VANCOUVER (CBC) - Friends and family gathered in Saltspring Island, B.C., on Sunday to remember Diana O'Brien, a young aspiring model killed in what Chinese police called a botched robbery in Shanghai earlier this month.

The memorial for O'Brien, 22, was being held at the Saltspring Island Golf and Country Club. The family requested privacy and did not allow members of the media into the private service.

O'Brien, who was in Shanghai on a three-month modelling contract with a talent agency there, was found dead in the stairwell of her apartment on July 7.

Police in Shanghai arrested a Chinese man in Xuancheng City, several hundred kilometres west of Shanghai, four days after O'Brien's body was discovered. Chen Jun, 18, confessed to following O'Brien into her apartment with the intention of robbing her and, when she resisted, killed her, police said.

O'Brien's friends said at the time they had doubts about Chen's story, because she would have run if threatened and would not have tried to protect her possessions.

She went to the emerging fashion capital in China in mid-June but was planning on returning home before the end of her contract because she wasn't happy with the job she was given, her friends had told the media.

The slaying of O'Brien prompted concern over the safety of Canadian models working in China, where the legitimacy and credibility of model agencies are often called into question due to the sheer number of them popping up.

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