Corpse shock for model’s ma
A DAZED Andrea Cali-Gibbon stood alone in a Jamaican street, the tears running down her face a mixture of grief, pain and disbelief.
“That’s not my daughter!” the shocked mother declared Tuesday after seeing her 26-year-old child’s battered corpse for the first time. “That’s not my daughter!”
But it was. Aspiring model Desiree Gibbon’s throat was slashed and her wrists bruised when Andrea and husband Gairy arrived at Doyley’s Funeral Home in Westmoreland Parish.
“Why would they kill her like that?” asked Andrea Cali-Gibbon. “Why not ask for a ransom? Why kill her so brutally?”
The parents arrived Saturday on the island nation where their daughter was killed. The Queens model’s body was found Nov. 26 on the side of a country road in St. James Parish.
The parents stood mutely when they emerged from the funeral home, unable to process what they had just viewed. Gairy Gibbon finally broke the silence.
“Just to see how they massacred my kid is ridiculous,” said Gibbon, a native of Jamaica.
Two days earlier, the parents made a sad pilgrimage to the overgrown rural road where Desiree’s body was found.
The ambitious Desiree had traveled to Jamaica on Oct. 20, looking for work that she hoped would pay for film school in Europe. She stayed in a hotel owned by her grandmother while away from home.
She was due to leave four days after locals discovered her blood-covered body in the bushes of Anchovy, a small northwestern Jamaican town.
When authorities reached the murder scene, she was fully clothed but her cell phone and one sandal were missing. Her knees were bruised, and defensive wounds were found on her left hand.
Investigators, after telling the parents they were pursuing a person of interest, had yet to make an arrest.
Authorities believe Desiree probably knew her killer, and a forensic expert brought in by the U.S. Embassy told the parents it appeared her wrists were bruised by the killer pinning the victim down with his hands.
Andrea and Gairy spent 90 minutes speaking with local detectives over the weekend about the killing. It wasn’t until Tuesday, when the autopsy was complete, that the couple finally saw Desiree’s body.
They must wait until the autopsy results are announced on Monday before they can bring Desiree’s remains back to the United States for burial.
A GoFundMe page created last week had raised nearly $33,000 to help the family cover the costs of a trip home and a funeral for Desiree. More than 650 people contributed to help the family.
“My heart is truly broken!!!” wrote the murder victim’s aunt, Peggy Brunner. “I’m asking you all to please help me and my sister at this very difficult and heartbreaking time.”
The parents were met at the funeral home by Craig Dewar, a forensic evidence advisor to the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica. His résumé includes investigating the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people in 1988.
The Kingston-based Dewar said he believed “there’s a good potential to discover scientific evidence” as the murder probe goes forward.
Relatives recalled the young model nicknamed “Desi” as a born entertainer, modeling and acting from the time she was a baby.