly two weeks after the 24-year-old graduate student's body was found hidden behind a wall in a Yale University laboratory building in New Haven, Conn.

In eulogies, Le's family and pastor tried to reconcile the young woman's vibrant life with her violent death.

Dan Nguyen, 15, Le's younger brother, said he loved his sister for "her silliness and friendliness.”

Le's mother, Vivian Van Le, read a poem she had written in Vietnamese after she "heard the bad news from New Haven."

The ceremony, which was held at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in El Dorado Hills, was also filled with prayers and hymns. Much of the service, including a rendition of "Amazing Grace," was in Vietnamese.

Le, a Yale graduate student in pharmacology, disappeared from a research building at the university's medical school complex Sept. 8. Five days later, her body was found stuffed into a 2-foot-long crawl space inside a laboratory wall.

The state's medical examiner reported that Le died of asphyxiation. A lab technician, Raymond Clark III, was arrested Sept. 17 and charged in her slaying. Police have not offered a possible motive. And Clark has not yet entered a plea.

She was buried in nearby Rescue at a cemetery on the top of a small hill, beneath oak trees in which birds trilled.