Who Is Desiree Gibbon? Aspiring New York Model Killed In Jamaica

A 26-year-old woman from Queens, New York, was found dead with a slit throat and body soaked in blood on the side of a road in the small town of St. James parish, Anchovy, about 4 miles away from Montego Bay, Sunday morning.

Desiree Gibbon who was nicknamed "Desi" was an aspiring model. She was born in the United States and grew up in Hollis, New York. Gibbon attended Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School in Astoria, Queens, New York for a year. She graduated from Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside.

Gibbon participated in beauty pageants, modeled, and also acted from the time she was a little girl. Gibbon had reached Jamaica on Oct. 20 on a three month visa. She traveled to the Caribbean island in search of a job in Jamaica’s tourism industry.

According to Gibbon’s mother, Andrea Cali-Gibbon, she was a girl who loved travelling across the world. She said that Gibbon used to give English lessons to kids in Brazil. She aspired to become like globe-trekking chef Anthony Bourdain, reported the New York Daily News.

Cali-Gibbon told NY Daily News: "She wanted to travel to countries and try things and experience cultures."

"We were very close, so you can imagine, when I got the news, 'devastated' doesn’t begin to describe it. There are just no words for this tragic event. We are destroyed and broken beyond repair," she added.

Recalling her daughter’s last phone call on Thanksgiving night, Cali-Gibbon said her daughter told her, "It’s finally happening, Mom. I’m in the right place at the right time."

Gibbon who stayed at a hotel her grandmother owns in Jamaica looked for bartending work so she could save enough money to attend a film school in Europe.

To help the family meet funeral expenses and get the body back home, Gibbon’s aunt, Peggy Brunner, has started a GoFundMe page.

Burner wrote on the GoFundMe page, "My heart is truley [sic] broken!!! I asking you all to please help me and my sisiter [sic] at this very difficuylt [sic] and heartbreaking time. My nieces [Gibbon] was murdered in Jamaica very brutally and we need to get her home as soon as possible!!!! Please help!!!! Thank-you all!!!!"

The page has raised more than $18,000 of its $20,000 goal from 314 donors, so far.

Gibbon’s father, who is from Jamaica, and her mother planned to fly to Jamaica Friday morning. Her parents could not believe that their daughter was killed.

The coroner’s office is conducting an autopsy to determine Gibbon’s cause of death.

In September, well-known Jamaican fashion designer, stylist and 3D artist Dexter Pottinger was found dead at his Yarico Place home in St. Andrew parish, Jamaica.

Pottinger was stabbed to death and according to reports, neighbors had heard a man screaming for help but no one came out to help or called the emergency services.