The family of 25-year-old Carmen Cai Yi Lee held a funeral for their oldest daughter Friday in Atlanta 7 days after being shot and killed in her car, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
She was one week short of her 26th birthday.
“She was the most gentle soul. Selfless,” Lee’s boyfriend, Petrus Reyes, said. “She was always doing something for someone else. I had to remind her, ‘Stop let’s take care of yourself first.’”
The Mothership reports she’s one of 10 people who died while riding or driving in their cars this year in the Atlanta area. Police connected many of the cases to road rage, although more than half remain unsolved.
An officer seeing her car on the side of the road stopped to do a check and found her shot.
According to Resonate, her family immigrated from Malaysia to the United States just before her birth, the first of three children. Lee worked as a financial portfolio analyst.
“Carmen was an amazing role model for both of her younger brothers. She was the first child of a immigrant family. All she wanted was to be successful and provide for her parents,” her youngest brother Alvin wrote on Go Fund Me.
She had been planning to buy a home and move in together with her boyfriend. Alvin described her as the glue that held the family together.
We would do anything to bring her back home. We love you Carmen, you were the best role model for your brothers. You were also the best daughter that our parents could’ve had.
So far more than $60,000 has been raised for the family.
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