But on Saturday police searching the laboratory building with bloodhounds found blood-stained clothes stuffed above a ceiling panel. Over the weekend,

The body of a graduate student was found in a wall duct in a laboratory building at Yale University on what should have been her wedding day.

The discovery followed a six-day search for Annie Le, 24, who was studying for a PhD in pharmacology. She had swiped her ID card to enter the lab about a mile from the main campus of the Ivy League university in New Haven, Connecticut, at 10am last Tuesday.

She left her handbag, containing her mobile phone and money, in her office at another Yale building three blocks away and was recorded entering the lab at 10 Amistad Street on CCTV.

Police viewed images from 75 CCTV cameras around the building but found no trace of her leaving after a fire alarm was sounded on Tuesday afternoon. Friends and family had thought Ms Le’s disappearance might be a case of a “runaway bride” who got cold feet over her Sunday wedding.