Murder investigation after body of 26-year-old American student Desiree Gibbon found in Jamaica

Desiree Gibbon was earning money to study film at university

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An American woman has been brutally murdered while visiting her family in Jamaica.

Desiree Gibbon, 26, from Queens, New York City, was found with her throat cut on Saturday in the Parish of Saint James.

Residents found her body at 9.15am before calling police, ABC News reported.

Ms Gibbon, who was a model and beauty pageant contestant, had decided to go to Jamaica, where her father and close family live, to earn money to help her pay for college.

“She had planned to go to film school. She wanted to direct movies. But she wanted to earn money for it. She didn't want us to pay for it. She wanted to make it on her own,” Andrea Gibbon, the victim's mother, told ABC.

“She has family down there. She has cousins. She met a lot of new people that she had been hanging out for the last three weeks or so."

However, despite being very sociable Ms Andrea Gibbon is adamant her daughter was careful about her safety.

“She never travelled by herself. She didn't leave the hotel by herself. She always left with somebody,” she added.

Jamaica has a high murder rate with 1,265 homicides reported in the first eight months of this year.

Her family have raised £14,800 after launching a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of repatriating Miss Gibbon’s body and her funeral.

Police have launched an investigation but so far provided no details, ABC reported.