‘She was struggling alone’: Family mourns Bucks County woman killed after reporting a sexual assault
Yuan Yuan Lu was an animal lover and Philadelphia foodie, her cousin says. She died Sunday in Levittown.
When Yuan Yuan Lu’s boyfriend sexually assaulted her in his Pennsport home last week, her cousin said, she broke up with him and went to the police.
The 28-year-old Bucks County woman thought she was doing the right thing by reporting the crime, her cousin Natalie Truong said.
“She told me how safe she felt, how much better she felt opening up and telling the cops her story,” said Truong, who spent time with Lu the evening she reported the assault.
That was the last time Truong saw Lu alive.
On Sunday, less than 12 hours after Lu called police to say that her ex-boyfriend, Yujun Ren, had attacked her, police said, Ren, 32, stalked her. He followed her to her home in Levittown, police said, approached her as she sat in her car outside her house, and shot her in the head, killing her.
Lu’s death shook her loved ones and led to calls on social media for increased awareness of intimate partner violence.
Truong said Lu leaves behind dreams unfulfilled. Lu grew up in a small village in south China, and moved to the United States with her father in 2009 to seek a more prosperous life.
In Philadelphia, she attended George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science, perfected her English, and always kept her friends abreast of her latest entrepreneurial pursuits, Truong said.
Lu went into the food business with friends, cooking homemade Asian cuisine and selling it in carts on local college campuses, and later worked in a bubble tea shop and at a nursing home.
She loved her pets — a corgi named Dundun and a cat named Milk Cap, after a creamy bubble tea topping. Lu and Truong frequented Philadelphia restaurants, most recently dining together at Kalaya in Fishtown, and took day trips to places like New Jersey’s Swaminarayan Akshardham, the second-largest Hindu temple in the world.
Despite the cousins’ close relationship, Truong said, Lu did not share a lot of details about her personal life, perhaps not wanting to trouble others with her concerns.
Truong said Lu did not talk a lot about her relationship with Ren, whom she had met at her nursing home job and had dated for about a year. Truong’s perception of the relationship changed the night her cousin opened up about Ren’s behavior, she said.
“She was struggling alone for a while,” Truong said, adding that initially, Lu “liked him, so we all trusted her judgment.”
On Sunday, the day after Lu reported the assault, Ren turned himself in to police in Middletown Township, and officers discovered Lu’s body in her white Hyundai shortly after noon, authorities said. He was charged with murder, stalking, and a firearms crime.
Ren told police that Lu had said “hurtful things” to him that day and that, in an attempt to scare her, he had brandished the firearm, which he said accidentally discharged. He was licensed to own the weapon, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
Ren’s aunt later turned in her nephew’s 9mm handgun — a weapon Lu had told police he “carried everywhere,” leading her to fear for her safety, the affidavit said.
Truong said she wished law enforcement had had more time to investigate the sexual assault before she was killed. Her death was tragic, her cousin said, a life ended all too soon.
Lu’s father had recently left Philadelphia to join his wife and son in China. Truong has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to help the family with funeral expenses and to pay for travel to Philadelphia to attend the service.
As the family mourns Lu’s death, Truong said, they are hopeful that law enforcement officials will hold her killer accountable.
“We just want her to get the justice that she deserves, because she’s a really kind person,” Truong said. “She never thought this would happen to her — because you would never think someone you love can hurt you like that.”