Family of China's Boston bomb victim: studying in US was her dream

Undated photo provided by Meixu Lu shows Lingzi Lu in Boston. (AP)

BEIJING – The family of a Chinese woman killed in the Boston Marathon bombings says it was her dream to study in the United States, and she fell in love with Boston, where she was a graduate student.

In a statement posted on the website of Boston University, the family of 23-year-old Lu Lingzi expressed their grief and called their child "the joy of our lives."

The family, from the city of Shenyang in China's northeast, initially requested privacy and did not want Lu's name released in the first hours after she was declared dead in the bombings on Monday that killed two others and injured more than 170 people.

The official Xinhua News Agency says the parents and two other relatives are leaving Beijing on Friday evening for Boston.