NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A former animal research technician today pleaded guilty to murder and attempted sexual assault in the 2009 killing of a Yale University graduate student.

Raymond Clark III entered the plea under an agreement with prosecutors that calls for a 44-year sentence.

He was accused of strangling 24-year-old Annie Le of Placerville, Calif., in a case that drew intense national media attention to the Ivy League university.

Le’s body was found on Sept. 13, 2009, stuffed behind a wall in a research lab five days after she was last seen in the Yale medical building. It would have been her wedding day in New York.

The 26-year-old Clark had been charged with murder and felony murder, each carrying a possible sentence of 25 to 60 years.