Reporting from El Dorado Hills, Calif. - 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.
"We could ask a thousand whys for the rest of our life," said her pastor, Msgr. James Kidder.
Le's fiance, Jonathan Widawsky, whom Le was to marry the day she was found dead, did not speak. He looked down somberly for much of the service, his father squeezing his shoulder, while Le's relatives stood up one by one to remember her.
Dan Nguyen, 15, Le's younger brother, said he loved his sister for "her silliness and friendliness." Whenever she came home to visit, Dan said, Le and her siblings and cousins would play with stuffed animals and watch cartoons together. Le never missed a birthday, Dan said, and would "send home presents on every occasion."read more
