MODESTO, CALIF. ? More than 1,000 mourners joined Robert and Susan Levy at a memorial Tuesday for their daughter, Chandra, just hours after authorities in Washington announced the former intern had been murdered.

A string quartet played, and flowers and photographs decorated the stage at Modesto’s convention center for the service.

Hundreds of mourners file into the Modesto Centre Plaza for a memorial service for Chandra Levy in Modesto, Calif. Just hours before Tuesday's service, Washington police said the case has become a murder investigation.

A poem that had been written by a well-wisher when police were still searching for Levy was included in a program featuring a picture of the 24-year-old smiling.

“From sunrise to sunset, as a family together we pray. Where is Chandra? Only God is to know. But as time goes on, our fears only grow,” the poem, attributed to Penny Chiarizia of Woodbridge, Va., read.

Earlier Tuesday in Washington, medical examiner Jonathan L. Arden said that the death had been classified a homicide, though the cause of death could not be determined.

“It was not an accident,” Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said.

Levy’s remains were found last week in a Washington park, more than a year after she disappeared. Police recovered her skull and other bones as well as a University of Southern California sweatshirt, a sports bra, tennis shoes and other clothing.

Investigators also found Levy’s knotted leggings, suggesting she may have been tied up, a person close to the investigation said.

Police said they have no prime suspect in the case.

“Somebody went to extraordinary means to conceal Chandra’s body,” Billy Martin, the Levy family attorney, said after the service. “We hope that this case will not go unsolved.”

Arden said he did not have enough evidence to say conclusively how Levy died, or whether she was killed where the remains were found.

“However, the circumstances of her disappearance and her body on recovery are indicative that she died through the acts of another person, which is the definition of a homicidal manner of death,” Arden said.

Later, in a telephone interview, he said Levy’s skull, which police reported was damaged, was fractured after she died. Among other potential causes of death, Arden said, “I did not see the evidence of a gunshot, stab wound or beating.”

Other medical examiners said those telltale signs makes strangulation a more likely cause of death. Arden said strangulation is difficult to diagnose when examining only bones.

Deputy Police Chief Terrance Gainer said investigators still are trying to trace Levy’s four-mile path from her apartment to the site in the park where her remains were found. “Either she ran up there, walked up there or was taken up there,” Gainer said.