The body of a Thai PhD student will be flown home from the US after she was found shot dead on Friday in an apparent murder-suicide in her apartment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Tragic End: Chalalai Chaihirankarn was pursuing her PhD in computer science.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said yesterday the Thai embassy in Washington had been informed of the death of Chalalai Chaihirunkarn, 26, a PhD student at the School of Computer Science at the Carnegie Mellon University.
The ministry was waiting to secure the death certificate from the Thai consulate in New York before Chalalai's body can be returned home, Mr Sek said.
Pittsburgh police suspect the victim's boyfriend, Bryan Springer, a Carnegie Mellon alumnus and employee, killed Chalalai before he turned the gun on himself.
Chalalai had been shot in the head and chest.
Police said Springer, a 29-year-old Thai-American, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
"There did not appear to be any signs of a struggle," Pittsburgh police major crimes commander RaShall Brackney said in a statement reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Springer reportedly went to a local gun shop to buy a 9mm Glock pistol and 20 rounds of ammunition two days before the killing. Friends said the couple had a troubled relationship.
According to the Post-Gazette, Springer visited the gun store for 26 minutes. He told the owner the pistol was "for protection" and wanted to take shooting lessons.
The store ran a background check for criminal convictions, which came back negative.
Mr Sek said local police suspect the killing had been motivated by jealousy.
The Washington office of the Civil Service Commission, which looks after the well-being of Thai students overseas, has contacted Chalalai's family and Mahidol University.
Mahidol had provided a scholarship for Chalalai to study abroad.
Chalalai graduated from Mahidol's Faculty of Information and Communication Technology and worked briefly as assistant lecturer in the department of computer science.
She studied her master's degree at Carnegie Mellon and then returned to Mahidol to teach before leaving again to pursue her doctoral degree, also in the field of computer science.
Chalalai was reported to be the daughter of a former executive of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.