Some background on Leslie, a junior born in Italy who had lived in San Diego County before coming to Berkeley, from the Los Angeles Times:
Leslie’s Facebook page said he was from Milan, Italy. He had been living in Southern California and attended Torrey Pines High School in San Diego, before heading to Berkeley.
Leslie's mother, who is Italian, dispatched family and friends in Europe to check hospitals to try to find her son, according to a family friend who was with her at her Del Mar home Friday. The friend asked to be identified only by her first name, Antonella, to protect her privacy as well as the family's.
Leslie was an only child who was "adored by everyone” who knew him, said Antonella, who described him as “a wonderful, caring young adult, extremely motivated."
Leslie’s uncle and aunt searched the hospitals of Nice, with no luck, according to published reports.
And from the San Francisco Chronicle:
A friend of the slain student, Mustapha Khokhar of Toronto, said he had received a video from Leslie about 15 minutes before the attack, showing him dancing in the street near the area where the deadly white truck embarked on its carnage.
Other friends posted tributes to their friend on social media pages. One friend called Leslie “the happiest person I ever knew.” Another wrote of Leslie: “You are the most charismatic person I have ever met. ... So inspiring in everything you talk about. You’ve changed me. I’ll never forget. ... I miss you man.”
“Honestly, you were one of the trillest (truest and most real) people I’ve met. I miss you. We miss you. The world misses you. We love you, Nick,” wrote fellow Nice student Ali Ahmed.
The university says three other Berkeley students were injured in last Thursday's attack, in which a man drove a 19-ton truck through crowds that had gathered to watch Bastille Day fireworks.
Vladyslav Kostiuk, 23, suffered a broken leg and has been released from a local hospital. Diane Huang, 20, suffered a broken foot and has also been released. Daryus Medora, 21, whose leg was broken, remains in the hospital.
UC Berkeley spokeswoman Claire Holmes said Sunday that while the summer program will continue as scheduled in Nice, 14 participants decided to return to the United States after the attack.
"We’re grieving with them," Holmes said. "When they get home there will lots of services and support that we will offer, as these kinds of events stay with you for a very long time."
She said counseling is also being offered to the roughly 80 Berkeley students who have chosen to remain in France.
Earlier this month, Berkeley sophomore Tarishi Jain was among 20 people murdered by terrorists who seized a cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Jain was spending the summer in the Bangladeshi capital working as an intern with a local bank and studying the growth of e-commerce in the South Asian nation.
This post contains reporting from KQED's Ana Tintocalis.
