Shared by news anchor Rita Cosby:

“I went to high school with Lauren and Lisa, her twin sister, and Carolyn was always the younger sister that I knew and I met. Lauren and I went to parties together. We did what typical 15, 16, 17-year- old girls do. We liked the same guy. She went out with him, I remember, on a Tuesday night, and I went out with him on a Wednesday night, and we always used to joke about how I got -- I went out with him after she did. But we had a lot of similarities. I mean, she was very driven, a very wonderful person. And when I found out about this loss -- and at first, obviously, when I heard that the plane went down, just, obviously, a lot of prayers, but a very personal prayers because this was a girl who I knew very well. 

And I also got to meet Carolyn a number of times, and got to meet a very sweet, really beautiful woman inside and out, and someone who loved life and who just was wonderful with other people and someone who just obviously whose life was cut short so early. Lisa, having met her and known her quite well, too -- she was, I always felt, sort of the more sensitive one of the batch, more emotional than any of the other. And in fact, when I had heard about the crash and knew that Lisa was a survivor -- obviously, this is just a horrible accident all the way around, but I thought this woman is going to have an extremely difficult time with it because she was very, very caring and incredibly close with both of her sisters. The three of them were really inseparable all the way around. I mean, they traveled a lot with their jobs, and we know that Lauren was in Asia for some time. But these -- this was the type of family where they would talk constantly. And Lisa was especially inseparable with Lauren, but was close with Carolyn, as well. And I know that this is going to very tough on her.”

Victor Chu Lap-lik had employed Lauren Bessette at his investment company in Hong Kong. Lauren lived in Hong Kong for five years. She studied Putonghua at the University of Hong Kong before starting work in October 1992 with Victor Chu and Company in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Mr Chu said: “She was a delightful person, a wonderful friend and colleague - highly intelligent, sophisticated and loyal. She had a great circle of friends here, was part of a very active social scene, knew a lot of people and was well liked. She would often join us for family lunches. Everybody in the office liked her, her great gift was that she was good with people. She was also a very hard worker, dedicated to the job and doing long hours. Lauren and my wife talked on the phone that Friday afternoon and they were going to get together the following week. Lauren was telling my wife how she was going to Martha's Vineyard and they would get together when they got back. She was rushing off”.

Lauren’s ex-boss Michael Berchtold, head of Asian investment banking shared:

“She was an outstanding professional, admired by junior people and great to have around the office. She was doing all the right things, was promoted on a fast-track basis and when she decided to go back to New York it left a hole in the office, All of us are quite shocked and saddened, and our thoughts go out to her family and friends. There are a lot of very, very sad people in our office today.” 

Berchtold said “her focus was China, with one of her major projects the initial public offering of China Eastern Airlines”.

Lauren Baruch, a friend of Lauren’s, shared: “I worked for John's sister-in-law, Lauren, at Morgan Stanley. I was with her earlier that night before the fatal accident. Lauren and I left that night about 6pm, one of the women in our department was just murdered and everybody was extremely distraught. Lauren was a fascinating woman, who climbed the corporate ladder. After losing her, her office became a shrine, and not too much after that, the department pretty much dissolved”.

Memories of Lauren Gail Bessette.