NEW YORK, United States (CMC) — Hundreds turned out Friday to pay their respects to a Queens, New York woman found murdered in Jamaica.

A stream of hip-hop music muffled quiet cries, as friends and family members of Desiree Gibbon filed past her closed casket inside Dalton’s Funeral Home in New Hyde Park, Long Island, a New York City suburb, reported the New York Daily News on Saturday.

The report said that surrounding the coffin were photos of the globe-trotting Hollis, Queens woman hand-gliding off the coast of Brazil and holding a drink inside a boat with the Statue of Liberty looming behind her.

Gibbon’s mother said the mood at her 26-year-old daughter’s wake was uplifting by design.

“Instead of sitting around crying, we wanted it to be about her life,” Andrea Cali-Gibbon told the Daily News. “It’s through the strength of these people who know and loved her that I find the strength.”

Desiree Gibbon’s brutalised body was found November 26 in the brush alongside an overgrown rural road in the western parish of St James, located about four miles from the popular tourist town of Montego Bay.

The police report that Gibbon’s throat was slashed and her torso and wrists were covered in bruises — indicating that she struggled with her killer.

Andrea Cali-Gibbon said investigators had found surveillance footage showing Desiree walking along a road — and were interviewing cab drivers.

The mother said her daughter went to Jamaica in search of work to save money for film school.

Residents spotted the woman’s blood-caked body in the bushes and alerted the police.

Cali-Gibbon couldn’t fathom how her daughter met a violent end in such a beautiful paradise, the Daily News said.

“The brutality is what killed me. She was beaten and had her throat sliced open,” Cali-Gibbon said.

“She was a tough cookie,” the mom added. “I know she fought until she drew her last breath. I know she did. And I’m certain that her last thought was, ‘Will my mom be OK if I don’t make it?’”

Gibbon’s grandmother owns a hotel in Jamaica, adding that she stayed there while she looked for bartending work. Gibbon hoped to save money to attend film school in Europe, her mom said.

The young beauty contestant arrived in Jamaica on October 20 – Cali-Gibbon said she believes the killer lured her daughter away from the hotel.

“She didn’t venture out on her own. It was somebody she trusted,” her mom told the Daily News.

The police in Jamaica identified Gibbon’s body by taking her photo to resorts in the Montego Bay area, adding that one of the hotels was the inn owned by her grandmother.