The other person I want to know about is Dennis Smith, the Seventh-day Adventist pastor who spoke to the media on behalf of both Annie Les family AND her fiancé (and his family?).
Why would an SDA minister be the designated spokesperson to state thanks on behalf of all parties involved and ameliorate any concerns the New Haven community and Yale campus may have? Who appointed him spokesperson, especially at a time when LE already had a good angle on where this case was going?
SDAs traditionally consider Catholics as the painful enemy enforcers of the immanent apocalypse and second-coming of Christ. SDAs also consider those of the Jewish race/faith (SDAs tend to use those term interchangeably) as displaced, defeated persons. SDAs proclaim themselves as the chosen people that replaced the Jews. Why, why, why then, would the Le family and the fiancés family select a spokesperson with such diametrically opposed values.
My best guess = Yale has a shortlist of sympathetic spokepeople that they can immediately offer to victims. These spokespeople are tasked to convey the family's itemized thanks and protect the case at the same time. I reckon SDA and other clerics have signed on to this list in exchange for a brief moment of publicity, thushelping to fulfil their quota of loving community service.
On the other hand, perhaps beyond workplace violence, sexual crime or basic evil, there is an odd religious component here none have yet considered.
Wait Is Dennis Smith, perhaps, one of the mandated outside members of the IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee), representing the community... and expected to weigh in on ethics in animal care. Is he a voting IACUC member responsible for approving BOTH individual animal care and use protocols and overall animal care related policy?