Friends mourn slain alum

Chiara Levin, who graduated less than a year ago, died after a night spent doing what she loved: meeting new people and spending time with friends. She was in Boston for the weekend to celebrate the 90th birthday of a great aunt.

Levin had gone to a bar Friday night with two friends, the Boston Police Department reported on its website.

After leaving the bar, Levin and her friends were invited to the party in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood with some people she and her friends had met at the bar. When they decided to leave the party, Levin and her friends accepted a ride home, police reported.

While waiting to leave, gunshots were fired into the idle car and Levin was struck. She was pronounced dead at Boston Medical Center two hours later.

Police said there is no evidence to suggest that Levin was the target of the shooter. The case is still under investigation.

Friends remembered Levin for connecting with people from across campus, whether on the equestrian team, in her sorority or among the football players she tutored.

“If you were ever walking to class or walking to go out or whatever (with Levin), you’d have to allot two hours to get there,” said University alum Seema Singh.

Singh said Levin seemed to know everyone that she passed on campus and she would stop talk to each for at least 15 minutes.

Singh knew Levin well: She was one of her roommates in New York City.

Levin, a native of Danville, Ky., had been working at a public relations firm in Manhattan since she graduated.

Friends said Levin was someone who brought people together. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that her death created a reunion of sorts for the people who knew her.

“A lot of us live in New York, and we’ve all been banded together,” Singh said.

On Sunday night, 15 of her friends in the New York area gathered over pizza and wine to trade stories that captured Levin’s personality.

Friends spoke of Levin’s adventurous spirit and outgoing nature.

“She was the only one that was willing to go out with me to Brooklyn,” said Tomasso Gomez, who graduated with Levin and lives in New York.

She had friends in all walks of life, whether they were members of her Chi Omega sorority, other members of Greek life, players on the football team or anyone who would talk to her, said Gomez, a former Michigan Daily photographer.

Levin spent her life in the pursuit of being able to communicate with everyone she met.

She was a French major who also spoke in French, Spanish and Italian, said Robyn Sussman, a fellow University graduate and one of Levin’s closest friends.

Levin was “an avid Michigan football fan,” Singh said. She tutored football players in French and sometimes Italian.

Her freshman year, Levin was even a member of the equestrian team.

Levin was a world traveler, spending one semester studying in France and spending the summer afterward in her mother’s native Italy.

She was someone who friends felt was capable of anything, but she thought even higher of the people around her.

“She was a really supportive person,” Singh said. “She didn’t have a negative bone in her body.”

These were her dominant traits: her friendliness and the love she had for her friends.

“She was more confident in all of us (than we were) that we would aspire to great things,” Sussman said.