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'Brilliant Student' Mourned
Warmth and Joy of Slain Johns Hopkins Senior Recalled
By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page C06
After Linda Trinh made her first trip to her parents' native Vietnam last
summer, she returned to the United States deeply moved by the children
she met at an AIDS hospice. The Johns Hopkins University senior penned them
a poem. Don't feel sad about my departure, she told them.
"I thank you for all of your smiles," she wrote.
Yesterday, at the Silver Spring church where Trinh taught Sunday school, a
priest recalled her words and said they served as her own farewell to
the more than 700 family members, friends and schoolmates who gathered to
mourn her a week after her death.
Trinh, 21, was found asphyxiated last Sunday in an apartment building
across the street from the university campus in Baltimore. The slaying was
the second in the Johns Hopkins community in nine months. Police have made
no arrests in the case.
The standing-room-only Mass for Trinh was held at Our Lady of Vietnam
Roman Catholic Church, a distinctive yellow concrete structure with a curved,
red pagoda-style roof built in a Vietnamese design. Floral wreaths decorated
the outside walkway. Two easels displayed large color photographs of her
smiling face, surrounded by family and friends. Another color photo sat atop
her white coffin.
Trinh's family had fled communist Vietnam, spending a year in refugee camps
before arriving in the United States in 1983. Trinh's parents live in
Silver Spring. Her father, Quy Trinh, is a machine mechanic, and her mother,
Hoan Ngo, is a machine parts worker, a family member said. Her older brother,
Quang, is a University of Maryland graduate.
Trinh grew up surrounded by many relatives, said cousin Tung Huynh, 38.
He remembered snapping photos of her as a young girl dressed up in the
traditional Vietnamese ao dai, a long, flowing tunic. "Now I am preparing
the picture books for her funeral," he said.
The service was conducted in English and Vietnamese, with several
Vietnamese Catholic hymns sung by a choir. As the plaintive melodies filled
the church, many of the older Vietnamese bowed their heads and wept.
More than 100 students, faculty and administrators from Johns Hopkins
also attended the Mass, including President William R. Brody.
The Rev. Tam Tranh, who gave the homily in English, described Trinh as
a "brilliant student with such a good heart." Her strong desire was to
use her talents to help the unfortunate, especially those in Vietnam,
he said.
Trinh was a 2001 graduate of Springbrook High School in Silver Spring,
where she earned straight A's in the rigorous International Baccalaureate
program and lettered in gymnastics and volleyball.
At Johns Hopkins, Trinh studied biomedical engineering. One of her
goals, she wrote in her application for her senior engineering project,
was to bring better and more affordable health care to cancer and AIDS
patients in developing countries.
She was also a former president of her sorority and former member of
the university's volleyball team. A devoted daughter who called her parents
almost daily, Trinh kept track of her many ambitions on a colorful diagram,
a goal map. One of them was to learn to cook Vietnamese food for herself.
In his eulogy, Brody said Trinh had worked in a research lab, devising
ways to use digital mammography to bring breast cancer screening to poor women.
"We have all lost a golden glimpse of the future," he said.
Turning toward Trinh's grieving family, Brody spoke of a doctor at
Johns Hopkins whose 6-year-old son died of leukemia after many months of
struggle. He offered the father's words as a benediction, his voice
cracking with emotion:
"May we all find peace in the shared hope that our children who brought
us such joy with their short lives are now a host of angels, loving us
still, feeling our love for them . . . and knowing that they are safely
locked forever in our hearts."
After the 90-minute service, Trinh's brother, his face grim, led the
way. Family members supported her father, who sobbed deeply. Her mother held
a small golden crucifix.
After the cars drove away, a former volleyball teammate hugged her
friends, clutching a miniature volleyball in her arm.
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