Lü Lingzi: Chinese student attended Boston Marathon with Zhou Danling before she was killed

Lü Lingzi, the third person killed in the Boston Marathon attacks, was a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student at Boston University who came to the U.S. because it was her “dream to get a better education”.

Lü Lingzi was attending the Boston Marathon with her friend Zhou Danling, a student of actuarial science at BU, who was originally said to be in a coma at Boston Medical Center but showing signs of improvement after suffering serious injuries in the blast.

On Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Consulate General in New York said they were not releasing the victim’s name at the request of the family.

But later, Boston media quoted a Chinese Consulate General official as saying Chinese national Lü Lingzi was missing in the wake of the bombings that killed three and wounded more than 180 people.

Li Luquan, who is an operations research student at New Jersey State University said that Lü Lingzi, who is from Shenyang, Liaoning, was studying hard at BU and enjoyed cooking, going to the gym and to play the piano.

“She came the U.S. last August and studied at Boston University because she wanted a better education. America has a better education system and better research opportunities,” Li Luquan said.

“Coming to America to study was her dream. She was living her dream.

“In the future she might stay in the U.S. or go back to China. She said she might work for a big company in America.

“She has an aunt who lives elsewhere in the U.S. and I think she has come to Boston to find her.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Colin Riley, a BU spokesman had declined to release the student’s name pending a discussion with her family.

On Wednesday however, The Shenyang Evening News reported her name on its official Twitter-like microblog account.

The Associated Press reported that an editor at the newspaper said that Lü Lingzi’s father confirmed his daughter’s death when reporters visited the family home.

According to the Boston Globe on Tuesday, BU did confirm that three of their students had attended the marathon and that one was sadly deceased, one was injured and another escaped unharmed.

Danling Zhou, who was reported to have fallen into a coma, was now doing well and was conscious.

The Chinese Consulate in New York had earlier confirmed that Zhou Danling was injured and a survivor of the attacks which killed two others and left 183 others injured.

“She cannot talk now but can communicate with pen and paper,” the consulate said in an e-mailed statement previously on Tuesday.

In that earlier statement, the consulate said another Chinese student, identified by the consulate as Lü Lingzi, was still missing.

“We are following the case closely and are trying to reach our colleagues in Boston. I believe they will release further information on site if anything comes up,” the consulate said. Then adding: “Our hearts goes out to all the families who had been affected.”

Zhou Danling is reportedly a graduate of Wuhan University in central China, and currently a student at Boston University in actuarial science, according to a Xinhua report.

Boston is filled with colleges and there are a handful of students among the 183 injured.

Three Tufts University students, 7 Emerson College students, 3 Northeastern University students, 2 Boston College students, and one Berklee College of Music student, according to the schools.