Gabby Petito Remembered As Free Spirit 'Who Loved Living Life'

BLUE POINT, NY — Gabby Petito looked off to the right side and smiled as her photo was snapped in front of a pair of angel wings painted on a mural. She smiled and posed for the shot, not knowing it would become one of her last photographs, and an iconic one since her death.

The 22-year-old Long Island native was just an artist living her best life.

"She's a very artistic, creative, free spirit," her mother, Nichole Schmidt of Blue Point, told Patch in a previous interview.

She loved living.

"She wanted to just get on the road and go,” Schmidt said. “She wanted to see everything and do everything.”

Schmidt described Petito as having a flair for art that led her to express herself with tattoos and a navel piercing.

She was “just one of those fun kids," Schmidt added.

Petito disappeared on a road trip with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, and was found slain in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming last Sunday. Her death has been ruled a homicide, but the cause of death is pending with the coroner’s office, Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said.

Community members in Blue Point plan to honor Petito’s memory by lighting candles at the end of their driveways as part of “Light the Night for Gabby Petito” on Friday at 7 p.m., with some hoping the event will catch on across the island, as well as the nation. On Saturday, there will be a memorial, “Butterfly Wings to Heaven For Gabby,” in North Port, FL, that will include a butterfly release.

Family and friends will gather to remember Petito Sunday in a public memorial service at Moloney Family Funeral Home in Holbrook on Long Island from noon to 5 p.m.

Jennifer McNamara, a family friend who knew Petito since she moved to Blue Point in 2003, has organized a group of volunteers who are placing turquoise ribbons on trees to remember her throughout the hamlet. Petito was McNamara’s son Jack's babysitter for a couple of years, and he "always thinks very fondly of her,” she said.

With Petito, there were no rules.

"She would walk in with a smile on her face, and she was fun," McNamara said. "She was just such a free spirit."

Petito was unlike anyone.

"She wanted to live out her dreams, and that came across in the way she took care of my son, who also is very much a free spirit, and I think that's why he gravitated towards her so much," she said, adding that she was incredibly artistic, and also creative.

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Petito, a 2017 graduate of Bayport-Blue Point High School, was remembered by Superintendent Timothy Hearney as a "wonderful artist and anyone who had the pleasure of working with her, was able to see how likable and truly genuine a person she was."

"She will be greatly missed by all who knew her, and the district extends its deepest condolences to her family and friends," he said in a statement, adding that the “entire” Bayport-Blue Point school community mourns the loss of such an unforgettable person."

He said that it was "with a heavy heart" that the school community learned of "the heartbreaking end to the search."

Petito was remembered in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she worked as a hostess and kitchen aid at Smoke on the Water, for over a year from September 2017 to January 2019 before moving to Florida, ABC 11 reported. Her friends there remembered her as a “bright soul, a bright light,” the outlet reported.

“She was always happy, always had a smile on her face trying to bring people up with her," the restaurant’s general manager told the outlet. "She was a good soul, a good spirit, and touched so many lives. That's what we want her to be remembered for."

Two years ago, Petito moved from Long Island to Florida with Laundrie.

She spent the past year working as a pharmacy technician and saved her money so that she could take to the road and fulfill her dream as a teenager to tour the national parks system, Schmidt said.

Petito had been documenting the road trip in "Van Life: Beginning Our Van Life Journey" on a YouTube channel named Nomadic Statik, as well as her Instagram page. In her last Instagram post, she smiled while holding a small pumpkin in front of “The Monarch” in Ogden, Utah, captioning the Aug. 25 photo, "Happy Halloween.”

At that time, she had planned on ending her trip by visiting a friend in Oregon around Halloween.
McNamara recalled Petito as a “beautiful soul” who always had a smile on her face.

"I never saw her without a smile,” she said. “We see her in those videos…that's really who she was. She was just this incredibly vibrant, happy person."

Family spokesman Rick Stafford said that “in lieu of flowers Gabby’s family is asking for donations to the future Gabby Petito Foundation.” Donations can be made electronically at the www.Johnnymacfoundation.com