Why was Sylvia stalked to death?

SYLVIA Leung Sze-hon, model daughter and model student, left her life as she had lived it. When she dashed out of the Student Association Centre at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) in Burnaby last Sunday evening, she had spent two hours with friends working on a computer project.

It should have been a day of rest, but the conscientious 22-year-old had been finishing a project that was due later in the week. As she ran 100 metres in heavy rain to get to her car, parked in a well-lit area in front of the campus bookstore, she was the victim of an attack that not only sent the campus into a state of fear, but sparked a mystery that has moved the whole of Vancouver.

Beside her car, an assailant wounded Miss Leung with a sharp instrument and she dropped her books and ran screaming back towards the Student Association building. She collapsed before she reached the door and died of blood loss in Royal Columbia Hospital from a severed artery in the upper shoulder.

Mr Rod Romo was one of the classmates who saw her only moments before her death.

''It wasn't until the next day when I came to school that I found out what happened. I was very shocked. I had just met her; we had just started talking in our group, getting to know each other,'' he said.

''I knew she was very excited that her dad was coming back from Hongkong for the Lunar New Year. She seemed upbeat that night. I knew she was anxious to leave; she said she was on a time constraint because she had to go. I assumed it was to go home for dinner because her dad had just arrived. I didn't think anything of it, everybody was anxious to go.

''From what I understand it wasn't robbery, it wasn't a sexual crime, it was just plain assault, and obviously it was a deadly one.