A New York fashion designer who graduated from Marymount University in Arlington and grew up in McLean, decorating the walls of her childhood bedroom with magazine cutouts of runway models, was found dead in an swarming bathtub in a boast Manhattan hotel early Thursday. Sylvie Cachay, 33, was face up and had mark near her neck and an evident bite mark on her body, according to a orator for the New York Police Department, but the cause of death has not been determined.

Cachay's boyfriend, Nicholas Brooks, the son of songwriter Joseph Brooks, has been charged with attempted murder and strangulation, according to the Associated Press. Officials did not clarify why the charge was attempted murder.

On Friday, a sturdy flow of associations and friends streamed into the Cachay family's liberal white brick house in McLean, tucked into a woody locality nearby to the Beltway. Cachay, who was a dual citizen of the United States and Peru, came from a large family of Peruvian immigrants. She was born and grew up in McLean with father Antonio, a surgeon with a private practice who is allied with Inova Fairfax Hospital; mother Sylvia, an artist; and Brother Patrick, who works.