Laugh, Love Remembered at Service

Kavita Chopra, a Cal State Fullerton student who died during a day trip in Tijuana, was mourned Monday by more than 200 family members and friends, and her grieving father vowed to learn more about her abrupt death from an apparent heart condition.

Chopin Chopra told those at the emotional two-hour Hindu service that, instead of mourning his daughter’s death, he would “celebrate the 21 years, six months and four days that she gave us such immense pleasure. . . . She will always be with us.”

Her mother, Kamini Chopra, nearly collapsed with grief toward the end of the service and had to be helped into a waiting car.

A steady stream of mourners spoke of the young woman’s loyalty and humor, and they shared their memories with those packed into a small mausoleum at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana.

“Never could a girl laugh, love and live as much as Kavita did,” friend Simran Sahni said. “I feel some happiness in knowing that somewhere out there she is still watching us and still caring for her friends because that was the kind of good soul she had.”

Chopin Chopra said he has hired a pathologist to double-check the work of Tijuana medical examiners, who said the student was felled by a heart muscle disease.

“There are questions that remain,” he said. “This was my daughter, my only child. Something is not right.”

Chopra said his daughter “never drank except for a pina colada when we went out together.” He said he suspects foul play or the contents of the single drink she reportedly consumed at a bar shortly before her death Thursday.

Chopra said he spoke with his daughter that morning before she and a friend drove south of the border to celebrate spring break. He said he showed her a newspaper article about the heavy drinking and party scene in Tijuana, and she assured him that she would be careful.

“She said, ‘I’ll do as you wish, Father,’ and I just told her to be careful,” he said. “She told me she was just going for two hours, no more, no less, and that she would be home. I never saw her again.”

The friend told the family that she and Kavita Chopra parked in San Diego, ate lunch and then walked across the border for shopping and sightseeing. They stopped at the FX bar in the afternoon, and Chopra ordered a pina colada that she did not finish, the friend recounted to the Chopra family. A short time later, the young woman passed out and could not be revived.

Her parents, who live in Anaheim, have been openly skeptical of preliminary autopsy results from the Tijuana coroner’s office, which cite cardiomyopathy--a heart muscle disease--as the cause of death. Chopin Chopra also said Monday that his daughter might have been saved had help arrived faster. He quoted reports that paramedics took 45 minutes to arrive.

He said the family’s physician has turned over tissue samples to a private pathologist for testing to determine the exact cause of his daughter’s death.

“We will find out what happened,” he said, “and we will make it public.”